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Anglican Priests Turned Catholic



Got an interesting email response from somebody regarding an old post about how the Catholic Church has special provisions which allow married Anglican priests to convert to Catholicism and still retain their priesthood. This person writes:

As a recently received convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism, where I was a priest, I can perhaps shed some light on this ‘loophole’! Firstly, like much in the Catholic Church, a lot depends on the individual bishop. There are some dioceses, like Liverpool, where there are no married ex-Anglican priests who have been ordained as Catholic priests. There are others, particularly East Anglia and Westminster where there are comparatively large numbers. There has recently been a decree from Rome that permission for ex-Anglican married priests to be ordained as Catholic priests will continue until further notice, but it is still approached with a great deal of caution and care. Reference will always be made however (I suspect) to the decisions of the Catholic bishops in 1995 when the issue first became general (see here for more). As to the business of a loophole, it is worth noting that any Catholic who worships in another Church remains a Catholic and can go back anytime with little fuss. However, if that person becomes a minister in that other Church, then they require special permission from the Pope before they can be ordained: this is definitely not automatic, as a friend of mine could testify. Hope this clears things up a little!

Thanks for the contribution. This is definitely an interesting area of strange rules that I don’t entirely grasp myself.

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2 Reader Responses

  1. Gary Kim Says:
    May 4th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

    Of the 20-something Rites within the global Catholic Church are Eastern or “Othodox” rites that have their own internal rules, such as allowing married priests. If the Eastern and Western Churches ever were to reunite, the existing rules on marital status of clergy undoubtedly would remain in force. At earlier times in the Latin rites part of the Church (what some people call the “Roman Catholic” Church), we have had married clergy. But clerical celibacy now is the preferred rule for the Latin rite.

  2. Gary Kim Says:
    May 4th, 2006 at 8:35 pm

    Also, Latin rite Catholics recognize the validity of holy orders administered in the Eastern Orthodox, Polish National, Oriental Orthodox, and Old Catholic churches and the Assyrian Church of the East because they believe those churches have maintained the apostolic succession of bishops. To wit, their bishops claim to be in a line of succession dating back to the Apostles, just as Catholic bishops do. Consequently, if a priest of one of those eastern churches converts to Catholicism, he is automatically a Catholic priest. Eastern Orthodox bishops can, and frequently do, grant recognition to the holy orders of converts who were earlier ordained in the Roman Catholic church (though there is much debate in the Orthodox Church about this); that is part of the policy called church economy.

    Anglican churches, unlike most Protestant churches, maintain what the Latin rite considers valid succession. Anglican bishops are successors of English bishops who converted to Protestantism in the 16th century. Eastern (Orthodox) bishops have, on occasion, granted “economy” when Anglican priests convert to Orthodoxy.

    The whole matter of “validity” of ordination and apostolic succession will appear arcane to outside observers, I am sure.



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