Australia: Rome for breakaway Anglicans

Barney Zwartz
December 20, 2010

ABOUT 1000 Australians are expected to join a new Anglican wing of the Catholic Church by next June, the leader of the main group of dissident Anglicans said yesterday.

A committee was set up last week to oversee the process. For the first time, Anglicans planning to switch to Rome believe they will be able to take their church properties too, which has been a stumbling block.

The conservative Anglicans have been dismayed by women's ordination in the mainstream Australian church. Under the new arrangement, they will keep their clergy, liturgy and church structures - including appointing their own bishops - as a separate Anglican ''ordinariate'' inside the Roman church.

Catholics, mainstream Anglicans and members of the breakaway Traditional Anglican Communion set up a nine-member committee last week to oversee the transition to the ordinariate by June 12. the rest