ABOUT THE CHURCH AND THE VATICAN

Catholics set up a task force
for expected Anglican exodus
By Simon Caldwell

23rd November 2009


The Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales have set up a task force to help the possible exodus of tens of thousands of disaffected Anglicans into their church.

The move was announced as Anglican leader Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, protested to the Pope in the Vatican over its plans to receive Anglican converts en masse. [This is obviously blatant invention!]

In London, Catholic leaders announced the appointment of a commission to deal with the reception of up to 200 Anglican congregations - a figure proposed by Forward in Faith, an Anglo-Catholic group --which would amount to thousands of converts.

John Broadhurst, the Anglican Bishop of Fulham and chairman of Forward in Faith, said mass conversion was a real prospect.

'We have a thousand priest members in my organisation and there are many others who agree with us,' he said. 'The main issue for many Anglican priests is now the ownership of parish churches.'

The commission is expected to look at the possibility of church-sharing and also the chances of taking out 100-year leases of some Anglican parishes.

Pope Benedict XVI was last month accused of attempting to poach Anglicans unhappy about decisions taken in their church to ordain women and sexually-active homosexuals as priests and bishops. [Accused by whom? The biased media! The worst criticism levelled by any Anglican prelate against the Catholic Church was of supposedly 'keeping Williams in the dark'.

Obviously, the Vatican did not consult with him about any solutions they planned as a response to Anglicans who wished to convert, since that is entirely an internal Catholic matter. But like anyone else who reads the news, Williams was certainly not unaware of what his 'traddie' constituents - especially those belonging to the Traditional Anglican Communion - were up to.

And Williams himself has said several times he does not see it as poaching - because he knows it is not. He knows it's the disarray within the Anglican Communion and his own inability to settle the internal disputes that caused the more traditional Anglicans (those who already feel near-Catholic) to actively lobby Rome to facilitate their conversion en masse.]

In response to requests from about 30 Anglican bishops around the world for 'corporate reunion' with the Catholic Church, he has permitted vicars and their entire congregations to defect to Rome while keeping many of their Anglican traditions - including married priests.

In a 20-minute meeting on Saturday, Dr Williams complained to the Pope about the 'lack of consultation' over the move, saying it had left him in an 'awkward position'. [A tather improbable assertion, which Williams, even assuming he actually 'complained' to the Pope, is too courteous to claim, even off the record!]



4,000 Anglican priests expected
to join Catholic Church
by Conan Businge



KAMPALA, Uganda, Nov. 21 - Over 4,000 Anglican priests all over the world, including married ones, are expected to join the Catholic Church, Bishop Matthias Ssekamanya said Friday.

Ssekamanya, who doubles as the chancellor of Uganda Martyrs University, said this does not mean that the Catholic Church is removing the requirement for priests to remain unmarried.

“We are not becoming soft on celibacy for Catholic priests. We shall also not tolerate homosexuals and polygamous marriages in the Catholic Church,” he added.

He was officiating at the 15th graduation ceremony of the Nkozi-based university.

Vatican officials announced that married Anglican priests would be allowed to remain in the priesthood on a case-by-case basis as they join the Roman Catholic fold.

The Vatican’s decision to allow Anglicans to keep some aspects of their liturgy had raised questions over whether the Catholic requirement for celibacy might change.

The Vatican this month released rules and guidelines, known as the Apostolic Constitution, as part of efforts to make it easier for disillusioned, traditionalist Anglicans to cross over to the Roman Catholic Church.

Under the Vatican’s initiative, Anglicans, turned off by their own church’s embrace of gay clerics, women priests and blessing of same-sex unions, can join new parishes, called ‘personal ordinariates’, that are headed by former Anglican prelates.

“There is no change in the Church’s discipline of clerical celibacy,” Bishop Ssekamanya re-affirmed. He praised celibacy as “a sign and a stimulus for pastoral charity”.

The ceremony had 236 students graduating with masters, 522 with bachelors, 13 with advanced diplomas, 212 with diplomas and 10 with certificates.