I think that many of the disaffected Anglicans, both priests and lay, are going to think twice before taking advantage of this offer from Rome. There is already in place a new structure in the US of a diocese of the Southern Cone headed by an archbishop from S. America (I think); other churches and a few of the disaffected churches and dioceses have also allied themselves with conservative Anglican archbishops from Africa. There is a big difference between disapproving of women and gay priests and accepting the supremacy of the pope and the role of Mary in the RCC. Married Anglican bishops will have to settle for becoming priests, after a suitable stretch at an RCC seminary, I suspect, or entering the laity.
Archbishop Hume of the UK predicted a vast exodus of Anglican priests after the ordination of women in the 1970’s, between 500-1000 of them; no such vast exodus occurred. Priests and a few bishops did leave, many of them elderly or retired.
What Rome did not foresee and which is very likely to happen, is that Catholic would-be seminarians will join the Anglican rite, which will be far more accessible than the Eastern rites, and from there will be able to marry and become Anglican rite priests, who can also serve in ‘generic’ RC churches. This may serve as an unintended partial solution to the priest shortage.
As to visiting Anglican rite churches, cradle Catholics can do so, but may find a very different atmosphere than in their own churches. One reason that the Episcopal Church is so small in the US is that it’s an exclusive club (for the most part) of white, affluent, well-educated people, who are (maybe unintentionally) snooty. This must be particularly so of the conservatives who adhere to the old Book of Common Prayer with its King James language (“it is meet and right so to do”) who will be the main converts. This may result in the creation of a new Country Club rite of small, tony churches representing small affluent enclaves within the dioceses.
I suspect that there will be no net increase in the number of Catholics from this new approach by Rome, which some have likened to fishing in the Anglican pond. As the RCC becomes more conservative, there will be a growing exodus of liberal Catholics who have for years swelled the ranks of the Protestant churches, the UU’s and Quakers, and yes, the Episcopal Church in the US. There are some Episcopal churches in the US that consist mainly of former Catholics.
It seems like allowing married priests to be Catholic priests but not allowing Catholic priests to marry will cause a lot of tension and problems.
