Pope opens door for Anglicans

• Married priests get the nod to join priesthood in the Catholic Church

Pope Benedict has allowed married Anglican priests to join the priesthood in the Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict said many groups of the Anglican clergy and faithful had asked to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.

He said this in a statement released on Tuesday by Cardinal William Joseph Levanda, President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in the Vatican.

Contacted, the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) head, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala, declined to comment in detail.

“But I can say there are areas where the Catholics and the Anglicans are very close. The movements between them is not a new phenomenon, it happened during the reformation and continues to take place,” he said.

Making the announcement, Cardinal Levanda said the Catholic Church in a forthcoming document provides for the ordination of married former Anglican clerics as Catholic priests.

But the cardinal said historical and ecumenical reasons precluded the ordination of married men as bishops.

The document that is yet to be released to the public is said to seek to balance between “the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church”.

The cardinal told the press conference at the Vatican: “The unity of the church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity…”

The final phase

He said the constitution that is now in the final phase contains proposals to form personal ordinaries (dioceses) with structures similar to those of military ordinariates to take care of former Anglican faithful who have since joined the Catholic Church.

Anglican leaders, Archbishop Vincent Gerald Nichols of Westminster and Dr Rowan William, the archbishop of Canterbury, said the announcement brought to an end uncertainty for groups that had requested to enter full communion with Catholics.