VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is letting baptized Catholics join the new church structure created to receive Anglican converts.
The “ordinariate,” which functions like a diocese, was designed to enable Anglicans upset over liberalizing trends of their church to join the Catholic Church while retaining some of their Anglican heritage.
Francis modified the norms to allow Catholics who had been baptized — but not yet confirmed — to become members and receive sacraments.
The U.S. ordinariate sought leeway after getting requests from baptized Catholics who had fallen away from the church but wanted to rejoin it via the new Anglican structure to receive sacraments.
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less