Time for Rome to rescue Christians trapped in the Anglo-Catholic wreckage

By Damian Thompson
August 6th, 2009

Here is an article I’ve written in the new issue of The Catholic Herald, inspired by reports that Forward in Faith is – finally – in serious talks with the Vatican. Thanks to Luke Coppen for letting me reproduce it here.

A few months ago I witnessed a little miracle: an Anglican friend of mine was received into the Church. It was a miracle because this particular friend had been adamant that he would not become a “Roman”, despite his love of traditional Catholic liturgy. There were many factors in his change of heart, but two words explain why he suddenly took the plunge: Pope Benedict.

At the centre of my friend’s Christianity is public worship, and (so far as I can judge from many conversations with him) the main reason he did not leave the Church of England is that he could not accept the claims of a Church which did not get its worship right. His objection was not to Vatican II, but to a casual approach to the celebration of Mass that made it harder to believe in the unique universal status of the Roman Church. the rest