Instead, Personal Ordinariates are to be set up for communities of Traditional Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Catholic Church.
I have to say that I don't quite understand why they couldn't just be received into the Church as currently - but it seems to have something to do with maintaining their own liturgical norms.
There was a joint statement issued by the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, and Archbishop Rowan Williams, declaring that ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church is still going strong...
UPDATE: His Hermeneuticalness has got a post with more details, and a better explanation!
1 comment:
"I have to say that I don't quite understand why they couldn't just be received into the Church as currently - but it seems to have something to do with maintaining their own liturgical norms."
It's not just liturgical norms, it's the entire patrimony. Questions of apostolic succession aside, remember the Anglo-Catholic movement has preserved, essentially, a Catholic Church inside the Anglican Communion. Whilst it has largely not been united into any formal structure of its own, it clearly has its own identity... which now seems to be heading well on its way back to Peter. :D
Some can go alone; I didn't want to wait, so I did. However, I do think this will see the whole "Roman problem" as Bill Oddie called it, well and truly settled. We will (luckily for some, unluckily for others) end up with an Anglican Communion/Church of England that, if it still exists, is wholly Protestant in its character. Everyone's realising, as Newman reluctantly did, that the via media simply doesn't work.
But that sounds all like negative spin on my part, but it's not really intended as such: I see this as a very good move indeed!
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