VATICAN CITY – The Vatican announced surprise plans Tuesday to make it easier for Anglicans to convert, reaching out to those who are disaffected by the election of female and gay bishops to join the Catholic Church's conservative ranks.

Pope Benedict XVI approved a new church provision that will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while maintaining many of their distinctive spiritual and liturgical traditions, including married priests, Cardinal William Levada, the Vatican's chief doctrinal official, told a news conference.

In the past, such exemptions had only been granted in a few cases in certain countries. The new church provision is designed to allow Anglicans around the world to access a new church entity if they want to convert.

The decision immediately raised questions about how the new provision would be received within the 77-million-strong Anglican Communion, the global Anglican church, which has been on the verge of a schism over women bishops, an openly gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions.

The Anglican's spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, downplayed the significance of the new provision and said it wasn't a Vatican commentary on Anglican problems. "It has no negative impact on the relations of the communion as a whole to the Roman Catholic church as a whole," he said in London.

The new Catholic church entities, called personal ordinariates, will be units of faithful established within local Catholic Churches, headed by former Anglican prelates who will provide spiritual care for Anglicans who wish to be Catholic.

They are modeled on Catholic military ordinariates, special units of the church established in most countries to provide spiritual care for members of the armed forces and their dependents.

"Those Anglicans who have approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," Levada said. "At the same time, they have told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for their faith journey."

The new provision, he said, will "facilitate a kind of corporate reunion of Anglican groups" into the Catholic Church.

Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.

The new canonical structure is a response to the many requests that have come to the Vatican over the years from Anglicans who want to come back, increasingly disillusioned with the progressive bent of the Anglican Communion. Many have already left and consider themselves Catholic but have not found an official home in the 1.1-billion strong Catholic Church.

By welcoming them possibly at the expense of good relations with the Anglican Communion, Benedict has confirmed the increasingly conservative bent of his church. The decision follows his recent move to rehabilitate four excommunicated ultra-conservative bishops, including one who denied the full extent of the Holocaust, in a bid to bring their faithful back under the Vatican's wing.

Levada declined to give figures on the number of requests that have come to the Vatican, or on the anticipated number of Anglicans who might take advantage of the new structure.

One group, known as the Traditional Anglican Communion, has made its bid to join the Catholic Church public. The fellowship, which split from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1990, says it has spread to 41 countries and has 400,000 members, although only about half are regular churchgoers.

The new canonical provision allows married Anglican priests and even seminarians to become ordained Catholic priests — much the same way that Eastern rite priests who are in communion with Rome are allowed to be married. However, married Anglicans couldn't become Catholic bishops.

The Vatican announcement immediately raised questions about how the Vatican's long-standing dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury could continue. Noticeably, no one from the Vatican's ecumenical office on relations with Anglicans attended the news conference; Levada said he had invited representatives to attend but they said they were all away from Rome.

Just last week, the Vatican's top ecumenical official, Cardinal Walter Kasper, told reporters: "We are not fishing in the Anglican pond," when asked about the Vatican's negotiations with would-be converts.



In a bid to downplay suggestions of poaching, the Catholic archbishop of Westminster and Williams issued a joint statement saying the decision "brings an end to a period of uncertainty" for Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church. The statement said the decision in fact could not have happened had there not been such fruitful dialogue between the two.

However, Williams' representative in Rome, the Very Rev. David Richardson, said the Vatican's decision was "surprising," given that the Catholic Church in the past had welcomed individual Anglicans in without creating what he called "parallel structures" for entire groups of converts.

"The two questions I would want to ask are 'why this and why now,'" he told The Associated Press. "Why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to embrace that particular method remains unclear to me."

Also unclear, he said, was the Vatican's target audience: those Anglicans who have already left the Anglican Communion, or current members. Levada said it covered both, and the documentation explaining the new structure speaks of both Anglicans and "former Anglicans."

"If it's for former Anglicans, then it's not about our present difficulties, then it's people who have already left," Richardson said. If it's current Anglicans, "There is in my mind an uncertainty for whom it is intended."

The Anglican Communion has been roiled for years over disagreement on the role of women. But the long-standing divisions over how Anglicans should interpret the Bible erupted in 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Williams has struggled ever since to keep the church from splitting, frustrated by moves by churches in the United States, Canada and elsewhere to bless gay relationships.

At least four conservative U.S. dioceses and dozens of individual Episcopal parishes have voted to leave the national denomination since 2003, with many affiliating themselves instead with like-minded Anglican leaders in Africa and elsewhere. The Vatican announcement was kept under wraps until the last moment: The Vatican only announced Levada's briefing Monday night, and Levada only flew back to Rome at midnight after briefing Catholic bishops and Williams about the decision in London.

As a Catholic I have to say this is sort of hilarious. I mean, it seems to me that they'll be Anglicans with a different name. But hey, unity is a good thing, so I'm glad that the Pope is making the effort.

Superman fan club steps up the poaching of members of the Spiderman fan club, film at 11

Yes, it was infinitely better when the priests estranged themselves from the people, spoke in a dead language, and put themselves on a pedestal. Did I mention the scholarly censorship? Yes, Vatican II was awful.

Catholics violate the 1st Commandment. So much for being the 'true' faith.

Its fine, they can detest it as much as they want, Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. My hands aren't clean nor blessed like a priests, my hands should not be touching the eucharist. The Protestant songs are the ones played on guitars, that have no fit at mass with their "rock" or "pop" likeness.

No, not at all. The belief that Catholics equate saints with God is blatantly ridiculous. Catholics and Saints pray together to God, as you may ask your family or friends to pray with you? If I ask my mother to pray for me, am I then breaking the 1st Commandment also?

Asking a relative to pray for you =/= praying to a saint. And at least Protestants don't follow pagan holidays. From an objective POV, Catholics are such heretics it's not even funny. Same can be said for most Christian sects but Catholics seem to be the most arrogant and oblivious to this fact.

While I'm not a catholic I see this as more a failing of the Anglican Church than 'poaching' by the Catholic Church.

Its fine, they can detest it as much as they want, Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. My hands aren't clean nor blessed like a priests, my hands should not be touching the eucharist.

^^^
This


You change your religion's traditional belief systems, three things will happen:

1. Some people will like it and enjoy the change
2. Some people will be okay with it / not okay with it, but stick around
3. Some people will try to find a religion closer to what they originally believed

If Anglican's don't want to lose followers, then don't make the changes.

is your tongue clean and blessed?

what about the belief system did the Anglicans change? Is God now called Dave?

The changes the Anglican church has made seem to be about trappings and traditions, not belief.

Asking a relative to pray for you =/= praying to a saint. And at least Protestants don't follow pagan holidays. From an objective POV, Catholics are such heretics it's not even funny. Same can be said for most Christian sects but Catholics seem to be the most arrogant and oblivious to this fact.

They're divided on homosexuality.

Call it what you want.

Asking a relative to pray for you =/= praying to a saint. And at least Protestants don't follow pagan holidays. From an objective POV, Catholics are such heretics it's not even funny. Same can be said for most Christian sects but Catholics seem to be the most arrogant and oblivious to this fact.

Communion in the hand is only allowed in a very small amount of countries, most significantly the US, Mexico, Canada. Otherwise, it is on the tongue. In a lot of countries, The Church actually will not give communion in the hand. Now, I'm sure there are significant other reasons, but it is my understanding, that only blessed hands should touch the eucharist, and since it is morally wrong, according to the Church, to handle the eucharist more than necessary, it is wrong for us to receive it in our hands. This is why traditionalist Catholics also don't allow eucharistic ministers, because they don't have hands worthy of touching.

The statement is false. You are allowed to take communion on your hand, provided you consume it in front of the priest/deacon.

The statement is false. You are allowed to take communion on your hand, provided you consume it in front of the priest/deacon.

Apparently the Society of St. Pius the X disagrees.

So they are the ultimate authority now?


Do we even need God if we have this society?

Er...I'm not a member of their group. I'm just saying that they're disagreeing.