| International News

Some say an announcement could be made soon after Easter this year. Is it true?

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) – UPDATED: Catholic Online promised to up date our readers on this extraordinary story. So, we now pass this on: The National Catholic Register cites a "Vatican Source" as saying that "nothing's been decided" by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Reports abound that the Congregation has recommended the creation of a personal prelature as the vehicle through which to receive the members of the Traditional Anglican Communion into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Register contends that an official at the Congregation spoke with their correspondent Edward Pentin today saying,“It’s something that has appeared on the blogosphere and then been reiterated, but the truth is nothing’s been decided.” We set forth our original story below believing that the sources reporting this exciting news and the history of the dialogue support its accuracy.

********

For many years I have been covering the stories of members of the Anglican Clergy who have been so deeply disappointed with the move away from orthodoxy within their own community. Among them are many who are being drawn by the beauty of the Catholic Church into full communion. I am particularly happy to cover their journey because I understand it so well. I want to take some time in the first part of this article to share of my own journey home to the Church. I do so because it explains my deep excitement over this wonderful news of our brethren coming into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

I am a “revert” myself, having wandered my way back into the fullness of Catholic faith as a young man in search of truth. Though I was baptized as a Catholic, I wandered, as do so many young people and had to find my way home. When I did, I found the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus Christ, waiting with outstretched arms. As I followed Him, I discovered the simple but profound truth of the words first spoken by Cyprian and repeated for over two millennia: “Whoever has God for his Father has the Church for his mother”. The Church is the Body of Christ and discovering that truth - and then finding one’s place within her loving, sacramental communion - is that treasure in the field.

In a world filled with instability, the solid rock of Peter is a true anchor. In an age given over to the emptiness of relativism the compass of the Magisterium, the teaching office of the Catholic Church, points true north. She invites all who seek to find their way into the clarity of communion with what St. Augustine called “the whole Christ”, the Church, to come. We can be sort of like "road signs" along their pathway, helping them on the journey. Long ago I discovered the deeper truth contained within the Lord’s admonition “You did not choose me but I chose you.” (John 15:16) If this is the Lord’s Church than He alone is the One who draws men and women into her safe harbor.

I love the legitimate diversity within the proper adherence to orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the one Catholic Church. I serve as both a Roman Catholic and a Byzantine Catholic Deacon. I am at home in the Divine Liturgy, the Latin Rite Liturgy (Ordinary or Extraordinary Rite) or even the Anglican use Liturgy which is now celebrated by many Anglicans who have walked the way of the Pastoral Provision set up by the late Servant of God John Paul II accompanied by their entire parish community. My own theological leanings are Eastern Christian and I also long for the day when the “two lungs”, both East and West, breathe together again in the One Church. As a son of the Catholic Church I am happy to now report some “good news” about her growth, her renewal and her important work in this new missionary age of the Third Millennium.

Reliable sources confirm that the ongoing dialogue between the Holy See and the Traditional Anglican Communion may soon bear historic fruit in Church history. The reports I have read first circulated out of Australia, again from reliable sources. Then they were carried on the dependable, refreshingly orthodox and ever insightful Web Blog “Creative Minority Report'. They are now confirmed by Damien Thompson of the London Telegraph in his “Holy Smoke” column which is a must read. Damien Thompson’s reporting is always reliable and so I set forth his account of this breaking story below:

“The Pope is preparing to offer the Traditonal Anglican Communion, a group of half a million dissident Anglicans, its own personal prelature by Rome, according to reports this morning. History may be in the making", reports The Record. "It appears Rome is on the brink of welcoming close to half a million members of the Traditional Anglican Communion into membership of the Roman Catholic Church. Such a move would be the most historic development in Anglican-Catholic relations in the last 500 years. But it may also be a prelude to a much greater ...