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AUSTRALIA: Rome for breakaway Anglicans
by Barney Zwartz
http://www.theage.com.au/national/rome-for-breakaway-anglicans-20101219-191xn.html
December 20, 2010
ABOUT 1000 Australians are expected to join a new Anglican wing of the Catholic Church by next June, the leader of the main group of dissident Anglicans said yesterday.
A committee was set up last week to oversee the process. For the first time, Anglicans planning to switch to Rome believe they will be able to take their church properties too, which has been a stumbling block.
The conservative Anglicans have been dismayed by women's ordination in the mainstream Australian church. Under the new arrangement, they will keep their clergy, liturgy and church structures - including appointing their own bishops - as a separate Anglican "ordinariate" inside the Roman church. Advertisement: Story continues below
Catholics, mainstream Anglicans and members of the breakaway Traditional Anglican Communion set up a nine-member committee last week to oversee the transition to the ordinariate by June 12.
TAC leader Archbishop John Hepworth said provided Anglican priests and congregations did not resign, they might be able to show "beneficial ownership" and keep the properties when they moved.
He said that in England the Archbishop of Canterbury was allowing departing Anglicans to keep using their properties, and he hoped the Australian church would too. "It would be the tolerant and godly thing to do."
He said the ordinariate would have churches in all Australian capital cities and many regional and rural places.
The TAC has 400,000 members worldwide but only 700 in Australia.
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