Catholic Church’s new personal ordinariate, head for former Episcopalians in US

(January 02, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI has appointed the head for a new personal ordinariate created in the United States for groups of former Episcopalians who seek to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. On New Year’s Day the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith created the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, to which Pope Benedict appointed Catholic convert, Fr. Jeffrey Steenson as its first ordinary. The ordinariate will be based in Houston, Texas, but will operate nationally. The mainline Anglican Church of the United States is known as the Episcopal Church. Fr. Steenson is a married man and earlier served as an Episcopalian bishop before being received into the Catholic Church in the Advent of 2007. He was ordained priest on Feb. 21, 2009 under the Pastoral Provision for married Anglican clergy and was incardinated in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. This the second such personal ordinariate in keeping with Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus”, which provides for accommodating former Anglicans into the Catholic fold while retaining some of the Anglican characteristics. The first such personal ordinariate, that of Our Lady of Walsingham for Anglicans of England and Wales, was established in January, 2011. The 77-million-member worldwide Anglican communion has its roots in the Church of England, which split from the Holy See in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.