Some Anglicans, including married priests, prepare to join Catholic Church

The Vatican is set to launch a new structure Monday that will allow Anglican parishes in the United States, and their married priests, to join the Roman Catholic Church in a small but symbolically potent effort to reunite Protestants and Catholics, who split 500 years ago.

More than 1,300 Anglicans, including 100 Anglican priests, have applied to be part of the new body, essentially a diocese.

Among them are members of St. Luke's in Bladensburg, Md., which became the first group in the country to convert to Catholicism.

St. Luke's was part of the Episcopal Church, the official wing of American Anglicanism. But most of those joining the new structure are Anglicans who aren't part of the Episcopal Church.

It's unclear how many priests and their followers will convert to Catholicism. Compared with the tens of millions of Americans who identify as Catholic or Protestant, the movement is small. But it is the most tangible progress in decades for Catholic leaders, who see Catholics and Protestants as estranged siblings who should be reconciled.

"It's the largest reunification effort in 500 years," said Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the new body, called an ordinariate.

The possibility of dozens of married Catholic priests could provide fodder for Catholics who want the Vatican to open up on the issue of priestly celibacy. There are about 40,000 Roman Catholic priests in the United States.

Congregants at St. Luke's, and others who call themselves

Anglo-Catholics, tend to be theological and social conservatives who say they like the clear, single authority of a pope.

More details will be made public Monday but, Gibbs said, most of the Anglicans who expressed interest belong to offshoot Anglican groups, many of which have grown since the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay bishop about a decade ago.

Tens of thousands have left the Episcopal Church since then, expressing concerns about its liberal direction. They mention the ordination and marrying of gays and lesbians, the ordination of women and leaders who view the Bible as metaphor, not fact.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, has been the Vatican's point man on setting up the ordinariate.

Gibbs said that the movement wouldn't change the church's position on celibacy and that the exception is only for married Anglican priests.

"It's written into the founding documents," she said. "The norm is celibacy."

Source: http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_19654197?source=rss

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