Friday, June 15, 2012

Catholic Church open for ex-Anglicans

A NEW church era will begin in Australia on Friday with the establishment of the Catholic Church's Ordinariate for former Anglicans. 

One of the first moves will be the ordination of Traditional Anglican Communion Bishop Harry Entwistle, 72, to the Catholic priesthood in St Mary's Cathedral, Perth, on Friday evening by the Catholic Archbishop of Perth, Tim Costelloe.

Most of the 70-strong congregation of Bishop Entwistle's St Ninian and St Chad's Church in Perth will follow him into the Ordinariate, making it the first Australian parish to join the new community.

Other bishops, priests and parishes are expected to follow, including the Church of the Torres Strait and four priests and a bishop from the TAC group in Japan.

Bishop Entwistle, who declined to be interviewed ahead of the ceremony, is considered one of the frontrunners to be announced by the Pope as head of the Ordinariate, a position that will carry a similar status to that of a Catholic Archbishop. He is a former Anglican prison chaplain in Britain and Australia who joined the TAC in 2006 over doctrinal differences with the Anglican Church.

In a recent statement, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, said the new community would "have the status of a diocese and will be known as the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross under the patronage of St Augustine of Canterbury".

Similar bodies have already been established in Britain and the US after the Pope's 2009 decision to cater for groups of Anglicans who wished to join the Catholic Church while maintaining some of the traditions of prayer and worship of Anglicanism.

"I am confident that those former Anglicans who have made a journey in faith that has led them to the Catholic Church will find a ready welcome," Archbishop Hart said.

Adelaide-based former primate of the TAC John Hepworth said the instigation of the Ordinariate was the culmination of 22 years of work seeking unity between Anglicans and Catholics.

Archbishop Hepworth drafted the original petition to the Pope which led to his issuing the document Anglicanorum coetibus (On Groups of Anglicans), paving the way for groups of Anglicans to join the Catholic Church.