This is excellent.....it will exclude ex-Catholics like Broadhurst and former catholic priests like Hepworth from being ordained.

The right to ordination for married men , means converts of course..surely an Anglican theological student who becomes convinced of the truth of Catholicism should be accepted as well.

I like the fact non-bishops can apply for episcopal insignia... like Abbesses who had croziers.

I just can't see many Anglicans or quasi anglicans ( a la TAC) taking this up.

Furthermore the Anglican tradition the Vatican welcomes is thoroughly excised of Cranmer's Protestantism! So is it actually authentically Anglican?

"Priests will be permitted to have a 'secular' job outside the Church, with the permission of their ordinary - perhaps a concession to the reality that at least in the beginning, these ordinariates are likely to struggle with financial resources" - National Catholic reporter -

As was always expected - at least by the R.C. authorities who will no doubt be supervising these 'Anglican Ordinariates' - departing Clergy from the Church of England would have to be really motivated to give up their livelihood and vicarages for the doubtful security of a Roman Catholic future. This will surely be the most acid test of their dissatisfaction with their present circumstances. Time alone will tell how many will be brave enough to 'put their money where their mouths are', at the moment.

"There is more good news for old men in the document. Former Anglican bishops, even married ones, are given special recognition. They may petition the Pope for an episcopal coat of arms; and, if they become Ordinaries - which is to say they will function as is they were bishops"
- Graham Kings, Reform -

So, the Bishop of Rome must have been reading on this site about the concern of Anglican bishops who want to move away from Anglicanism into the new ordinariates; to the point where he has given way on their desire to remain bishops in the new dispensation. No doubt though, they will still - like their clerical counterparts - have to be re-'ordained' to become 'real bishops'.

I do hope, though, that the C.of E. will not cede the historic arms of the Dioceses of Winchester, Durham and Rochester to the new R.C. Ordinariates in the process.

Robert Ian Williams; are you looking to receive Holy Orders from Rome, via your own Anglican theological education in New Zealand? You could still be ordained thereinto as a married man under the new provenance.

I'm wondering whether I'm wrong in seeing a likeness between the Vatican's Apostolic Constitution and a certain offer made a year or two ago by Archbishop Williams to +John Howe of Central Florida and other disaffected TEC dioceses.

++Rowan's offer seemed to give +Howe and his diocese a way to bypass their national church, TEC, altogether. Instead, they could join themselves directly, as a diocese, to what ++Rowan keeps wanting to call the "Anglican Church." This offer would be extended to +Howe and his diocese, and to other conservative and disaffected dioceses, in the event that TEC refused to sign the Anglican Covenant or were to be otherwise disciplined, sidelined, reduced to the second tier, or whatever phrase is now current.

This really does sound similar to the Apostolic Constitution offered by the Pope to FiF dioceses, who can now join themselves, as dioceses, directly to the Roman Catholic Church, keeping their bishop and at least some of their rites. The offer is extended to disaffected Anglicans who reject the ordination of women, and in particular the consecration of women as bishops, by the Church of England.

I do think I see a similarity here. Any thoughts from others?

Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, has commented on the Fulcrum forum on this issue

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?thread=13995

I mentioned in my Guardian article and Fulcrum newsletter the suggestion from a Catholic commentator that the name of the Personal Ordinariate be linked to John Henry Newman. Yesterday, the day of the publication of the Apostolic Constitution, Vincent Nichols, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, chaired a press conference in London. He introduced Jack Sullivan, the American deacon who was healed following Sullivan's prayer to Newman, after seeing a television programme about him. Riazat Butt has written an article in The Guardian today, 10 November 2009, 'US deacon claims miracle cure by 19th century British cleric'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/09/us-deacon-claims-miracle-cure

Please leave Newman out of it.

Check this out:

http://www.sevenwholedays.org/2009/10/30/traffic-jam-in-the-tiber/#more-1681

What looks like a bishop, talks like a bishop, acts like a bishop, dresses like a bishop, but isn't a bishop?
OOh I know it's a former Anglican Bishop who has joined Rome, and whose orders are utterly invalid, except for those former Anglicans whose job it is for him to keep in order, while the RC bishop does the 'proper' bishoping.
I am not a bishop, but I have a mitre, and like dressing up. In what way would I be any less or more of a bishop that a new RC/Anglican one?
Perhaps the difference is ONLY in the mind of the former Anglicans, whereas the Roman Catholics would see us both as masquerading fantasists in our own wonderland

"This really does sound similar to the Apostolic Constitution offered by the Pope to FiF dioceses, who can now join themselves, as dioceses, directly to the Roman Catholic Church, keeping their bishop and at least some of their rites. The offer is extended to disaffected Anglicans who reject the ordination of women" - Charlotte -

I think you will find, Charlotte, that the ABC did not actually offer any sort of 'Ordinariate'
to dissident dioceses of TEC. That was largely a figment of Bishop Howe's imagination - plus, of course, presse speculation at the time. What Archbishop Rowan was 'thinking aloud' about, was how the institutional structure of the Church revolved around the place of the bishop, as head of a diocese. As far as I am aware, he never did actually promise Bishop Howe a special & unique relationship to the world-wide Communion if he were to depart the jursidiction of TEC.

In any event, it is most unlikely that a diocese, on its own, would ever be taken into the care of the Anglican Communion, per se. This is where the Anglican Communion's position differs from that of the Roman Pontiff's proposals.

And, although the Pope would dearly love it if any individual diocese were to secede from the protection of any of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion, it is not likely to happen - certainly in England, where the Constitution would simply not allow it. Besides, there is no way that a current diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion would be allowed to act as a fuilly-fledged bishop in the new ordinariates. They would only be considered by Rome to become *retired* bishops, with no executive power in the Roman Catholic Church.

This is even going to be a problem for the so-called 'Traditional Anglican Church', which is contemplating transferring holus-bolus into the new ordinariates. The head of this non-Anglican Church, Australian Archbishop John Hepworth, will not be able to act as even a bishop - precisely because of his having been divorced and remarried.

...which is where Newman ended his career: OUT OF IT!

Fr. Shawn said "...which is where Newman ended his career: OUT OF IT!"

Unlike Cardinal Manning, who got around. Anyway, there are those of us who would be tempted to consider the Birmingham Oratory an equally seminal institution to a diocese.

ITEM: There are not actually going to be very many of these ordinariates, only one per country, most likely, and far from every country. It is not impossible that there will be enough unmarried or widowed former Anglican Bishops qualified to be consecrated in the Roman Church and so staff them. But in any case, this move is not going to create a whole lot of clerical job openings in the RCC.

".......which is where Newman ended his career: OUT OF IT!" - Fr. Shawn -

But at least, this was once a 'great Anglican' who, though he became a Roman Catholic, knew all about, and celebrated, 'Special Friendships' -which is something denied to present-day R.C.s.

Also interesting; that the Pope will proclaim special status for this ex-Anglican - so soon after his (B.'s) proclamation of special Anglican Ordinariates. Talk about duplicity.

Irony - Anglican Bishops who can't stand the notion of women serving as "real" bishops escape the heresy by going to Rome where they won't be able to serve as "real" bishops.

Some things do seem too good to be true.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Randall