Head of USA personal ordinariate says won't forget Anglican roots

(January 03, 2012) The new leader of disaffected Episcopalians in the U.S. who have converted or want to convert to Catholicism said on Monday his flock would strive to learn the culture of the Catholic Church without forgetting the "noble Anglican tradition". Pope Benedict on New Year’s Day named Fr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, a married former Anglican bishop, as the ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, to lead converts from the Episcopal Church, the main branch of Anglicanism in the United States. A personal ordinariate is similar to a diocese but unlike a geographical jurisdiction it is made of persons. Fr. Steenson who will be based in Houston, Texas, was received into the Catholic Church in 2007 and was ordained priest in 2009 under the Pastoral Provision for married Anglican clergy. In a statement on the website of the ordinariate the 59-year old priest urged for prayers so that they may “strive to learn the faith, laws and culture of the Catholic Church with humility and good cheer.” “But pray too that we do not forget who we are and where we have come from, for we have been formed in the beautiful and noble Anglican tradition,” he added. In an email to Reuters, Fr. Steenson said he considered it a privilege to be participating in the Pope’s vision for Christian unity and to be included in that. Many Anglicans dismayed with ordination of women priests and homosexual bishops in their Church, have opted to join the Catholic Church. The provision to receive these Anglicans is the boldest step in Catholic-Anglican unity efforts since King Henry VIII broke with the Pope of Rome and set himself up as the head of the new Church of England in 1534.