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Recent Comments

1. I guess we should welcome everyone who wants to come into the Catholic Church.
   But I wish, how I wish, that we weren't welcoming Anglican priests based on their being disenfranchised by the ordination of women.
   Now can we also welcome people whose marriages are 'out of order'?
   And when we get over that huge hurdle, can we welcome people of homosexual inclination?
   And while we're at it, can we welcome married priests of our own Catholic tradition?

   Posted By: glen avard

2. I also wish to welcome people to the Catholic Church.
   However, Father Seton says he believes Anglicans with Catholic inclinations would be 'safe' in this new ordinate. Safe from what? Women?
   
   Well I do think this is of great concern. The lack of Women's involvement in decision making within the Catholic Church is a weakness of the Church in my opinion.
   
   

   Posted By: Cate

3. The article refers to 'Anglican priests'. I always understood that the Catholic Church did not recognise Anglican Orders as valid.

   Posted By: Anthony

4. Why can't these Anglican Priests just become Catholics like anyone else does if they believe that ours is the true church?
   Why are they allowed to bring their own Liturgies, when we had to accept new words that we did not think necessary in order to worship God at Mass?
   We must be hard up to fill our churches if these people cannot accept to worship in unity with us, that we have to allow them so many concessions.

   Posted By: Joan

5. Perhaps we who are women in the Catholic Church should consider moving to join the Anglican or Uniting Church.
   Would be interesting how many people would be left in the church.

   Posted By: Lorraine

6. Indeed, it seems that not a few of the Tiber-swimming Anglican clergy's flights have been boosted by their objections to OoW.
   Fr Seton is a long-standing member of Forward in Faith.
   He and his ilk should be fine as long as they move in traditionalist circles.
   Like Glen and Cate, I do have reservations about their motives and the illusions under which they seem to labour.
   Your average RC parish has little in common with such Anglo-Papalist establishments as All Saints Kooyong!

   Posted By: JR, Sydney

7. It's a Papal teaching, even more infallible than the more recent one about the non-ordination of women, that Anglican Orders are 'absolutely null and utterly void' so what does the soon-to-be-Father Seton think he'll be doing with his Anglican flock for the next month or so?
   If he ascribes to Catholic teaching yet remains ministering as an Anglican, it's scandalous.

   Posted By: Chris Grady

8. Glen Avard seems to be labouring under a misapprehension: we do welcome people of homosexual inclination, just as we welcome people of a heterosexual inclination.
   We can't, obviously, welcome any sin they might commit, but I would be proud to stand next to any person in mass who struggles to live up to Christ's expectations!

   Posted By: Paul Keen

9. Yesterday it was calls for more inclusiveness, today not a little exclusive bitterness towards these former Anglicans.
   

   Posted By: Peter in Canberra

10. Whatever we Catholics feel about the Ordinariate, some here have not understood that these Anglican clergy are not simply 'crossing the road' and continuing as Anglican clergy within the Catholic Church.
    Admittedly this article is not quite clear, although there has been much in the press and online clearly explaining the situation.
    In short, any Anglican clergy coming across are to be 're-ordained', as it were, by a Catholic bishop.
    They and their congregations will maintain their Anglican traditions of liturgy etc, but in union with the Catholic Church.
    If they are married, these clergy will remain so. However, bishops in the Ordinariate may not be married.
    It is not that we are suddenly recognising Anglican Orders if that's your beef.
    Yes, confusing when weighed up against the Roman situation, but that's another story.
    This Ordinariate will function in a similar way as the other non-Roman rites in union with the Catholic Church, for example, the Maronites, the Ukranian Catholics, the Melkites etc.
    And yes, these rites allow priests to be married, but not bishops.
    This sadly does not make sense for we Roman Catholics who would benefit greatly if our clergy (priests and bishops), should they choose, were able to be married.
    And as importantly, it does nothing to rectify the injustice of withholding ordination from women, to the priesthood and the episcopate, married or not.

    Posted By: Christopher McElhinney

11. The Church should not be indulging the high church Anglicans and also should not be indulging those lifelong Catholic priests who dodge saying Mass in English according to the manifest will of the late Pope Paul VI. Priests in the Western Rite should say Mass in both forms - the Ordinary and the Extraordinary; never insisting to the Local Ordinary that they somehow can remain purists on only saying Mass in the form of Mass of their preference. That should never be an option.
    Special pleading should not be allowed.

    Posted By: Michael Webb

12. In the article, it states that Fr Entswsitle was ordained a Catholic Priest on June 15 and thus the Masses he celebrates and the congregation of 60 people attend a Catholic Mass.
    I'm assuming they will be worshipping in an Anglican building until September.
    The ordination of women and other such issues are not the only or even main reason these people left the Anglican Church.
    They have come to believe in every thing the Catholic Church teaches and accept that the Holy Father is the vicar of Christ on earth.
    The lay people joining the Catholic Church are in valid marraiges if they were married in the Anglican Church and not divorced. Those who were divorced before their marriage in the Anglican Church will need to regularize their marriages.
    Yes, they will stay in traditional circles is the Church; the came from a dissenting body and are now in a safe harbor of truth.

    Posted By: Linda

13. Chris Grady: And what does 'absolutely null and utterly void' mean re Anglican Orders which now have valid Old Catholic and Eastern Orthodox orders?

    Posted By: Francis

14. These are not the comments I expected to read on this story.
    I am amazed - this is happy, joyous news!
    So where is our hospitality?
    Perhaps this is one area in which we Catholics have much to learn much from our cousins of other Christian denominations.

    Posted By: Trish

15. As a Catholic priest, and former Anglican, I shall weigh in on this. Interesting heading 'Anglican priests move to Catholic environment'. That is not exactly accurate.
    I formally renounced my vows as an Anglican priest and became Catholic. Then I started a process which five years later culminated in Blessed John Paul II approving my petition.
    I love my priestly vocation. It is everything I had prayed, hoped for and more.

    Posted By: Fr. Bill

16. Dear new Fathers, welcome. I'm glad that we have more friends in our Catholic Church. God bless you.

    Posted By: Philip Saenz

17. I was saddened by the negativity of almost all the comments here. Suspicion and mistrust of each other is not the way to go.
    Anger and frustration on all sides suggests we have a lot to learn about what real inclusivity means. Jesus entrusted his church to Peter, a sinner like all of us, and promised that the 'gates of Hell' would not prevail against it.
    Threatening to leave, begrudging others who want to join us, finger pointing and name calling mean we have taken our eyes off Jesus and concentrating on our own petty grievances. Jesus said Come Unto Me to all of us, no exceptions, no reservations.

    Posted By: Ann

18. For those few Catholics who seem bitter. Look, I know lots of history. I know that Jesus founded only one church, the Holy Catholic Church, infallible and indefectible, on Peter the first pope, who was given 'the keys to the kingdom of heaven.'
    These keys were passed on to succeeding popes, and to no other mortals.
    I know, too, that Jesus is the head of His Church, and that He keeps it intact. Jesus does not mislead. As the head of the Holy Catholic Church, Jesus gives us the infallible pure doctrine, of faith and morals, the two ingredients necessary for salvation, that will lead us to heaven.
    All other churches were founded by mere men, creatures of God, fallible and defectible.
    So have faith in Jesus Christ Who said that He would be only with His Church 'until the consummation of the world.'
    P.S. As for women priests, Jesus 'said' twelve times that He didn't want women priests. And don't give me any of that 'custom of the time.' Jesus is God, and He knew what He was doing.

    Posted By: Philip Saenz

19. As a younger man in the 80's and 90's who still practised my Catholic religion weekly at least, I was enormously grateful to the few Sydney Anglo-Catholics who welcomed me into their various churches.
    I was a choir member for a few years at the Sunday Eucharist, while not partaking in their sacrament.
    I was organist at my Catholic parish for the Vigil Mass and received Holy Communion at that Mass.
    I was so relieved to encounter Christians who shared my enthusiasm for the 'beauty of holiness'. Everything that was discarded in my childhood by us Catholics was present in Anglo-Catholic ritual in what I term the 'dry weary times without water'.
    Christianity is indeed not just about performance, but the comparison of aesthetics and tradition in our Church and their's was astounding in that period.
    Catholics seemed to forget that beauty of worship leads us to Our Lord, and it is not just play acting, but a manifestation of The Spirit, which binds us together in Christ.
    That many Anglicans now accept Papal sovereignty is a source of great joy and witness to the unity that Christ Himself prayed for.
    We have much to learn and gain from our Anglican brethren, and I for one, am overjoyed by the Pope's overtures to unity with them

    Posted By: Brent Egan

20. As a practicing Catholic, I am very happy to welcome these new priests into the church.
    We must work towards unity and welcome new members to our church regardless of their background.
    Priests of the ilk of Fr Bill are exactly what the church needs. Thanks for your insightful comments above Fr Bill.
    Further, although the Catholic Church does not allow the ordination of women, we should not downplay the importance of the various orders of Catholic Nuns. Women have a very important role to play in the Catholic Church.
    Nuns are inspirational women, who work tirelessly spreading the good news through their vocation.

    Posted By: Anthony

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