Disaffected Anglican dioceses in Papua New Guinea, the United States and Australia might consider switching to Roman Catholicism under a new constitution offered by the pope, a traditionalist Anglican group said yesterday.
The Vatican has approved a document known as an “apostolic constitution”, which paves the way for conversion while allowing Anglicans to maintain certain traditions.
About a dozen bishops from the Church of England are also likely to convert, according to the Forward in Faith (FiF) group, a worldwide association of Anglicans opposed to the ordination of women priests or bishops.
“I would be surprised if any dioceses in England moved over but I think there are dioceses elsewhere in the Anglican Communion that might,” said Stephen Parkinson, director of FiF.
Individual dioceses would decide whether and how to make such a conversion, FiF said. Local worshippers who disagreed with such a move would be left without a diocese, the group added.
The Church of England could not comment on numbers likely to convert, with one source saying: “It’s all guesswork.”
But Mr Parkinson said a figure of 1,000 Church of England priests, reported in the media, was “credible”. Estimates of laity were more difficult, he added. “Inevitably if you say 1,000 priests you are then talking about several thousand laity.”