One hour before the Mass at which he was to be ordained as a Catholic priest, Father Harry Entwistle, 71, was named by Pope Benedict XVI as the first head of the personal ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, a jurisdiction for former Anglicans in Australia.Father Entwistle, who was ordained an Anglican priest in England in 1964, immigrated to Australia in 1988, joined the Traditional Anglican Communion in 2006 and was later named Australia's Western regional bishop.
The Traditional Anglican Communion is a worldwide group of Anglicans that separated themselves from the Anglican Communion led by the archbishop of Canterbury.
The Vatican announced his appointment as head of the ordinariate June 15, just one hour before his ordination Mass was set to begin in St. Mary's Cathedral, Perth. Father Entwistle is married and has two grown children.
Also June 15, as had been announced previously, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith formally erected the personal ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.
In 2009, Pope Benedict issued the apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus," providing for the establishment of ordinariates for former Anglicans who join the Catholic Church while retaining some of their Anglican traditions, spirituality and prayer.
The first ordinariate, Our Lady of Walsingham, was established in 2011.
The personal ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, for former Anglicans in the United States, was erected in January.