By Sandro Magister
ROME: Until Oct 19, they were entering the Catholic Church one at a time, the priests and bishops of the Anglican Communion who felt more in agreement with the pope of Rome than with the “modernist” tendencies of Anglicanism.

In the United States, to regulate these transitions, a “Pastoral Provision” had been in effect since 1980, written by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith and approved by John Paul II. Thanks to it, about 80 Anglican priests, almost all of them with wives and children, have entered the Catholic Church. And two years ago a bishop, Jeffrey Steenson, was received in a ceremony celebrated in the Roman basilica of Saint Mary Major. Steenson, 57, married with three children, was ordained a priest and incardinated into the diocese of Santa Fe, where he teaches patristics at the seminary.

These priests and bishops have also been followed by groups of faithful, through their spontaneous decision. The only case of an entire Anglican diocese entering the Church was, until now, that of Amritsar, in the Indian region of Punjab. It took place in 1975.

From now on, however, collective migration from Anglicanism to Catholicism will no longer be an exceptional event, but a normal one, thanks to the apostolic constitution that Pope Benedict XVI is preparing to publish.

The papal constitution is still being finalized. It may be published in about two weeks. But its proclamation has already been made in solemn form, on the morning of Oct 20, in two simultaneous press conferences: one in Rome, with Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, and one in London, with the primate of the Catholic Church of England and Wales, Vincent G. Nichols, and with the primate of the Anglican Communion, Rowan Williams.

In London, the two archbishops, Catholic and Anglican, also released a joint statement. This is, without question, another novel element.

Usually, in fact, when someone leaves one Christian confession and embraces another, the door is slammed shut upon departure.

This time, however, it is as if the transition has been blessed by common agreement on both sides.

This kind of harmony makes one think how close reconciliation would be today between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, if only the latter had not allowed the ordination of women and practicing homosexuals to the priesthood and the episcopate, with the ensuing dramatic divisions between those who agree and those who do not.

Once the apostolic constitution has been published, the Anglican parishes and dioceses that in recent years have knocked on Rome’s door for admission to the Catholic Church – from Great Britain, from the United States, from Australia and from other countries – will be able to do so in the ways indicated in this same constitution. Married priests and bishops, having received sacred orders, will be able to resume the practice of the priesthood, as is already the case for the married priests of the Eastern rites, including the Catholics. Their communities will be structured into “personal ordinariates” led by bishops who are not married, but celibate, another point in line with the constant practice of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Their liturgies will continue to follow the Anglican rubrics, which in any case are very similar to their Catholic counterparts.

It is estimated that there are about forty bishops and a hundred priests on the waiting list, together with their respective communities. The litmus test of conversion will be acceptance of papal primacy, and agreement with the doctrine expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In any case, the communities that are ready to enter the Catholic Church are part of the “traditionalist” wing of the Anglican Communion.

Also traditionalist are the schismatic Lefebvrist communities that Pope Benedict XVI is making increasing efforts to bring into obedience to Rome.

And also attached to the grand tradition are the Orthodox Churches which seem to be having more productive encounters with the current pontiff. From Oct 16-23 in Cyprus, the second round of dialogue – the first was in Ravenna, in 2007 – is being held between Catholics and Orthodox on the question of papal primacy, in the light of how it was lived during the first millennium.

Today more than ever, with Joseph Ratzinger as pope, the ecumenical journey seems not a pursuit of modernity, but a return to the terrain of tradition.

The following is the joint statement released in London on Oct 20 by the primates of the Anglican Communion and of the Catholic Church of England and Wales, plus background material issued the same day by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.