First Anglicans are received into the Catholic Church

in a historic service (Telegraph). Many would say that such conversions are unnecessary, but I think that it is always about conversion. Hearts must turn to God in such a way that the communion of saints in Christ is not just a loose confederation of like-minded Christians. Christ alludes to his unity with the Father (Jn 17) in what can only be a perfect unity. Such unity can brook no contradiction that is simply ignored. Distinctions, yes. Different charisms and ministries, yes. But contradictions should be unthinkable, but there it is. This is not to deny the work of the Holy Spirit among every stripe of Christianity. But we are ignoring Christ's will that we may be one if we leave things alone, thinking that unification will come without a cross. These courageous former Anglican bishops know that cross very well, but they took it up anyway, for the love of Jesus Christ.

.. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. .. "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

And more are coming home: Traditional Anglicans in Canada

.. are asking to be let in as well. Ut unum sint!

Anglicans Come Home

Early Christmas present from twenty Anglican parishes in the UK and early for Easter celebration thanks to one hundred in the US. Alleluia! Welcome home!

Twenty Anglican Parishes Coming Home? Wow!

Alleluia!

ROME, November 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a move that is a surprise to no one, the UK branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), the largest of the groups that broke away from the mainstream Anglican Church over the ordination of woman and the latter's support for active homosexuality, has been the first to formally accept the offer of Pope Benedict to enter into communion with the Catholic Church en masse. Although the TAC is not large, being made up of only 20 or so parishes, the vote by the group to accept the invitation is expected to be a strong symbolic blow to the mainstream Anglican Church in its motherland of Britain, where it has been a leader in the acceptance of woman clergy and homosexuality. It is widely acknowledged that the Vatican's decision to extend its hand to traditionalist Anglicans comes in response to repeated requests, made public last year, by the TAC.

Of course, now comes the hard part. But God bless them for this first and most difficult step. May they all find in the Catholic Church the Christ who calls them onward.

Anglicans Come Home

LifeSiteNews reports that some consider this to be divisiveness. They conveniently forget that it was the Church of Rome that the Church of England decided to abandon all those centuries ago, which makes this an invitation to come home. How can that possibly sound like divisiveness? That's particularly funny coming from dissident Catholics.
I found this rather amusing:

The Guardian, the voice of liberalism in the UK, wrote that the decision means the Pope has "launched a small craft to ferry the disaffected back across the Tiber, a move to asset-strip the Anglican communion of those bits the Vatican might find useful." The move, the editorial said, "ride[s] roughshod over 40 years of ecumenical work."

Dear Guardian: it's worse than you think. The Catholic Church isn't after bits of this or that Church: we want them all. That's what the head of the Church wanted, praying fervently as reported in St. John's gospel (Jn 17), uttered repeatedly a few times in that prayer, and emphasized by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint: that they may be one. Trust the mainstream media to miss the big picture when they don't do their homework diligently enough. This is really much bigger than they think, even against the backdrop of the Reformation. This mission of oneness in the people of God goes beyond just a couple of papacies. The Lord expressed his will on it, St. Paul emphasized it in his letters, as did St. John. Various Church Fathers from Clement onwards wrote about it. I mean, what does being consecrated mean anyway?

Church of England no more?

The gospel has been attenuating in the Church of England, I suppose, but here is a turning point, an amplification of sorts:

Dr Jensen said that the Global Anglican Future Conference was acknowledging that a new state of affairs existed within the worldwide Anglican communion, in which the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury was no longer considered dominant. "My way of putting it is to say that the British Empire has now ceased to be, and the British Commonwealth of Nations has come into existence, or the nuclear family has turned into an extended family. This is the new reality."

[Source: The Age, 22/06/2008

Dr. Jennings said that they held the conference in Jerusalem in order to discern "what God's mind is on certain matters" -- and that, I think, is exactly what makes it a turning point. Returning to the root of Church mission -- God's will -- is the only true guide. It won't be easy for the Anglicans (it hasn't been), but there is always reason to hope when that hope springs from faith in God.

Christian Attenuation Continues...

.. as Anglican archbishop pushes for sharia law in England.

Entire Episcopalian diocese rejects the Episcopal church

Shame it wasn't a wholesale jump to the Catholic Church instead, but it is definitely one for orthodoxy. The diocese of San Joaquin, California, is now within an Anglican province in Buenos Aires, and remains within the greater Anglican communion under Canterbury. I had to laugh at the New York Times' report that this diocese "has long been different from the rest of the Episcopal Church". That certainly sounds nicer than the truth: that the Episcopalian church in the US has been shifting away from orthodoxy in less than one century (probably less than half a century), and the San Joaquin diocese had simply resisted this shift.

May the Anglican communion go even farther seeking greater orthodoxy, always seeking Christ, the true object of our fidelity. During lunch, David of Sentire cum ecclesia explained a model of Christian unity I hadn't really thought of before. It is not so much that the non-Catholics should seek to become Roman Catholics, but that, in truly seeking the fullness of communion with Christ, we will inevitably end up being in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. That's how I understood him anyway, and that sounds about right.