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1. According to news reports today, disaffected Anglicans may convert to the Catholic Church (disaffected because of the Anglican attitude to women priests and gay priests).
   Is this a good enough reason to become a Catholic? I would have thought that there should be a desire to become Catholic not just because they are upset by their own church. What education will Anglican Ministers have had prior to ordination? Will it be the same as for Catholic priests? Will they need more or different education? Will they be able to abide by the rules of a different church?

   Posted By: gloria healey

2. Will this agreement bind these Anglican priests in the future to submit to obligatory celibacy? If not, where is the justice for Catholic men who wish to be priests but would still want to get married?

   Posted By: Rob

3. This is great news! It is good for Anglicans joining the Catholic Church and good for the Catholic Church's quest for authentic unity. As for the Church of England, sadly they have to suffer the consequences of going down the leftist, modernist, progressive, feminist, gay/lesbian, contracepting path to self-destruction. The Church of England now looks like an empty carcass. All it needs now is the burial.

   Posted By: Michael Bernard

4. Since hearing the news of this announcement, I was wondering when someone would see it in a left versus right way and Michael Bernard has done just that. His contention that "going down the leftist, modernist, progressive, feminist, gay/lesbian, contracepting path to self-destruction" is designed to continue the rift, but it is counterproductive.
   Pope Benedict XVI is a conservative man and extending an invitation to disaffected Anglicans is not surprising. His failing is that he appears to be unable to offer a similar gesture to Catholics (his own people) who seek a dialogue that runs counter to some traditions within the church. Traditions are not sacrosanct, as some would have us believe, and a reassessment of them is desirable, productive and necessary.
   

   Posted By: Jeff Kevin

5. How can the non-celibate situation of the married priests be accepted so readily when it seems to contradict the reasons given by the Church for celibate priests? It seems like a desperate attempt to increase the number of priests. It also proves that married priests can represent Christ - as we already know. Where is the justice for the celibate priests?

   Posted By: Jan Tully

6. Why do women bother to stay with the Catholic Church? It is obvious that women create problems with the Church orthodoxy - so to save those men who obviously feel that because of their gender only they can know the mind of God - from feeling even more tainted by the thought of women's ordination, I suggest that women leave the Catholic Church.
   Never mind women's feelings on this matter by the way, we don't have an opionion that matters to Rome anyway so what we say doesn't count.
   There, problem solved!
   
   

   Posted By: Helen

7. I agree with Gloria Healey. Definitely NOT a good reason to convert to Catholicism.

   Posted By: Marie Dwyer

8. Gloria,
   A good enough reason for them to convert is a desire to be in communion with the Catholic Church.
   I think this is wonderful news. It gives people the opportunity to seriously evaluate what is holding them back from full communion with the Catholic Church because they can now bring their tradition with them.
   
   As for the Roman Rite, I guess the debate of the issue of married clergy will be stronger in Australia than anywhere else given our relatively high and similar proportions of Catholics and Anglicans in the population. The Bishops of Australia should take an active lead in working through this issue.
   
   The Anglican Church in my Parish sits right behind the Catholic Church. Assuming the people of this Anglican Parish want to be in communion with the Catholic Church, then what does it mean for us? Will men who want to be married priests simply change the church they attend? This would seem to be at least a partly selfish reason for making such a switch.
   
   I think these concerns are minor in the context of the wider hope that a path has opened for us to be in full communion with each other.
   
   Welcome to any Anglicans who choose this path.
   

   Posted By: Andrew

9. Gloria, the training structures envisaged are similar. They might have married priests, but not married Bishops. Or rather, married Anglican Clergy, on a case-by-case basis (as is now the case anyway) can be ordained to the Catholic priesthood. They will be Western Catholics from a different tradition. So, except for the fact that they would have their own liturgical books, and their own superiors, they will be like any other Western Catholic. What is new is the possibility of corporate rather than individual reunion, and the offer of a prelature. But neither is radically new.
   As for reasons for converting, I think one should allow for the multiplicity of human beings. Certainly, one should not be confirmed without acceptance of what the Church teaches, but we grow. I myself didn't accept everything the Church taught when I decided to explore the Catholic Faith. God works with us, provided we are in good faith. And sometimes we come to the faith precisely for negative reasons: that we are dissatisfied with our lives or the answers the world offers. Why should we make greater difficulties in the path of potential converts than we make for those who are already Catholics? Surely, we should be a little more lenient?

   Posted By: Adeodatus

10. To Jeff Kevin,
    Why should the Pope open up discussion with people whose dissenting views would lead the Catholic Church down the same road of self-destruction the Church of England has consistently travelled along?

    Posted By: Michael Bernard

11. The Pope is opening the window so that air to come in. At the end of it all there will be One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic church in the World.

    Posted By: Saina,Kenya

12. This is wonderful news! Being the son of a mother raised in the Anglican Church, I have a certain affection for our Anglican brothers and sisters. It will give me great joy to see them in communion. I have full confidence on Benedict's ability to set out a truthful way for their integration. The Church has always insisted on the truth of differences and not shied away from them.
    Those out there who raise the celibacy issue betray a lack of understanding of the Church's position and history. The Church has never resiled from the idea that it is Church law and it is not mandated by Christ. In Eastern churches, marriage of priests is allowable but only before ordination, if I remember correctly, and no married man may be raised to a Bishopric.
    Only a sex-besotted Western mind would keep harping on about celibacy. Celibacy for religious is not confined to the Latin rite of the Catholic Church.
    
    

    Posted By: Desmond

13. Great news of the Pope's proclamation about Anglican ministers entering Catholic priesthood with their wives. Of recent times local dioceses have been dragging their feet on this and holding such applicants off.

    Posted By: R.S. Walsh

14. Being a disaffected Anglican is no basis for becoming a Catholic. Perhaps I have missed something?

    Posted By: david anthony davies

15. May Elizabeth I and Cecil turn in their graves!

    Posted By: Robert Haddad

16. This is awesome news, surely! How can anyone call themselves a Catholic and express discontent at this announcement? I guess those people are the very protest-ants we should be calling back into Christ's fold just as the Holy Father is calling Anglicans to return. So, here goes:
    Helen, may God, in His infinite love and mercy, give you the grace and wisdom to come back.
    Jeff Kevin,
    It'd be great if you could give us some examples of the traditions you say aren't sacrosanct, thanks.

    Posted By: Paul Keen

17. How do we know that Anglicans who wish to be in full communion with the Catholic Church are"because of the Anglican attitude to women priests and gay priests"? And as for those who feel that Catholic Priests are treated "unjustly" does Rob not know that Catholic men who enter the Priesthood KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GOING INTO when entering the Priesthood. As for asking all women to leave the Catholic Church (Helen) the anger and resentment you speak with is deep,that I,a woman,would certainly not be inclined to join with you.I pray that the HOLY SPIRIT will bring you to a calmness of spirit.I think more concentration on one's faith deepening and developing a true personal relationship with the Blessed Trinity is more beneficial than ranting and raving about the Vatican.

    Posted By: M.M.

18. 'Perhaps it is the end of the beginning...' - Churchill
    The statesman-like joint communique of the Archbishops of Westminister and Canterbury reflects the yearning of many English speaking people for effective communion with the Apostolic succession and the Petrine Church with an Anglican Rite.It also reflects the often unspoken feelings of many Christians who see about them so much division, historical and progressive through time which sits contrary to Christian revelation.One,on reaching his ninetieth year made the comment' Ive decided to make my peace with the Catholic Church' We may yet be able to welcome the newcomer.

    Posted By: Lewis P Buckingham

19. Dear Helen
    As for "women's feelings on the matter", look around in any Catholic Church - the majority of people there are women. In my parish we currently have seven RCIA candidates in the process of becoming Catholic. All seven are young women, most of them converting from protestant churches which have women ministers. Most women have voted with their feet and are increasingly bored and annoyed with the rhetoric of the tiny minority of women who want to usurp authority in the Church - rhetoric which frequently turns into outright hatred of Christ's Church.
    Dear Jeff Kevin
    You rightly conmplain that Michael B presents this in political terms but you immediately do the same thing with your assertion that the pope is a political 'conservative".
    Dear Rob and Jan Tully
    Your claim of injustice makes no sense. Nobody ever promised the now celibate Catholic priests that they would ever be allowed to marry. They freely chose to take a vow of celibacy.
    And there is no automatic right for a converting Anglican minister to become a priest. He will continue to need his bishop's approval, just like any "cradle Catholic" who seeks ordination. If the bishop says no, there is no appeal.

    Posted By: Peter G

20. "Personal ordinariates" sounds like the "personal prelature" instituted for Opus Dei. I wonder how diocesan bishops will like having yet another bishop operating in their dioceses who is answerable only to Rome, not to the local Ordinary. For the time being, we can write off any plan to get back to one bishop, one diocese.

    Posted By: Michael

21. And the shepherd rejoiced when the lost sheep was (were)found.
    Maybe we should be rejoicing not find a reason to grind our own axes.

    Posted By: Peter

22. Perhaps Catholics who do not agree with this obnoxious patriarchy should join the Anglican Communion?

    Posted By: TJ Lawson

23. Well said TJ - now when exactly are you going to join the Anglicans?

    Posted By: LM

24. As reported in the Brisbane Courier Mail this morning 22/10,"the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was not consulted about the change and was informed only hours before the announcement"
    I find this whole thing an insult to the Anglican church and as a Catholic am very embarrassed by it.

    Posted By: Bill Brady

25. Good point, TJ. Why stay "in" the Catholic Church and spend the rest of your days whinging and whining about it being a sexist, non-PC organisation, when there are many other churches that fit in with the trendy, liberalist agenda. No one is forcing anybody to stay.

    Posted By: Invictus Maneo

26. To TJ Lawson:
    That's right, TJ. Go join the Anglican schism before the feminist/lesbian maternity reduces it totally to dust.
    
    

    Posted By: Michael Bernard

27. It's not about religion, it's about personality. The disaffected Anglican priests wanting to 'come across', will all have something in common.
    

    Posted By: Marie H

28. Frankly, it is a while since the Archbishop of Canterbury had any relevance to the spiritual life of Anglicans. I swam the tiber six years ago, and I have never once looked back. And now, the Tiber has parted. Great! As for those who are "ashamed" of the Pope for his generosity, I suggest they look beyond the headlines to the actual difficulties of those Anglicans trying to live a life committed to the gospel with a communion running headlong into irrelevancy and political correctness, with a "head" who can't seem to make up his mind on anything, be it freemasonry, or homosexuality, or the salvific necessity of the Church.

    Posted By: Adeodatus

29. Complainants about the quirks in the Catholic Church should join the Orthodox Church if they're not happy. The Orthodox Church is a better alternative. Only an Orthodox priest converting into the Catholic Church has the automatic right to be a priest.

    Posted By: Collin Michael Nunis

30. The same “knee-jerkers” and the same usual suspects with their same obsessions!
    1. It seems unlikely that millions of Anglicans will stampede through Adeodatus’ parted Tiber.
    2. The Pope is formalising a process that has been going on for at least twenty or thirty years. In the US there are parishes of the Anglican (Episcopalian) usage fully integrated into the Catholic Church. Indeed, the hope for corporate reunion has its roots in the 19th century.
    3. Personal ordinariates are hardly unusual even apart from the Personal Prelature of the Holy Cross (Opus Dei). As in Australia, most national armed forces have their own military ordinariate. Eastern Catholic bishops, in a sense, function within, and certainly independently of, the territories of ALL the Latin Rite Dioceses in Australia.
    4. As for Helen and other potential apostates – you know where the door is.
    The reality is that no one holding forth in this column has read the as yet unpromulgated Apostolic Constitution. Presumably, it will clarify such issues as the status of the personal ordinariate(s), eg will they constitute a type of church analogous with ritual churches (sui juiris)? How will the faithful “belong” to a personal ordinariate or parish thereof? Will the ordination of married men to the priesthood continue, or will it be a first generation favour? etc, etc, etc!
    Perhaps there should be a time of prayerful silence for some of our vociferous contributors - at least until we hear from the one “who presides in love over the whole Church.”
    
    
    

    Posted By: Marco Elliott

31. Adeodatus wrote: "I swam the Tiber six years ago, and I have never once looked back." Perhaps you would also like to tell us which "shore" you left, and whether you are a minister, priest, married or celibate. It can be significant in how your ideas have been formed, and how you promote them to readers. If you have followed the debates, you will know that I am a resigned priest, now married with children. That certainly influences my own thinking. Let us try to radiate light, and not heat.

    Posted By: Boutros Neru

32. Can you see the hospitality shown by my Catholic sisters and brother here? That is the sad hostile reality of the Catholics today.

    Posted By: TJ Lawson

33. Marie, yes, they will all be human beings. Most of them, it is to be hoped, will be trying to do the will of God, as manifested in His Church.

    Posted By: Adeodatus

34. BOUTROS NERU - as fascinating as the background of ADEODATUS might be, perhaps you would care to tell us in what ecclesial community you served as a priest.

    Posted By: Marco Elliott

35. Great news! May God ever bless and inspire Pope Benedict, granting him length of life. Amen.
    As a sufferer of Bipolar Disorder, it is my experience that the Anglican Communion has a far better and more enlightened attitude to sufferers of mental illness. This also seems to be the opinion of many mental health workers I come across. I am hoping that with this wonderful new move on the part of The Holy Father, that some of the Anglican enlightened, healthy, and more accurate and informed attitude will rub off on our own Rite, please God.
    Barb

    Posted By: Barbara

36. Catholic, born and educated, Marco, to answer your question. Caring, but very critical!

    Posted By: Boutros Neru

37. Marco, I don't know whether that was supposed to be a dig at me, but I wasn't suggesting that "millions" will walk through the parted Tiber. Everything else you have said, I agree with.
    
    Boutros, I was a High Anglican. I have been lots of things before that (an atheist, an agnostic, a communist, an Anglican and now for 6 years a Catholic).
    
    I guess you could say I am an extremely critical materialist (A Catholic would say sacramentalist) with an interest in Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, Austin, Ryle, and Wittgenstein, and an (undeservedly) obscure philosophus sine nomine. I am a single university student in a secular department, with a Jewish supervisor, and lots of Jewish (and secular)friends. I hope that helps.

    Posted By: Adeodatus

38. Thanks, Adeodatus. Marco was right to use “fascinating” in anticipation of your “CV”. I did not see his comments as having a dig. I admire your journey of searching. As a retired academic (my other persona), one hopes that this search does not stop at the door of Catholic certainty. From personal experience that certainty can paralyse enquiry, and anaesthetise one’s power of insight.

    Posted By: Boutros Neru

39. The search never does stop, Boutros. Knowing and being certain of certain things though is productive of future searches. That is part of the romance of orthodoxy. Ages ago, I read Congar's essay on Conversion, and that has stayed with me whenever I speak about it. Conversion is not just the huge changes in one's basic perspective that happens when one becomes (say) a Catholic after being Anglican, but also the day-to-day realization of how totally dependent on God (and other people) I am. The first of Luther's 95 theses (which I discovered yesterday) comes to mind: "Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance."
    Which brings me to another point, conversion usually, in case of those who come from one Christian tradition to another, doesn't always mean rejecting the totality of one's past, but a re-imagining of it. Never before becoming a Catholic did I properly understand the great Anglicans: Bull and Andrewes and Keble and Pusey and Butler, the Anglican Newman, and lately Eric Mascall. But if I started questioning the very bases of what I believed, none of this could happen.
    One notes that one of the most radical, if not the most radical, of modern theologians sits on the throne of Peter today. He who I call my Holy Father is intimately familiar with Luther and Karl Barth, as well as Augustine and Aquinas.

    Posted By: Adeodatus

40. Dear Bill Brady: I would disregard The Courier-Mail’s claim. The Archbishop of Canterbury issued a joint statement with the (Catholic) Archbishop of Westminster the same day as the Pope’s public announcement, and also the same day he sent out a letter about it to his bishops. These things are not arranged in “hours”. And even the secular media has known about and has been discussing for years the likelihood of such a concession by the Catholic Church. No doubt the Anglican leader has discussed it with Catholic representatives on numerous occasions.

    Posted By: Peter G

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