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Forward in Faith Australia, part of an Anglo-Catholic group that also has members in Britain and America, has voted to leave the Anglican Church. It is setting up a working group, guided by Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott, on how best to move to Catholicism.
On February 13 the group unanimously voted to investigate setting up an Ordinariate in Australia and has “set in train the processes necessary for establishing an Australian Ordinariate” through the working group, the Telegraph online has reported.
It is believed to be the first group within the Anglican church to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s unprecedented offer for disaffected members of the Communion to convert en masse while retaining parts of their spiritual heritage, the report said.
The Rt Rev David Robarts OAM, chairman of FIF Australia, said members of the association felt excluded by the Anglican Church in Australia, which had not provided them with a bishop to champion their conservative views on homosexuality and women bishops.
“In Australia we have tried for a quarter of a decade to get some form of episcopal oversight but we have failed,” he told The Telegraph.
“We’re not really wanted any more, our conscience is not being respected.”
Bishop Robarts, 77, said it had become clear that Anglicans who did not believe in same-sex partnerships or allowing women to be ordained as bishops had no place in the “broader Anglican spectrum”.
“We’re not shifting the furniture, we’re simply saying that we have been faithful Anglicans upholding what Anglicans have always believed and we’re not wanting to change anything, but we have been marginalised by people who want to introduce innovations.
“We need to have bishops that believe what we believe.”
FULL STORY
Australia’s traditional Anglicans vote to convert to Catholicism (telegraph.co.uk)
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