From CNA:
A new report reveals that significant numbers of Anglican clergy have converted to Catholicism in the United Kingdom since 1992.
The report, “Convert Clergy in the Catholic Church in Britain,” released Nov. 20, shows that approximately 700 clergy and religious of the Church of England, Church in Wales, and Scottish Episcopal Church have been received into the Catholic Church since 1992. The number includes 16 former Anglican bishops. This equates to approximately a third of all Catholic priests ordained in England and Wales during this period.
Speaking to CNA, co-author Stephen Bullivant, professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St. Mary’s Catholic University, London, said he was “really quite surprised” by the high numbers, “especially the [convert] ordinations as a proportion of all ordinations.”
“The numbers,” Bullivant added, “are much larger than most people would imagine. It was a much bigger phenomenon than a lot of people thought.”
He called the “steady stream” of former Anglican clergy converting “a very major source of Catholic vocations.”
Bullivant, who is also director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St. Mary’s, identified two “big waves” as major factors in pushing Anglican clergy to convert.
First was the Church of England’s general synod vote in 1992, which enabled women to be ordained as vicars, and second the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain in 2010. This high-profile visit was preceded by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, which permitted the creation of “personal ordinariates for those Anglican faithful who desire to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church in a corporate manner.”
