Canadian Anglicans to Swim the Tiber

From Catholic News Agency

Vancouver, Canada, Jul 28, 2010 / 01:10 am (CNA).- ''With “overwhelming support,” a recent meeting of leaders in the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) voted to unite with the Roman Catholic Church through the Apostolic Constitution created by Pope Benedict XVI.

The ACCC, part of the Continuing Anglican Movement, is made up of more than two dozen congregations. Its Eighth Provincial Synod and Thirteenth Diocesan Synod were held simultaneously at the Rosemary Heights Retreat Center in Surrey, British Columbia.

The website VirtueOnline.org published a letter from Dean Shane B. Janzen detailing the event.

The meeting was attended by four ACCC bishops, including Bishop Peter Wilkinson, the communion’s Metropolitan and Ordinary. Archbishop John Hepworth, the Australia-based Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), was also present.

The discussion included the House of Clergy and the House of Laity and focused on the implementation of a proposed Canadian Anglican Catholic Ordinariate under the Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus.”

Support for the Ordinariate was unanimous in the House of Clergy and received 25 of 30 votes from lay delegates, with two members opposing the proposal and three abstaining.

The synod then passed a resolution enabling Bishop Wilkinson, with the advice and consent of the Provincial Council, to enact the necessary canonical ordinances and rules to establish the Ordinariate.

The House of Clergy elected members of the Interim Governing Council, which nominated and elected Bishop Wilkinson as the first Bishop Ordinary of the proposed Ordinariate.

According to Dean Janzen’s letter, the Diocesan Council also made financial changes to ensure that the diocese’s restricted funds are protected from “any potential litigation.”

Dean Janzen wrote that the focus of the synod was “the worship and praise of Almighty God; the proclamation of Christ's saving Truth; and faithful witness to the faith, order and discipline to Christ's one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”

He reported that attendees left with “a renewed sense of optimism for the future and a clear vision for the present.”

“With the overwhelming support of clergy and laity for unity with the See of Peter and the establishment of a Canadian Anglican Catholic Ordinariate, our Diocese is now able to move forward united, renewed, and hopeful,” his letter read, according to VirtueOnline.''

Let us pray for these soon to be Catholics that they will bring their zeal for the Faith to their brothers. These will be true Catholics, of the Latin Church, contary to the assertion of the media that they will be some kind of 'half-Anglican, half Roman Catholic'. Let us hope that many will follow them...

Sancta Maria, Mater Ecclesiae, Ora Pro Nobis