The Anglican Ordinariate will happen; and it will be a blessing for the English Church

But don’t hold your breath: it will take years
By William Oddie
Friday, 13 August 2010

This is probably as good a time as any to assess progress towards the setting up, under the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, of an Anglican ordinariate here in England. Things seem to be moving faster elsewhere in the English-speaking world: The American Branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion has already formally requested the setting up of an ordinariate in the US: this will now proceed. But the TAC is already independent of Canterbury: they have already made the psychological break. Anglican Catholics within the Anglican Communion are still agonising. It seems sometimes, to those on the outside, that they have been agonising forever. Why don’t they just get on with it?

Well, it’s simple for us who are safe on the rock of Peter. I became a Catholic in 1991 (before women’s ordination; I used to joke that I came early to avoid the rush). Looking back, I often wonder what took me so long: like nearly every other ex-Anglican Roman Catholic I know, I have never once regretted “crossing the Tiber”. the rest