Fr Jeffrey Steel is a priest in the Church of England and serving a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic parish in the Durham Diocese of England.

Fr. Steel has an interesting rumor about the Traditional Anglican Communion. The Traditional Anglican Communion, you’ll remember, is a group of Traditiional Anglicans that broke with the the Anglican communion some time ago and last year petitioned the Holy See for full corporate and sacramental union.

With all the hubbub going on in the regular ol’ Anglican communion these past months, the Holy See asked them to cool their jets for a little while while the situation at Lambeth and the the rest of the Anglican “re-alingment” played itself out.

To their inestimable credit, the TAC has done just that. They have kept mum on the entire situation without any of the publicity stunts one might expect to try and speed the process up. They have been patient and quiet.

So now back to the rumor (or rumour since we are talking Anglicans). Fr. Steel is reporting:

There is often much going around by way of rumours and reports and I do my very best to only provide substantiated claims on this blog to the best of my ability. There have been comments left here that speak as if Anglo-Catholics are mad if they believe in any sort of a corporate reunion with Rome in any shape other than individuals making the swim. I do not think that is the case this time and rather than the unnecessary and uncharitable comments left here in the past, I think we all need to enter into prayer for Christians within the Anglican Communion and those who lead the Catholic Church to be wise and generous in looking for a way to realign Catholic Christendom in the West so that we can join in force against the radical secularism of our present culture.

I have some interesting news given to me today about the TAC but I am waiting for fuller confirmation of details before much more is mentioned. What I have heard that is public is that the TAC bishops have been invited to Rome ‘en masse’ for Easter. More details on that to follow…

Interesting. I have no idea what this means for a possible corporate reunion, but inviting all the Bishops to Rome might certainly be construed (as it is by me) as telegraphing a positive response. I certainly hope so!

The details of any corporate reunion would no doubt be tricky and would likely leave some on both sides less than fully happy, but I believe (hope) it is possible.

Let’s keep an eye on developments here, this story might be heating up in the coming months.