NY: Anglican church considers Catholic transition

West Seneca congregation interested in pope's overtures
By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter
December 15, 2009

They worship in a former Catholic sanctuary, led by a former Catholic priest.

And if any congregation in Western New York were to take up Pope Benedict XVI's recent landmark overture to Anglicans, it most likely would be St. Nicholas Anglican Church in West Seneca.

The small, "Anglo-Catholic" congregation uses a liturgy that mirrors a traditional Catholic Mass, adheres to a male-only clergy and has parishioners open to the possibility of entering into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

"This would be very typically the type of congregation the pope is targeting," said the Rev. Gene Bagen, rector of St. Nicholas. the rest