Catholic Church welcomes Anglicans

It will be fascinating to see how this develops.  I think it is beyond huge- “tectonic” might be a more appropriate adjective.  Is that whirring sound old King Henry 8th spinning in his grave?  Probably not- I imagine he had already spun himself into butter long ago, contemplating the pitiful fate of his ecclesiatic child.

Now, I love being in the Orthodox Church, am daily grateful for God’s mercy in bringing me to where I am now.  However, if I had found an “Anglican Use” parish in the Catholic Church (such as this one) when I was young and still searching, I might very well still be there today.

I appreciate the universality of Orthodox worship, but there is a powerful emotional resonance to the particular form of my own Western heritage.  I belonged to an Episcopal church many years ago, and more recently spent some time in the French Orthodox Church, which was reviving a Western Rite liturgy.  Whenever I visited my in-laws in Tennessee I attended their Episcopal church; my heart would leap with joy, but my soul broke with grief at the rich patrimony that had been squandered.  I could seldom finish the first stanza of any hymn without choking up.

An approved Western rite Anglican liturgy within the Roman Catholic Church could be hugely attractive to folks fleeing the spiritual shipwrecks of their liberal denominations.  Where once they might have seriously considered the Orthodox Church as a viable prospect, now the combination of a more culturally familiar liturgy under Rome, along with Internet-available news of the controversies within the Antiochian archdiocese, could serve to bring an abrupt end to the early successes of Orthodox evangelism in America.

Lord have mercy.

Good commentary and good links at The Anchoress, with updates.

Typically good commentary by the Ochlophobist, including reflections on Orthodox-Anglican wooing.