Vatican Bidding to Get Anglicans to Join Its Fold
VATICAN CITY — In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican said Tuesday that it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions. Anglicans would be able “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” Cardinal William J. Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here.
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The Catholic offer to Anglicans is intriguing. I can’t see many Anglicans taking advantage of this offer, though. Traditionalist Anglicans (specifically those who oppose the recent moves by the Episcopal Church USA) have considered becoming Catholic, and most have rejected it already. I can’t see that a few concessions like allowing married priests and letting them keep their liturgy is going to change their minds.
I find it more intriguing to realize that the Roman Catholic Church is less committed to a celibate priesthood than I thought. Here the pope is basically offering to bring a whole bunch of Anglicans into the Church, and allow them to continue having married priests. As I understand it, even new priests could be married, not just the existing ones who get grandfathered in. Bishops would still have to be celibate, however; current bishops who convert would be given some other title but not be given the spiritual authority that comes with being a bishop.
Anyway, I can’t see too many Anglicans jumping at this opportunity. But I could see this as a sign that a celibate priesthood–which the Church admits is only a tradition, after all, not a biblical requirement–is not sacrosanct.
Three things about the Anglican rite Catholicism:
(1) Anglican priests can remain married, which means that this has the possibility of pushing that discussion in the RCC.
(2) The priests that do make the move must be approved by the Holy See (and from what I have heard, they are only allowing the very conservative ones (e.g. the ones that don’t accept female priests–which is an accepted practice withing the CoE).
(3) This is a really sneaky power move by the Vatican in preparation for the Pope’s visit next year. In fact, one of the higher-up cardinals in the RCC sent a letter to Rowan Williams the day before, notifying him of their intent. They’re hoping to sweep the rug from under him.
Oh, and I do see think there are quite a few Anglicans who may jump at this (for starters, some of the Radical Orthodoxy folk come to mind).
On the seminary professor article, I have to call it utter garbage. It’s the same kind of rhetoric that academic theologians use to stay out of the church. I was just discussing this topic this week with some academics. I take its opening point that elders are chosen on ethical/moral grounds and that a professor has no need of such trite things. In fact, one could argue that professors have stricter requirements for being hired (multiple written letters of recommendation whereas elders just need at most a nomination). Secondly, the author is confused of the differences between an academic’s role as a teacher and an elder’s role as a pastor (in the generic sense that deals with the spiritual and psychological aspects of one’s life). The author seems very unaware of interdisciplinary research and discipline-wide meetings. While an academic does spend time within his specialty, he does interact with a much wider audience as he publishes in journals, authors books, receives critiques from academics across the academy as well as lay readers, participates in wider conferences (theologians in this case would probably attend either the Society of Biblical Literature and/or the American Academy of Religion) which has interaction with people from all across the discipline, as well as participates in related interdisciplinary projects (e.g., I recently attended a conference on religion and technology which had theologians, philosophers, anthropologists, film scholars, media scholars, and one geographer). What that author wants is people dogmatically committed to a particular evangelical faith, not a critical and self-critical scholar who looks beyond his prejudices while also maintaining his faith.
Although I think the decision to offer this by the Roman Catholic Church is a good one, I don’t see a lot of Anglicans making the move. Sure the 39 Articles don’t carry much weight in a lot of branches of Anglicism anymore but to join the RCC you would still need to agree with:
-Supremacy of the Pope
-The RCC canon of scripture
-The Mary dogmas
-Transubstantiation
-Purgatory
I’m sure there are some other big ones out there (Justification by Faith is purposely left off that list as because of statements like the Join Declaration between Catholics and Lutherans there is some room for agreement on it these days). If an Anglican already agreed with the Supremacy of the Pope why would they still be an Anglican? It’s one thing to respect the RCC, understand it, and take part of it’s tradition, but quite another thing to join it. At least in my mind, perhaps I’m not traditional enough.