Orinariate Watch: Anglicans who chose to 'go home' to Rome

The road home

"I always thought, 'The Roman Catholic Church - that is the Church.' So when this opportunity arose, after a couple of weeks of thinking very deeply about it, I thought, 'Yes, yes, I'll go home.'"

So says Ann Vaughan, one of a group of 40 from the parish of St John the Baptist in Sevenoaks, Kent, who are leaving the Church of England to join the Roman Catholic Ordinariate for ex-Anglicans.

The group, headed by their vicar, Father Ivan Aquilina, plan to celebrate the Eucharist in the Anglican Church for the last time on Sunday.

After that, they will attend the town's Roman Catholic church, St Thomas of Canterbury.

Shortly before Easter (24 April), they will receive Communion as Roman Catholics for the first time. Soon after, Easter Fr Aquilina and his curate, Father James Bradley, expect to be ordained as Catholic deacons, with Fr Aquilina hoping to be ordained as a priest in June.

The Ordinariate for England and Wales is the first in the world set up under a Vatican decree providing for groups who disapprove of tendencies within the worldwide Anglican church - notably the appointment of women and gay people as bishops.

To read more, click here.