Church Historian (and Episcopalian) Diana Butler Bass is not so surprised about the recent announcements from the Vatican”
Vatican Woos Conservative Anglicans: This is News?
By Diana Butler Bass writing in her BeliefNet blog
This week, the Vatican announced that it would make it easier for conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians–those uncomfortable with women priests and accepting gay people–to join the Roman Catholic Church. The move surprised Anglican leaders who, evidently, had no idea that the Vatican planned a massive sheep-stealing campaign. The news sparked lively–and sometimes mean-spirited–debate in both print and online media.
Most stories pointed to the historic nature of the Vatican’s action. Evidently, not since the Protestant Reformation has Rome invited so many of its former children to come home. There have been many remarkable individual “returns” of Anglicans to the Roman Catholic Church–most notably the English theologian John Henry Newman or the American bishop Levi S. Ives in the nineteenth century. But historians strain to remember a mass invitation like this one.
Reporters, however, have missed something important… >>>>