Anglicans heading to Rome told they can't stay in their churches

They have worshipped together for decades on the pews of their parish church. 

Generations of their loved ones have been baptised, married and buried there. 

But now a Church of England congregation is being torn apart by the Pope's offer to welcome disaffected Anglican traditionalists into the Catholic Church.

In a vote which has split the local community and left long-standing friends on opposite sides of a growing divide, 54 parishioners at St Barnabas Tunbridge Wells have indicated that they intended to become Catholics while 18 said they would remain in the established Church.

While the Kentish churchgoers are among the first to take such a stand, congregations up and down the country will soon follow suit as worshippers and clergy weigh up whether to enter the Ordinariate, the structure set up by Pope Benedict XVI to embrace defectors from the established Church.

At St Barnabas the move towards Rome is being led by the vicar, Fr Ed Tomlinson. He believes that traditionalists who oppose the ordination of women have been badly let down by Church leaders.

But he has been told by the diocese of Rochester that if he and his followers leave the Church of England they will no longer be allowed to hold services, even on a shared basis, at St Barnabas - a nineteenth-century red-brick church where Siegfried Sassoon, the First World War poet, was baptised.

The firm stance has infuriated Fr Tomlinson, the vicar since 2006. "The whole thing stinks to high heaven," he said.

"The Archdeacon made it abundantly clear that he does not want to entertain the notion of shared worship space and that he would resist my remaining here in any capacity.

"How lamentable that a solution based on unity exists but those with authority seem more intent on division."

The decision by the diocese has upset churchgoers such as Beryl Boughton, who for the past 35 years has attended services at St Barnabas,

A member of the parochial church council, she has seen one of her daughters married at the church, while her mother and her husband are buried there. Even so, she plans to join Fr Tomlinson in entering the Ordinariate.

"I was disappointed they wouldn't agree to share [the building], but not actually surprised, said Mrs Broughton, 76. "I thought it would be too good to be true that they would see sense and let us stay.

"I just hope that they have enough people to keep it going without us, because it costs quite a bit to run.

"It will be sad in a way, but it is also quite exciting. There is quite a crowd of us going. I've no idea where we'll go – it could be my living room."

On the other side of the emerging rift is Geoffrey Copus, 80, a local historian who has worshipped at St Barnabas since 1964, but who recently stopped attending services due to his opposition to the vicar's stance.

"If people want to join the Church of Rome, they should go down the road to a Catholic church," said

"I'm very much against the move [to Rome] and there is quite a considerable body that is against it," he said.

He claimed people had been "misled by the wild enthusiasm" of the vicar, whom he said was "besotted with the Pope".

"The whole thing is impossible," Mr Copus added. "Sharing churches has been tried elsewhere and it hasn't worked."

The Ordinariate is beginning to take shape following the confirmation of three former Anglican bishops as Catholics last weekend. 

Last year, when the idea was first put forward, there were hopes that more amicable arrangements could be made.

As traditionalist clergy threatened to leave over their opposition to women bishops, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said the Church of England would seek a system of sharing buildings so that defecting worshippers could continue meeting in familiar surroundings.

Yet the decision over whether to permit Catholic congregations to share Anglican church buildings was ultimately left to individual bishops, with the policy varying from diocese to diocese.

The ruling that any defectors would have to leave St Barnabas was conveyed to its vicar by the Ven Clive Mansell, Archdeacon of Tonbridge and a senior clergyman in the diocese of Rochester.

"How sad that the Ordinariate seekers, good people who have contributed so much to this parish and its fabric over so many years, were plainly told they should leave with nothing," added Fr Tomlinson.

He claimed that the decision to expel him and his followers from the church building meant that "good and faithful Christians" had been "completely betrayed by the Church of England".

But Mr Copus said: "We've got a very good Archdeacon, and I think we are fighting back quite well."

Worshippers who are considering joining the Ordinariate were meeting at St Barnabas church hall yesterday to discuss their next steps.

Defecting churches in other parts of the country are facing similar opposition in their requests to continue using their buildings.

It is understood that Fr Mark Elliott Smith and Fr Anthony Homer, priests at St Paul's Tottenham and Holy Trinity Winchmore Hill respectively, were told they would not be able to remain in their churches after they revealed they were considering converting to Catholicism.

Both are in the diocese of London, where the bishop, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, has been particularly firm in refusing to allow defectors to continue to worship in their buildings.

"For the avoidance of confusion I have to say that as far as the Diocese of London is concerned there is no possibility of transferring properties," he said last month.

He said that previous experiments of church sharing had not led to "warmer ecumenical relations" but "tended to produce more rancour".

Last year, Archbishop Williams said that one of the "challenges" facing the Church of England was "working out shared use of churches".

William Fittall, secretary general of the General Synod and the Church's most senior lay official, also said it would be "entirely possible" for Anglicans converting to Catholicism to use their former churches, adding that it would be "a matter for the local Anglican bishop concerned whether he was content for that to be the case".

SIC: TC/UK