More on the Anglican Apostolic Constitution

“My broad vision is to see the end of the Reformation of the 16th century," Archbishop John Hepworth, head of the Traditional Anglican Communion, a breakaway Anglican group, told me back in 2005.

Together with his bishops, all of whom left the Anglican Communion over the issue of women priests, he was determined to blaze a trail back to Rome and take like-minded Anglicans with him.

After much discussion and head-banging, a significant step was made towards that goal last week after Pope Benedict XVI announced he was preparing a provision which would facilitate large groups of disaffected Anglicans (Episcopalians in the U.S.) to come into communion with Rome.

Such an initiative has been under consideration for at least four years, but only in the past year has the Holy See, strongly backed by the Pope, seriously taken it forward as requests for some kind of structure sharply increased. It’s true that the Vatican only informed Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, about the precise nature of this provision only two weeks before last Monday’s announcement.

What was not said, however, was that Dr. Williams has known this was on the cards for at least two years. He was said to be implacably opposed to it, but really had no choice but to give it his blessing. This new provision breaks with traditional ecumenical dialogue that has taken place over the past 40 years. Instead, it is a kind of “ecumenism through the back door” or, as some might prefer to see it, a fast track to corporate union with the Catholic Church without vacuous theological discussions.

It may even become the only viable form of ecumenical dialogue between the two confessions in the future. Past dialogue helped build cordiality and friendship, but as worldwide Anglicanism drifted further and further away from Catholic doctrine, it did little more than comfort the Anglican Communion as it has continued towards its demise.

It’s still not clear how many traditionalist Anglicans will want to cross the Tiber and be received into the Catholic Church under this new structure. The Traditional Anglican Communion alone is said to have 400,000 members and is growing. It has a province stretching from Guatemala to Argentina, with a large presence in Colombia and Chile formerly made up of Episcopalian missionaries. It is also regularly welcoming new parishes and dioceses in southern India. Numbers of traditionalist Anglicans from groups such as Forward in Faith in the U.K. are said to be in their hundreds.

Once these structures are in place, these numbers are likely to grow, especially if the Anglican Communion continues to be largely led and controlled by theological liberals. Forward in Faith has just been having a meeting in London to discuss the Pope’s provision. Hepworth, meanwhile, is having each of his national synods vote on the Pope’s plan, and expects all his bishops to unanimously approve it. He is delighted with the new provision. “Everyone thought it would be a minimal deal,” he said. “But it’s a maximal deal, a glorious deal.”

Symbolically, and with sweet irony for Australian Hepworth, the first such synod likely to approve it will be England’s, the birthplace of Anglicanism, at a meeting on Thursday.