On Anglicans 'Swimming the Tiber'

Yesterady Pope Benedict XVI (J. Ratzinger) proposed a new assimilation process for Anglicans to return back to Rome and "swim the Tiber"

For Anglican leaders, the Vatican announcement is the latest minefield to manage in their ongoing effort to avoid a full-fledged schism within their 80-million-strong church, which includes 2.2 million American Episcopalians. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is juggling the gripes of Anglicans of all philosophical stripes and ecclesiastical sensibilities, most notably as battles over women and gay clergy have undermined that prized "communion" within Anglicanism for more than two decades.

Under the new structure, groups of Anglicans can move into a local Catholic Church that will be headed by former Anglican clergy, who can ease them into Catholicism without their having to kiss goodbye their own pastor or the rites they were raised on. Married Anglican priests who convert, like married priests in the Eastern Rite of Catholicism, will not be eligible to become bishops.

The Vatican's doctrinal chief, Cardinal William Levada, told reporters on Tuesday that Catholic leaders were simply responding to requests by certain Anglicans to find a comfortable home in Catholicism.

The question looming in my mind is how they can find like minds with core conservatives, and church style, but there is not much talk concerning anything related to their view of Jesus. Call me simple, but I want to hear how justification by faith alone in Christ alone comes into play between Anglicans and Catholics.

- Jeff Israely, "The Pope to Unhappy Anglicans: Come On In!" in Time, October 20, 2009. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1931193,00.html