Rumor: 400k Anglicans to be received back into the Church?
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is reportedly recommending that the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) be offered the status of personal prelature. The Traditional Anglican Communion is a group of approximately 400,000 Anglican’s that have broken away from the Anglican Communion seeking to preserve their Anglo-Catholic traditions. They formerly requested entry into the Catholic Church in 2007. These reports are emanating from an Australian Catholic weekly called The Record. {American Catholic}
Catholic Online posts a qualification to its initial report:
Catholic Online promised to up date our readers on this extraordinary story. So, we now pass this on: The National Catholic Register cites a "Vatican Source" as saying that "nothing's been decided" by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Reports abound that the Congregation has recommended the creation of a personal prelature as the vehicle through which to receive the members of the Traditional Anglican Communion into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Register contends that an official at the Congregation spoke with their correspondent Edward Pentin today saying,“It’s something that has appeared on the blogosphere and then been reiterated, but the truth is nothing’s been decided.” We set forth our original story below believing that the sources reporting this exciting news and the history of the dialogue support its accuracy.
This move strikes me as entirely likely, and seems to fit within the general framework of what Pope Benedict has been doing to reach out to other communities who are "all-but-Catholic" (that "all-but" remaining an important destinction, of course). A revealing paragraph from the Register piece:
Excellent observations from American Catholic contributor Tito Edwards:An announcement could be made soon after Easter this year. It is understood that Pope Benedict XVI, who has taken a personal interest in the matter, has linked the issue to the year of St Paul, the greatest missionary in the history of the Church. The Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls could feature prominently in such an announcement for its traditional and historical links to Anglicanism.
If this information is accurate, this is an incredible turn of events coming from the Vatican. First the motu proprio freeing the Tridentine Mass, the overtures to S.S.P.X., and now granting the Traditional Anglican Communion the status of a personal prelature, which only Opus Dei occupies thus far. With the Catholic Church change occurs over centuries, but with the Venerable Pope Benedict XVI he has dramatically altered the landscape of the Catholic Church within three short years.Regular AmP readers know that I tend to not quote at length unless I find everything being said valuable.
What does this mean for traditionalists (High Anglicans) in the Canterbury based Anglican Communion? Possibly protection from heterodoxical bishops by entering the Catholic Church as a personal prelature or simply entering the Traditional Anglican Communion. This is going to create shockwaves all the way to Canterbury and the rest of the Anglican Communion throughout the world. It will definitely make the prelates of England and Wales cringe in fear to the thought of hundred’s of thousands of Anglicans entering their realm and bolstering the numbers of faithful and dedicated Catholics. It will also certainly create havoc for Katherine Jefferts Schori and her bishops in keeping The Episcopal Communion together here in the United States.
Labels: anglican communion, church rumors, dialogue, Pope Benedict XVI, vatican diplomacy

































