Scottish Catholic Observer

Pope Benedict XVI has established a US ordinariate for Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church.

The Holy Father announced on New Year’s Day that the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter will be led by Fr Jeffrey Steenson, the former Episcopal bishop of the Rio Grande who was ordained a Catholic priest for Santa Fe Archdiocese in February 2009.

Following UK lead

The US ordinariate is the second such jurisdiction established under the provisions of Pope Benedict’s 2009 Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, following the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the UK in January 2011.

The establishment of the new ordinariate, which is functionally equivalent to a diocese, was welcomed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who was asked by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to be its delegate for the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus in the US.

Cardinal Wuerl said the ordinariate was ‘the fulfilment of the hopes of many Anglicans in the US who have longed and prayed for reconciliation with the Catholic Church while retaining cherished elements of the Anglican patrimony.’

New ordinary

The cardinal added that Fr Steenson ‘brings to the position of ordinary great pastoral and administrative experience, along with his gifts as a theologian.’

Fr Steenson and his wife, Debra, have three grown children and a grandson. Because he is married, Fr Steenson (above) will not be ordained a bishop and will not be able to ordain priests. He will, however, otherwise function as a bishop and will be a voting member of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

The priest said that while the Episcopal Church spoke of the importance of Christian unity, it continued to approve practices, ordaining women priests and bishops, ordaining homosexuals and blessing same-sex unions, that everyone knew would be an obstacle to Christian unity.

“The frustration with being a Protestant is that every morning you get up and have to reinvent the church all over again,” he said.

Membership

More than 100 former Anglican priests have applied to become Catholic priests in the new US ordinariate and 1400 individuals from 22 communities have expressed interest in joining. Last autumn, the members of St Luk’s, Bladensburg, Maryland and St Peter of the Rock community, Fort Worth, Texas, were received into the Catholic Church with the intention of joining the ordinariate.

Similar structures for Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church are being considered in Canada and Australia.