Damian Thompson reports on an Australian article that come Monday, two more Bishops of the Church of England plan to announce their defection to Rome.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is expected to announce the resignation of two bishops on Monday, in the first of what is feared [sic] will be a wave of departures from the Church of England by traditionalists converting to Roman Catholicism.
The Bishop of Richborough, the Right Rev Keith Newton, 58, is expected to become leader of the Anglican Ordinariate, set up to provide Catholic refuge to Anglicans who leave the Church of England over the issue of women bishops.
The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Right Rev Andrew Burnham, 63, is also expected to join the Ordinariate, along with the Bishop of Fulham, the Right Rev John Broadhurst, who announced last month that he will be resigning at the end of the year. A fourth retired bishop, Edwin Barnes, is also expected to join the Ordinariate.
Sources said that the Ordinariate is to be launched at Pentecost next year, seven weeks after Easter.
Both Newton and Burnham have been on study leave for the past month while they consider their positions.
Will the poor AoC be forced to announce each and every one of these? That is positively purgatorial.
Anyway, to answer my title question. Is it worse to be a Democrat or and Anglican, the answer is clear. The Dems will almost assuredly have days in the sun in the future. The Anglicans? Not so much.
November 7, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Although I rejoice at the trickle of CofE members crossing over, I can't help but be a little sad at the repeated reasoning: "over the issue of women bishops" (also, gay ordinations).
I'm not sure that is altogether a good reason. I would like so much more to hear that they have come to understand the need for Christian unity as Christ himself would want for his adopted brothers and sisters.
It's a time of "happy and sad, together".
November 7, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Jpac is bang-on.
— Mack
November 7, 2010 at 8:42 pm
I'm not sure that is altogether a good reason.
By itself, it wouldn't be a sufficient reason. I highly doubt it is the case, but my uneducated guess is that for these men it is a case of the final straw that broke the camel's back.
November 8, 2010 at 4:30 am
romishgraffiti: I'm quite certain that you are right.
For a lot of Anglo-Catholics, reunion has been desired for a long time. But it is very difficult, more difficult than most Roman Catholics can imagine.
Benedict XVI just made it a whole lot easier to come back (thank you, Holy Father!), and the Anglican Communion's been making it a whole lot harder, over the last few years, to stay Anglican.
Add that up…and you get the current result. All, I would suspect, in God's good time and according to His will.
November 8, 2010 at 4:55 am
I don't think the gay ordination/women priests are the reason; they are the impetus to overcome the propaganda that Anglicans are really Catholic.
November 8, 2010 at 10:22 am
the reason is troubling. churches continue to oppress women and gays, but the developed world continues to see them as equal to men and heterosexuals. someone is heading in the right direction and someone is not.
November 8, 2010 at 2:41 pm
"I can't help but be a little sad at the repeated reasoning: "over the issue of women bishops" (also, gay ordinations)."
The reason you keep hearing this, is that is coming from *journalists*, not the people that are coming. Read today's statement from the flying bishops – these are men that have been hoping for reunion with the Catholic church for many years. In the U.S. for example, there are more than a dozen "continuing" Anglican churches that are disconnected from Canterbury. They also have a principled opposition to WO and the "gay agenda" as does the Catholic Church, but most are not becoming Catholic for doctrinal reasons – i.e. they do not sign on to papal infallibility, etc., etc.
Thus the people that are coming are doing so together in an Ordinariate – this is what they asked for, to keep their communities, and some aspects of their tradition – and those that cannot sign on to the Catechism will not come.
This may be hard for cradle Catholics to understand considering the doctrinal casualness we see today, but entering the Catholic Church is a huge psychological obstacle for Anglicans, and only those who are convinced that this is absolutely necessary will do it.
November 8, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Richard — The Catholic Church does not oppress women or gays. It teaches what it teaches, and that teaching applies to anyone who wants to call themselves Catholic. No one is forced to live by the Church's teaching about morality. All are free to embrace it, and free to reject it. The rejection of Church teaching is the rejection of true freedom, and thus is true oppression.