Sunday, 17 February 2008

Going to Rome?

As no less than 293 "converts" go through the "Rite of Sending" this past Sunday, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster in London, you have to ask a serious question. This "Rite" is the traditional last lap in the conversion process before being received by Rome. The Rite itself goes back to the Early Church. The majority of those who went through this last week, were former members of the Church of England, and more surprising, was the fact that they were from parishes from the Diocese of London; one the Church of England's strongest Anglo-catholic Dioceses. But like the majority of the Dioceses, London had began to "conform to the World"; therefore putting many Anglican Londoners into a position of compromise, that they felt left only one door open. That being for them to make the decision of leaving the Church of England and follow their conscience and begin the process of going to Rome.
The present Pope, Benedict VI has reached out to former Anglicans more than any other Pope before him, even more so that Pope John Paul The Great. As more and more Immigrants from Former East European countries, such as Poland arrive all over the UK, especially in major cities, such as London; this high number of Converts is very encouraging for The Vatican, as it is estimated that 10-20% of all new converts are Anglican clergymen; therefore holding onto the belief that many of these will renew their vocational vows as Roman Catholic Priests, several of them taking up the unique position of joining the growing army of former Anglican, now married Roman catholic priests. As most priests in England are over-stretched, many conducting anything up to nine masses every sunday, sometimes as the solo priest, Rome are looking at ways on reducing this very heavy workload that they have to cope with.
But have all Traditional Anglicans reached a position of no return? Has the ever growing apostacy taken such a hold, that departure is the only way of being true to the faith?

No comments: