Recently, the Vatican made an announcement that it would welcome in larger numbers Anglicans and Episcopalians who wish to join the Roman Catholic Church.

Cardinal William Levada, the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, made the announcement, and was accompanied by a representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. 

 A brief history: Catholic England became divided from its communion with the Pope in Rome in the sixteenth century when King Henry VIII was denied an annulment from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

In the 17th century, the Puritan movement in England brought the Anglican Church further away from its Roman Catholic roots, but a revival of traditionalism in the 19th century restored many of its ancient Catholic practices.

Nevertheless, in the 1890s, Pope Leo XIII declared that the Anglican sacraments and priesthood were “null and void,” casting deeper doubt as to whether Rome and Canterbury would ever be in communion again.

The idea that Anglicans can join and have joined the Catholic Church is nothing new; in fact, since 1980, married Anglican/Episcopalian clergy have been able to become Roman Catholics and remain married priests in the Catholic Church.

The difference with this new arrangement is that entire congregations, even whole dioceses, could conceivably join the Catholic Church together. The Vatican would create what it calls ordinariates for those groups who wish to become Catholic.

This means that former Anglican bishops can become Catholic bishops and have congregations or parishes affiliated with them, and are still able to use the Anglican prayer books and worship services that they are familiar with. Priests who were married as Anglicans could then become married Catholic priests, and serve in these parishes.

The Vatican stated that this announcement should in no way be interpreted as a retreat from the ongoing dialogue of the last 40 plus years between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Williams himself said that it was just “business as usual.”

This new arrangement could change the relationship between the two churches in a number of ways, however. For example, bringing the riches of the Anglican tradition with its elaborate ritual may well serve to spur liturgical change in the Catholic way of celebrating Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours — the daily cycle of praying or chanting the Psalms.

 The potential influx in much larger numbers of married former Anglican clergy into Catholic communion could also serve to bring change to the discipline of clerical celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church.

Many of those Anglicans who are seeking to join the Catholic church are doing so because they disagree with the decisions of the Anglican Communion to allow the ordination of women as priests and bishops, and the decision of the Episcopal Church in this country to ordain openly gay clergy.

Hopefully these disagreements will not drive a further wedge between Catholics and Anglicans, who in an increasingly secular world share a common witness to the Christian tradition, as well as very similar patterns of worship and prayer.