Channel: America
Author: AUSTEN IVEREIGH

We’ll all have to wait on the details to see, but America Magazine, (The National Catholic Weekly) expects that the recent move by the Pope will change the tapestry of the Anglican Communion by triggering a global exodus of Anglo-Catholics to Rome.  Anecdotal evidence of the responses from American priests I know suggests that the Dallas-Fort Worth area may be the place to watch to see if such predictions are right. Most of my Anglo-Catholic acquaintances seem to be quite excited and pleased by the announcement.
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Despite this morning’s efforts by both church leaders, today’s announcement is of potentially huge significance. It is the first time a universal canonical structure has been created that allows for the gradual absorption into the Catholic Church of huge numbers of Anglicans in any part of the world. The impact of this will be highly significant. Many are highly educated, conservative in their theology and liturgy. By creating a parallel jurisdiction which helps to safeguard their identity as Anglicans, Pope Benedict has dealt with many of their key fears—and allowed for a corridor to Rome which thousands will go through over the next few years, leading to a gradual diminution of the Anglo-Catholic element in worldwide Anglicanism.
The experience of the new emigres will be closely watched by other Anglicans—and will strongly affect the prospects of long-term Anglican-Catholic unification. History is being made.

via [url=http://www.americamagazine.org]http://www.americamagazine.org[/url]
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This article in particular illustrates the self-delusional and triumphalist thinking that has pervaded early Catholic reactions. It is really hard for me to imagine that institutional American Catholicism is going to be all that happy with an influx (however small, and just exactly how many American ACs are there, anyway?) of married guys (rubbing in everyone’s face how gay American RC clergy actually are) who are openly contemptuous if not condemning of the Way Things Are Done and who are quite at home being the stone in the diocesan shoe because, after all, they’ve all had decades of practice doing it. This article could just as well be titled “Notre Dame crushes Hobart”.