Friday, July 11, 2008

Part of Church of England Coming to Rome?

One of the most painful separations within the Church was that in England during the tussle around King Henry the VIII’s desire to marry Anne Boleyn, which led to extreme oppression brought upon English Catholics, to the point of executions, particularly when the daughter of Henry and Anne, Elizabeth, assumed the throne, so any return of a major group of Catholics resulting from that breakup would be wonderful indeed.

An excerpt from the article in the Catholic Herald:

“So we are to have a code of practice. Traditional Anglo-Catholics must now decide whether to stay in the Church of England in what, for a while, will be a protected colony - where the sacramental ministry of women bishops and priests is neither acknowledged nor received - or to leave.

“Leaving isn't quite so easy as it sounds. You don't become a Catholic, for instance, because of what is wrong with another denomination or faith. You become a Catholic because you accept that the Catholic Church is what she says she is and the Catholic faith is what it says it is. In short, some Anglo-Catholics will stay and others will go. It is quite easy to think of unworthy reasons for staying - and there are no doubt one or two unworthy reasons for leaving...

“What we must humbly ask for now is for magnanimous gestures from our Catholic friends, especially from the Holy Father, who well understands our longing for unity, and from the hierarchy of England and Wales. Most of all we ask for ways that allow us to bring our folk with us.”