Almost immediately after he was ordained a Catholic priest along with two other former Anglican bishops, Father Keith Newton was named head of the new ordinariate for former Anglicans in England and Wales.
The Vatican announced Jan. 15 that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had erected the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham “for those groups of Anglican clergy and faithful who have expressed their desire to enter into full visible communion with the Catholic Church.”
[blockquote]The statement noted that while under certain conditions married men may be ordained priests in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, married men may not be ordained bishops.[/blockquote]
These guys have already been ordained as bishops, and nobody can say truthfully that they are not bishops.
Oh well. Just another case of discrimination against heterosexual practice.
1. Exactly, Ralph. No one can deny that these men were what Anglicans call bishops.
Strangely, it seems that the Vatican understands bishops from a Catholic rather than an Anglican point of view. How dare they!
Your shock and dismay show so well your grasp of such things.
1. Ralph. I can see how frustrating it is to you that Catholic bishops may not marry either a man or a woman–especially since Anglican bishops may marry both, just not at the same time (for now).
“Fr. J.”
Our Lord chose married men to serve as the foundation for His Church. And the RCC has had gay bishops for many centuries! So, your snarky comments about us Anglicans are rather ridiculous, considering the history of the matter.
‘Dear brothers and sisters’, as Benedict XVI (the Pope of Christian Unity) would say……
Perhaps in this of all weeks we should focus more on what unites Christians, which Benedict explains in English:
http://www.romereports.com/palio/index.php?newlang=english
This short clip finishes with a Lutheran choir singing at the weekly General Papal Audience – I wonder if Lutheran Churches will be the next to receive an ordinariate-type structure and embark on a pilgrimage to unity?
4. Surely the open and enthusiastic embrace of homosexual acts within Anglicanism cannot be compared to even the most egregious examples of gay clergy in the Catholic Church with a straight (no pun intended) face. While the snark Fr. J exhibits is regrettable, let’s not pretend there’s an equivalency here. As for married Bishops, even from an Anglican perspective, two out of three Apostolic Churches (or “branches” if you prefer) do NOT elevate married men to the episcopate. As Fr. Al Kimmel says: “When Catholicism and Orthodoxy agree, Protestantism loses”.
Chris,
Within Catholicism, there are many abuses and rebellious sects. I recall some sort of Rainbow group that was showing up at Eucharists en masse wearing rainbow sashes and clothing and demanding gay rights. This is but one example. And, yes, they have their supporters in the clergy and episcopacy, as well.
To pretend that every vestige of Catholicism is orthodox and correct and every vestige of Anglicanism is revisionist and vile isn’t reality-based. To be perfectly honest, I find this whole notion of having a separate entity for converting Anglicans highly suspect — do they need to be shielded for some reason from the common Catholic rabble and the Western Catholic culture to find Catholicism palatable?
I know that may seem strong or harsh but it’s what I’m truly wondering. If their consciences were so sorely pressed, they would have left on their own and converted individually years ago. Why did it take a separate structure and an organized group to go?
And why do they wish to remain separated from other RCs? It would be like seeking to emigrate to another country on the condition that your group could speak its own language, live in its own confines, and be served by its own leaders following its own customs while agreeing to acknowledge the host country’s government as legitimate and sound.
7 – of course both anglicanism and Catholicism have a mix of views. The difference however is that the Catechism ensures the RC church is not defined or changed by its heretics…