By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
With the Church of England on the verge of ordaining women priests for the first time, five bishops who oppose the move have become the first wave of defectors from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism.
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that Bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton, John Broadhurst, Edwin Barnes and David Silk are planning to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate for England and Wales.
The five bishops expressed their dismay at the liberal reforms being made to the Church of England in recent decades and are hoping to join the English Ordinariate which has been created by Pope Benedict XVI specifically to accommodate disaffected Anglicans who are unable to accept women bishops.
In the meantime, the five bishops will cease all pastoral work, which includes oversight of Anglican parishes that are opposed to women priests, but will officially remain in their posts until the end of year.
The bishops are expected to be among an estimated 500 people who will join the Ordinariate in what is being called the “first wave” of defections.
Thus far, the parish of St. Peter’s in Folkestone has become the first full congregation to declare publicly that it intends to join the Ordinariate.
Other parishes are also considering the move. Fr David Elliott, parish priest at Holy Trinity in Reading, told the Telegraph that many traditional Anglo-Catholics felt “squeezed” by reforms which would pave the way for the ordination of women as bishops in the Church of England for the first time.
“For congregations like this it is a big moment in their history,” he said. “These decisions aren’t made lightly. I haven’t resigned but I don’t see that there can be a future for Catholics within the Church of England.
“My own future I think does lie in the Roman Catholic Church but I can’t say when that will be. Obviously I have got to weigh up my responsibilities to the congregation.”
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