Lassie, uh, Cranmer, Come Home!

I read it first and then three people, including my husband, sent me various links to this story about B-16 offering a fast-track-keep-yer-own-rite bulk conversion package for priests and congregations of the Anglican Communion.  The coverage on this is sketchy because so much of the rules-n-regs are pretty arcane to non-RC's.  Nevertheless, if my read of the comments on this post is correct, at least one diocese in India has already converted en masse (so to speak,) sort of a "conversion beta," and that there are forty bishops and 100 priests, with their entire communities, already at the door, or lining the banks of the Tiber.

My here's my relatively uninformed opinion:  This would have happened sooner if JPII hadn't been so frail at the end of his life.  I'm not sure how it will fly in the U.S.  Many of the very conservative Episcopal Churches here are more Evangelical Protestant, not Anglo-Catholic.  In my very limited experience here in Austin, the one church that left ECUSA put itself under the authority of an African Bishop.  My impression of that situation was that the young charismatic pastor knew he could develop a full-fledged, young congregation and did what countless non-denoms do, formed his own church, with the nominal oversight of some distant bish.  I don't see people like that submitting to Rome's authority, but I don't really know how representative he is. [Michael: please weigh in.]

One thing I do know is that the Vatican treats the Global South with a lot more respect than the Anglicans of Canada, Britain, and ECUSA do.  It's one of my areas of discontent with ECUSA.

Comments

[Michael Adams]

You are absolutely correct. Holy Trinity, now known as the Parish of Late Lamented, was quite Evangelical, even Charismatic, before they walked out. They are now, loosely, under the Rwanda Province's bishop, somewhere in the wilds of Arkansas, who leaves them alone, wisely refusing to mess with success. Those of us who declined to follow Father Good Haircut were leery of leaving behind the little restraint a Bishop would have on him. Congregational polity, Presbyterian polity, have their own lines of authority, and of restraint upon a golden boy with a large and growing following. Fr. G.H. is not going anywhere that might try to cramp his style.

[aelfheld]

Tiber or Rubicon?