Toronto Anglican converts join the Roman Catholic tradition
OSHAWA, Ont. - On the third Sunday of Easter inside the walls of St. Gregory’s Catholic Church 12 new brothers and sisters, all former Anglicans, were welcomed into the Roman Catholic faith.
“The Lord receives you into the Catholic Church,” said Bishop Vincent Nguyen, marking the end of each conversion as the converts knelt before the altar after taking their final steps as Anglicans. With gentle hands Nguyen placed the seal of the Lord on the converts who then rose as Catholics.
Canadian Anglican groups welcomed into Catholic Church
OTTAWA - Bishops in Ottawa and Victoria received two groups from the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) into the Roman Catholic Church April 15, including two former ACCC bishops and about a half dozen clergy.
"Today, the Body of Christ is a little more healed, a little more unified," Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast told more than 700 people who packed St. Patrick's Basilica. "Today, after half a millennium, separated brethren are separated no more. We are brethren, rejoicing at the same banquet table. Hallelujah."
Rejoice in the day the Lord has made
OTTAWA - “I have never been in a church this big,” said one soon-to-be ex-Anglican priest to Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa in the sacristy of St. Patrick’s Basilica on Divine Mercy Sunday.
The occasion was a solemn Mass in the “Anglican Use” to receive some 40 members of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada into full communion with the Catholic Church. The several dozen new Catholics will form a quasi-parish that, while fully Catholic, will celebrate the Eucharist according to approved liturgical books which draw upon their Anglican heritage.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - About 140 ex-Anglicans and their Catholic friends spent March 24 to 26 getting a feel for what may turn out to be their new spiritual home in the Roman Catholic Church.
A conference on Anglicanorum Coetibus at Queen of Apostles Renewal Centre in Mississauga gave people an up-close look at what a future personal ordinariate for former Anglicans might look like.
Until now, Catholic-leaning Anglicans have found themselves with a choice between a "theologically alien though culturally familiar" church, or jumping to a Roman Catholic Church that is culturally alien though theologically secure, Dominican theologian and historian Fr. Aidan Nichols told the conference. A former Anglican himself, Nichols said there is more to feeling at home in a church than theological agreement.