By Lauren Seynhaeve
On Oct. 20, Vatican officials announced that they have come up with a method by which traditionalist Anglican groups, such as whole parishes or dioceses, may enter the Catholic Church while retaining their Anglican rites.
The offer to join the Catholic Church was made for Anglicans who are dissatisfied with the way the Anglican Church is progressing, namely ordaining women and openly gay people, according to the Vatican.
"They will be Catholics," said a press statement from Cardinal William Joseph Levada, former archbishop of the Portland Archdiocese and now head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "And that will be clear because ... they both ritually and personally make a profession of faith."
The Vatican has not released specific details about how the conversion process will work. In essence, Anglican groups that wish to accept the pope as their leader will be able to convert to Catholicism while retaining their rites. These Anglican rites include a slightly different liturgical year and allow married priests.
"This provision is trying to accommodate whole churches and even dioceses into the church," said professor of theology Michael Cameron. "Since 1980, there has been a Pastoral Provision in place, but that has been the conversion on more of an individual basis."
The Vatican has long opposed allowing Catholic priests to marry and still does. But the Rev. Claude Pomerleau, C.S.C., thinks that the Law of Unintended Consequences will ultimately pave the way for all Catholic priests to be allowed to marry.
"Using Catholic jargon, this is how we say the Holy Spirit is working," said Pomerleau. "One of the stupidities of Catholicism is that we discriminate against women and force men into celibacy and poverty in the church clergy."
Pomerleau said that the Vatican may not be prepared for objections from former Catholic clergy.
"Can you imagine what this is telling the Catholic priests who have left the priesthood to get married?" Pomerleau asked. "That Anglicans are better, more worthy? Things are going to change eventually, although probably not in my lifetime."
Pomerleau believes this will be a slow process. But eventually, he said, people will see a married priest as something totally normal.
"I think the Holy Spirit is doing great things through this pope," Pomerleau said. "This is perhaps the most significant step of the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century."
The Holy See, namely the pope, will allow traditionalist Anglicans into the Catholic Church much more easily and with a universal method.
"As groups emerge who wish now to take advantage of this apostolic constitution, wherever in the world, they can do so in a local way in consultation with the Holy See and with the conferences in each place," said Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia of the Congregation for Divine Worship in a press statement.
Anglicans who make the conversion will still maintain their ministries and positions. While the Vatican's invitation extends to married Anglican priests, there is still a celibacy requirement for Anglican bishops.
Junior Kristina Large thinks that the decision to welcome groups of Anglicans into the Church helps prove the meaning of Catholicism.
"It seems like the Catholics are trying to be more universal," she said. "I think it's a good thing and it backs up the idea of Catholics being universal."
Sophomore Marie Fraser also believes that this change may be a good thing.
"There needs to be a balance of respect for tradition and open mindedness for the future," she said. "Pope John Paul II has shown that there is good that can come from change: Before, masses used to be in Latin, and I think it changed for the better."
The Vatican's decision will not affect the priests already within Holy Cross in relation to marriage. After all, Pomerleau said, members of the Holy Cross clergy are really monks, who have given their religious commitment and the gift of celibacy and poverty to God.
Since King Henry VIII founded the Church of England in 1543, Cameron said the two churches have developed differences, but they are still very similar.
"Naturally after the split they have created their own traditions, but how to get them back together has been in discussion especially within the past 30 to 40 years," he said.
The discontent of the traditionalist Anglicans with their church has long been an issue that the Catholic Church has tried to remedy, but until this decision, conversion has been on an individual basis. The Vatican's invitation was made in response to several inquiries from the Anglican side, and it has been welcomed by conservatives in both churches.
