More Anglicans Head for Rome
According to an article in the January issue of Christianity Today, the Vatican announced in November that 50 Anglican priests, including five bishops, plan to leave the Church of England for the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI has opened a special clerical category for Anglicans who object to recent developments in the Anglican Communion. These "personal ordinariates" will let them retain many Anglican distinctives while belonging to a church that maintains opposition to female priests and gay clergy. In Baltimore, an entire Episcopal parish voted to switch to Catholicism for similar reasons.
(Note: For Episcopalians with a strong Anglo-Catholic contingent, such moves are not altogether surprising, especially since their worship practices are already quite Catholic. Although the Church of England has worked to strike a balance between their Anglo-Catholic population and that of the more evangelically-oriented, High Church priests would adapt quite well to Rome, from my observation.)
(Note: For Episcopalians with a strong Anglo-Catholic contingent, such moves are not altogether surprising, especially since their worship practices are already quite Catholic. Although the Church of England has worked to strike a balance between their Anglo-Catholic population and that of the more evangelically-oriented, High Church priests would adapt quite well to Rome, from my observation.)
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