flameburns623:
I think the point of the split in the Anglican Communion–if it actually emerges–is that most taditonalist Anglicans DON’T WANT to join the RCC. They want to be Anglicans in an orthodox Anglican communion. I doubt if even the 30,000 members of the TAC will follow en masse into the RCC–the TAC will more likely splinter, with only a minority going into the RCC. But I’m not actually familiar with the TAC so will wait and see.
Flameburns:
According to the Anglican Communion, excluding all the various dissident groups no longer in union with the Abp. of Canterbury, There are 77 million Anglicans worldwide. If even only 50% of them are still orthodox, that’s 38 million (most of these are in the Global South or CAPA). Add to that number the 5 million or so orthodox Anglicans who left in various waves after 1976 (PECUSA Sanctioned the Ordination of Women Priests), and you have 43 million Anglicans looking for a home. Of those 43 Million, 25% describe themselves as Anglo-Catholic, “High-Church” or sympathetic to Rome… That’s how I got the probable final wave of 10 million Anglicans worldwide would be heading towards Rome, which was probably low.
Let’s say I was wrong and that only a 1/4 of the “Anglo-Catholics” were serious enough to make the trip, that’s still over 2.5 million. How are you going to provide for them?
Those are the people you have to provide for. and, What if, as has been prophesied by one of the Saints, the orthodox Anglicans and their clergy in England all decide to become Catholic?
I must admit, I’m much more concerned about this wave, and, I suspect, so is the Pope, who, I believe, wants to be able to get as many faithful Catholics out of it and into the Catholic Church as possible.
Regarding your figures, Abp. Hepworth and others who are far more familiar with the TAC would beg to differ. They believe that about 285,000 of the TAC’s 500,000 members would be making the swim. There are also several other Anglican dissident groups,most of which I’m not at liberty to discuss as they haven’t released this information, who have expressed much more than passing interest in joining us for making the swim, or coming after things have been worked out. Remember, we’re NOT only discussing Anglicans in N. America, but we’re also discussing Anglicans worldwide who’ve already made a choice to leave the Anglican Communion and to throw in their lot with the TAC as well as New Christians who’ve been made in areas such as the Torres Straits, South Asia and Africa.
As I said in a previous post, among other things, I was pleased when Bishop Chislett stated that he believed in the Infallibility of the Pope as defined by Vatican I.
The ONE thing that can REALLY knock that number down significiantly is if the Anglo-Catholics begin to believe that they will NOT be welcome in their NEW home and that they really are neither wanted nor needed by the present occupants.
It only stands to reason - People don’t go where they’re not wanted, and it’s considered psychologically unhealthy and masochistic to do otherwise.
Blessed are they who act to save God’s Little Ones. Michael