Vatican offer unlikely to lead to Anglican schism

December 14, 2009
by Jeff Diamant
Religion News Service
HACKENSACK, N.J.

(RNS) For five years, members of Saint Anthony of Padua Episcopal Church, a conservative parish in the largely liberal Diocese of Newark, have sought spiritual guidance from a bishop in a socially conservative diocese in South Carolina.

The reason? They oppose the liberal tendencies of the Newark diocese and their national church, which in 2003 seated an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire. The following year, St. Anthony's began periodically hosting Bishop William J. Skilton from Charleston, S.C.

The arrangement helps explain why parish members probably will not accept the Vatican's offer, made last month, to allow dissatisfied Episcopalians and Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, said the Rev.Brian Laffler, Saint Anthony's pastor.

The Episcopal Church, with about 2 million members, is the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

"We have a satisfactory situation," Laffler said. "We have the pastoral care of an authorized bishop who is sympathetic to our situation." the rest