The Lutherans Are Coming!

Thanks to THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: A quick look at the Anglican Ordinariate Google Map reveals an interesting trend. It looks like some Lutherans are availing themselves of the opportunity to join the pope's emerging Anglican Catholic Ordinariate here in the United States. The trend can be verified on The Anglo-Catholic blog. The development signifies something startling. The Anglican Ordinariates are beginning to cross denominational lines - specifically Protestant denominational lines. No longer are traditional Anglican congregations the only one's interested in entering the Catholic Church through the pope's personal ordinariate. Now we see traditional Lutherans following through as well. This is not a separate ordinariate mind you, it's the SAME ordinariate! It would appear the Traditional Anglicans and Traditional Lutherans are patching things up between them as they head toward Rome...

View Emerging Anglican Catholic Ordinariates in a larger map

What was an unexpected development for 'The Catholic Knight' was apparently anticipated by the Holy Father. At the end of his historic visit to England last year, the pope referred to the Apostolic Constitution and the creation of the first ordinariates as a "prophetic gesture." In this phrase one can only wonder if the Holy Father had an inkling of what might occur. That inkling is starting to unfold before our very eyes now. Many Protestants in the original denominations, after 500 years of experimentation, are beginning to realize the futility of it all. It has been half a millennium of one epic failure after another, resulting in schism after schism, culminating in the virtual apostasy of modern denominations that accept abortion, contraception, homosexual priests and sodomite marriages. Though the failures of modern Protestantism have been broadcast loudly on the television, radio and Internet, a quiet phenomenon has been going on behind the scenes.

Small factions of conservative and traditional Protestants (mainly Anglicans and Lutherans so far) have realized the futility of endless schism to preserve the moral teachings of the gospel. They've come to understand that the only way to beat the 'tyranny of relativism' is to get back to their ancient Christian roots, and that can't happen without an honest evaluation of Catholic Christianity. Drawing upon the Catholic remnants in their own traditions, they began to move back toward Rome, and now we are beginning to see the results. Indeed, the Apostolic Constitution creating the Anglican Ordinariates is a "prophetic gesture," an open embrace, for all Protestants willing to accept historic doctrinal orthodoxy and come home to Rome.