AUSTRALIA : PERSONAL ORDINARIATE FOR JUNE 15

ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE RELEASE

Personal Ordinariate to be established in Australia on 15 June

Monday 14 May 2012 The President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, announced on Friday 11 May that Pope Benedict XVI intends to announce the establishment in Australia of a Personal Ordinariate for Former Anglicans to commence on 15th June 2012. A Personal Ordinariate is a church structure for particular groups of people who wish to enter into communion with the Catholic Church. In 2009 Pope Benedict announced special arrangements to cater for groups of Anglicans who wished to join the Catholic Church. This provision allows them to maintain some of the traditions of prayer and worship of Anglicanism. Personal Ordinariates have already been established in the United Kingdom (2011) and the United States of America (2012). The Australian Bishops have already put in place procedures to enable clergy and lay church members to join the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate. Archbishop Hart hopes that there will be a warm welcome to those wishing to enter the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate. “I am confident that those former Anglicans who have made a journey in faith that has led them to the Catholic Church will find a ready welcome”, he said. This new community will have the status of a diocese and will be known as the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross under the patronage of St Augustine of Canterbury. SOURCE : ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE