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Loading ...Vatican to decide each case of Anglican priests
11.02.2009 10:30am EST
(Vatican City) The Vatican said Saturday that married Anglican priests will be admitted to the Catholic priesthood on a case-by-case basis as Rome makes it easier for disillusioned conservative Anglicans to convert.
A surprise Vatican decision, announced 10 days earlier to make it easier for Anglicans to become Roman Catholics while retaining aspects of Anglican liturgy and identity, had left some wondering whether Rome would embrace married Anglican clergy in large numbers.A Holy See statement Saturday quoted Cardinal William Levada, the Holy See’s guardian of doctrinal correctness, as saying the Vatican would consider accepting married Anglican priests into the Roman Catholic priesthood as it has in the past – evaluating each case on its own merits.
The Roman Catholic church requires its priests to be celibate, except in the case of the Eastern rite Catholics, who are allowed to be ordained if married. But over the last decades, it has also quietly allowed married Anglican clergy to stay priests when converting to Catholicism.
In no case could a married man become a bishop, and the new rules would exclude any married Anglican bishop from retaining that post.
As for possibly admitting married Anglican seminarians to the Catholic priesthood, Levada said “objective criteria about any such possibilities (e.g. married seminarians already in preparation) are to be developed” for approval by the Holy See.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi dismissed what he called some media speculation that there was “disagreement about whether celibacy will be the norm for the future clergy” among converting Anglicans.
He quoted Levada as saying “there is no substance to such speculation,” and that the only reason why the rules regarding the converting Anglicans haven’t been published yet was due to “technical” reasons. He predicted work on the new rules would be completed by the end of the first week of November.
Pope Benedict XVI has dedicated a good part of his papacy since 2005 welcoming traditionalists into Rome’s fold.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, wasn’t consulted about the changes but will have the opportunity to discuss the state of Catholic-Anglican relations when he meets with Benedict on Nov. 21 during a visit to Rome.
The Vatican’s easing the way for Anglicans to convert might undermine decades of efforts between the Holy See and Anglican leaders over how they might possibly unite.
Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when the Vatican refused to give English King Henry VIII a marriage annulment. The Anglican communion includes the Episcopalian Church in the United States.
Some Anglican faithful, unhappy over progressive reforms in their church, consider themselves Catholics although they have not yet officially joined the Roman Catholic church.
Anglicans have been divided over such issues as admitting women to the priesthood. The rift was torn wide open in 2003, when the Episcopal Church in the United States consecrated V. Gene Robinson, as the first openly gay bishop.
Also disenchanting Anglican conservatives has been the blessing of same-sex marriages.
So will the vatican be putting these anglican vicars through their anti gay test which they have promised to new catholic clergy??? The only answer is for the anglican church to reform and side with the Lutheran and Episcipalians and stand at arms length from the african anglicans!
…and in other news, a mass of men in red silk dresses marched through the center of Rome, apparently unaware that it was neither the time nor the location for Fashion Week in Milan. Frightened children were counseled by a team of trained counselors.
Isn’t it amazing how the Razi pope will do almost anything to protect his prejudices. It comes from growing up in Nazi germany, and he hasn’t forgotten the “lessons of his youth”
The goal of humanity should be to drive down the membership of this middle ages group, which has been the root cause or a supporting player in so many over it’s entire history. Case in point how Hitler, a catholic, used the church based hatred of Jesus own people to leverage his election. For which 50 million or more died.
Yes, the church is now preying on innocent Africans. I know it is not right to say this, but as the Africans join the very right wing Anglicans, and cheer the pope (who basically says don’t use condoms, go die”), I’ve lost interest in what happens in that poor continent.
Parts of Islam are mad, but with the current pope, the same thing can be said for the catholic church.
For the church cares only about it’s power, and it’s ability to corrupt minds, hence gaining robots for its cause. It’s obviously opposes cloning, while at the same time runing the worst and most effective mind cloning operation in the world. Hipocrisy hardly begins to tell the truth about these people, and anyone who stays in the church should be ashamed to be part of it.
Go read the “End of Faith”, and you’ll see what I mean.
So, says the Pope: In no case could a married man become a bishop… Ever wonder why? Cause, when, as the case long ago in Roman Papal History when the hiarchy were allowed to marry, a married Bishop dies, leaving legitimate heirs and a widow, under civil law his estate of personal property and accumulated wealth must be probated and apportioned to his next of kin/family by the courts of the country in which he died. Thus preventing the Church from laying claim to his property as an acting official of the church. It happened once and immediately there after Roman changed the law to prevent Bishops, or any member of the clergy for that matter, from ever getting married. Hence the infamous celebicy rule — not to keep them pure at heart, but to insure that the Pope gets every sheckle, every alm, and every gold candle stick the dead cleric might possible have in his possesion at the time of death. Nice scam if you can make the rules.
I wonder what the wife of a Anglican Priest will have to forego, by her legal signature of conpliance, we can be sure, when her husband converts and is ordained a Catholic priest? Give it all to Jesus and live in poverty? Generous of the Pope to make his benevolent offer, ain’t it.
Will be interesting to see how many will leave the Anglican/Episcopalian communion after centuries of rejecting transubstantiation. Catholics are taught to believe that a divine entity is present at the consecration of the wine and the host, the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the very antithesis of Anglican belief.
As a practicing Anglican, albeit what is considered a Liberal Anglican, I can truthfully say that anyone who converts to Roman Catholicism will have some major theological issues to overcome. I can honestly say, that if I was thinking about leaving the Church (which I am not), the Roman Catholic Church would not even figure into my thinking. Too many absolute theological problems. I predict that a lot less will convert than they are expecting.
its sad when a church defines it self by the people/groups it hates, how the catholic church thinks that is the message of Christ I will never know.
Ah the irony, joining together because they both hate the same group….
As with other Rites who have been re-united with Rome, their identity will survive for a generation; then it will be swallowed up in the Latin/Roman Rite.
An intriguing possibility DOES exist: when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was re-established in Britain in the 1800s, they were offered the restoration of the beautiful and complex pre-reformation Sarum Use, which is related to the Mozarabic, Gallican, and Ambrosian Rites, as well as containing elements from the Easter Rites.
At the time, British Catholics chose not to accept the restoration of the Sarum Use, but rather embraced the ultramontane so-called “Tridentine Rite,” aka “the ‘Traditional’ Latin Mass,” which is approximately the same age as the First Prayer Book of 1549, to show loyalty to the pope.
HOWEVER, with the restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass, it’s entirely possible that high-church dissident British Anglicans will embrace the restoration of Sarum, which is, among other things, a liturgical drag-show worthy of Fellini’s “Roma.” (chuckle)
Married priests are coming to the Roman Church, like it or not. The average US Roman priest is 60 years old, and the age is rising every year. Los Angeles ordains one or two priests a year, while more than 20 a year die or retire.
What progressives need to FEAR is that the next pope will be an über-conservative AFRICAN from one of the countries where homosexuality is punishable by DEATH.
THAT is ENTIRELY possible.