Convert Anglicans must not become sect within church says theologian

Discontented Anglicans who convert must not become a sect within the Roman Catholic Church, a senior Catholic clergyman in the UK dealing with church unity has warned. 

Anglicans who object to plans for women bishops are considering the Vatican's invitation to become part of a special section - an "ordinariate" - within the church in England and Wales.  Speaking this week to BBC news Monsignor Andrew Faley (pictured), Assistant General Secretary of the English and Welsh Catholic bishops' conference, claimed that ordinariate members would be expected to co-operate with their local bishop and the life of their local Catholic parish.

“They can't live separate from it ... that would be a sect approach and that would not be tolerated within the Catholic understanding of the church," he said. 

As well as dealing with inter-church relations for the bishops' conference, Mgr Faley is a member of the commission it has set up to "consider the next steps" following the Vatican's publication of an Apostolic Constitution on receiving Anglican converts. 

”What it means to be a Catholic is a very important question and a question that anyone considering the ordinariate needs to be seeking answers to," he insists.

"They become members of a Church which has the ministry of the successor of St Peter as its source of unity.  Unity for Catholics is central to their understanding of the Church."

Meanwhile, much still needs to be clarified about the application of the Apostolic Constitution, says Mgr Faley.  The Vatican document provides that the ordinariate, headed by an "ordinary" with similar status to a bishop, and its parishes would be separate from the ordinary Catholic dioceses and parishes - but with many links to them at national and local level. 

Members of the ordinariate would retain "those aspects of the Anglican patrimony that are of particular value.” 

Some media reports have claimed this refers to the practice of allowing priests to marry.  A substantial number of married ex-Anglican priests are already Catholic priests, having crossed to Rome in the years following the ordination of women priests by the Church of England in the 1990s.

But the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests in Britain are required to remain unmarried and celibate.

by Sean Ryan