Det ser ut til at den nye ordninga for anglikanerne gir en permanent åpning for gifte prester

Jeg er blitt gjort oppmerksom på et intervju i ei australsk avis med lederen for hele TAC (Traditional Anglican Communion), erkebiskop John Hepworth, der han bl.a. sier følgende om det nye personal-ordinariatet:

JH: Bishops in the new Anglican structure will be unmarried. This is out of respect for the tradition of Eastern and Western Christianity. But priests who come from Anglicanism will be able to serve as priests in the new structure, whether married or not, after satisfying certain requirements. The truly radical element is that married men will be able to be ordained priests in the Anglican structure indefinitely into the future. It is anticipated that Anglican bishops who are married when they joined the new structure will still be able to serve as priestly ordinaries, exercising some of the responsibilities of bishops. … …

Qr: Critics … will be hard pressed to explain the fact that the Pope is prepared to create a parallel jurisdiction with married Catholic priests. Even more surprisingly, the option won’t just extend to the present crop of married men in Anglican orders, which most observers expected, but to future generations of clergy.

JH: The Anglican tradition has had married clergy for 500 years. It has a long experience of having a clerical family at the heart of the parish. Apart from Ireland, it was only with the expansion of the British Empire that the situation arose where married Anglican clergy worked in the same place as celibate Catholic clergy. The two traditions will continue to live side by side. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine how an Anglican tradition within Catholicism could sustain itself in the long term without married clergy. Permitting it is not in any way intended as a challenge to the rule of celibacy, but it is allowing the vision of a family at the heart of the parish to flourish at a time when the family is under great stress. On the other hand, Anglican Catholics are going to have to relearn the value of the celibate vocation. The TAC already has a number of celibate bishops and celibate communities of priests and nuns, so perhaps the lesson has begun to be learned.

Det fins også flere andre interessant ting i dette intervjuet, bl.a. dette om pave Benedikts økumeniske holdning: It is, I think, a product of the serene confidence of this Pope, someone who passionately believes that unifying the Christian world is something demanded by God.

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