With the priestly ordination of John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton, the Pope has created the official structure to welcome Anglicans who want to be Catholic. The Mass and Rites of Ordination today in Westminster Cathedral was very well attended as the historic moment was formally announced by Archbishop Vincent Nichols reading the CDF letter inaugurating the Ordinariate was greeted with great enthusiasm. The whole work was placed under the patronage of the newly beatified Blessed John Henry Newman.
The newly ordained Father Keith Newton, 59, is the first Ordinary for Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales. Newton will be assisted by the Broadhurst and Burnham for catechetical matters. Others will be ordained to the Order of Deacon at Eastertide and then priested at Pentecost.
Faith matters; the true faith revealed by the Trinity and lived in the fullness of the Catholic Church. People point to the displeasure of some over the leadership of gay clergy and women's ordination as the point of departure for these Anglicans but there are far more serious issues that would make me "jump ship" like the voting on theological facts, the objectivity of truth and faith, life issues, and principles of communion which are both vertical and horizontal.
Here is Anna Arco's story in the Catholic Herald: "Priests ordained to the world's first ordinariate."
The Holy See's statement on the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales
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