AppId is over the quota
Converts who join the new entity will be full-fledged Catholics, expected to show allegiance to the pope and oppose contraception and abortion. But they will be allowed to preserve revered verses from the Book of Common Prayer. And, in what one Catholic leader called “an act of generosity,” priests who are married will be exempted from the Catholic requirement of celibacy, though they may not become bishops.
The new grouping, called the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, will have its headquarters in Houston and be led by Jeffrey N. Steenson, a former Episcopal bishop and father of three who left the church in 2007 and became a Catholic priest in 2009, under an existing exemption for converting Anglicans.
With the title of ordinary, Father Steenson will be a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and will report directly to the Vatican, church officials said.
Catholic leaders and some former Episcopalians are celebrating the announcement as a small but notable event in an often tortuous history of relations between the Vatican and the Anglican Church, which includes the Episcopalians, after their break in the 16th century.
The Episcopal Church is the main American branch of the Anglican Communion, a loose global body whose symbolic head is the archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England. It has been shaken by discord from conservatives who object to the ordination of female priests, the acceptance of bishops with homosexual partners and changes in the liturgy.
While it involved only a small fraction of the Episcopal Church in the United States, which has more than 7,000 priests and two million members, dozens of entire parishes have broken away to join alternative Anglican branches. Many do not want to become Catholics but a share of disaffected Episcopalians are seeking to convert, something they say they have long dreamed about.
“I’m excited about the opportunity for those who, for the most part, are already with the Catholic Church in their hearts,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, said in an interview. The cardinal supervised planning of the ordinariate.
Since the Vatican’s grant of an exemption from celibacy in 1980, scores of Episcopal priests have joined the Catholic priesthood, remaining married. The new ordinariate will allow priests and their existing congregations to switch en masse, establishing new parishes with an Anglican flavor. Unmarried Anglican priests who join the ordinariate will not be allowed to marry later on.
So far, more than 100 priests and groups of members totaling more than 1,320, including six congregations of 70 or more, have asked to join the ordinariate, said Father Scott Hurd, a Catholic priest in Washington, D.C., and a former Episcopalian who helped design the new system.
Father Steenson said he expected more former Episcopalians to join after they saw how the new group operated. He said that he personally had always longed for closer ties with the Catholics, a feeling that only intensified as the Episcopal Church broke with tradition on female priests and acceptance of homosexuality, dividing the churches further. But he is also overjoyed to preserve elements of the Anglican liturgy, he said. The expectation is that this parallel structure will continue indefinitely.
When the Vatican authorized creation of these entities in 2009, some Anglican leaders, especially in England, expressed concern that it was trying to take advantage of their turmoil. In England, where a similar grouping was formed last year, about 60 priests and more than 1,000 members have joined so far.
But Cardinal Wuerl and Father Hurd said that the system was developed in response to a growing demand.
“There have been Anglican groups requesting this for 30 years,” Father Hurd said. “This is not an effort at poaching or sheep-stealing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment