Flash back a few years and you may remember all of those big headlines about the controversial decision by Pope Benedict XVI to park Vatican tanks on the lawn of Canterbury Cathedral and, thus, begin an ecclesiastical invasion of England….
In reality, Benedict had responded to more than a decade of appeals for help from many, not all, of the long-suffering Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England and elsewhere in the Anglican Communion. The idea of a large group of Anglicans swimming the Tiber has been around for a long time…and everyone involved knew that, other than most of the mainstream journalists who covered the story….
Its easy enough to see why the Presiding Bishop of TEC is not exactly shaking in her shoes about the Ordinariate, yet. The predecessor to the Ordinariate was Pope JPII’s Pastoral Provision in 1980. If the following comment to the article the is correct, then the PP hasn’t really had much impact on TEC:
[blockquote] “There are three fully functioning parishes, a couple of small missions, and two or three “societies†not yet organized into congregations. There have been at least two more missions in Austin and Las Vegas, but apparently neither is currently active.” [/blockquote]
According to the article, there are two TEC congregations currently planning to go to Rome via the Ordinariate. Compare this with TEC’s losses to Anglican and Protestant groups – four entire dioceses to ACNA and numerous other congregations and individuals to other groups. At present, I doubt that the Ordinariate is even on KJS’ radar, but this may change.