Dublin, Ireland, Oct 26, 2007 / 12:30 pm
Three Church of Ireland parishes have asked to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church, The Irish Catholic newspaper reports this week. The decision would pave the way for over 400,000 Anglicans to become Catholic.
The parishes, located in the counties Down, Tyrone and Laois, are members of the traditional rite of the Church of Ireland. The rite emerged in 1991 after the House of Bishops of the Church of Ireland decided to start ordaining women. Traditionalist Anglicans rejected this decision as a "defiance of both Scripture and Tradition."
A plenary meeting of the Traditional Anglican Communion, the umbrella organization for traditionalist parishes, decided to petition Rome to be received into full communion with the Holy See. While only a few hundred Anglicans in Ireland will be affected if an agreement is reached, the Traditional Anglican Communion itself has over 400,000 members who could all join the Catholic Church.
According to a statement from the Traditional Anglican Communion, "the bishops and vicars-general unanimously agreed to the text of a letter to the See of Rome seeking full, corporate, sacramental union."