This extraordinary article claims that a document to be released late this year as a joint statement between Anglican high officials and the Vatican will layout a path towards eventual unification of the Anglican Churches and Bishops under the Pope.

It would be a very interesting thing to take place, apparently Catholicism has already passed Anglicanism in Church attendance in England (not that it says much) but the major hurdles would be the likely rejection by both the liberal elements in the Church, [American Churches would be unlikely to give up gay and female ordination] and conservative evangelical elements [I am not sure if places like Truro and the Falls Church are ready to accept Catholic doctrine over their currently decidedly evangelical doctrine].

Either way it is surely a shot heard round the world in the religious community.

What appears likely to be the way forward is that the male Anglican Bishops who chose to come under the Pope would be granted Bishop status in the Catholic Church and all married Anglican Priests would be allowed to remain married. The Anglican Bishops would have full control over the Anglican Churches in the Diocese and the Catholic Bishops who overlaps the Diocese would have control over the original Catholic Churches. It would be likely overtime as Bishops died that combination would occur. All female priests would definitely be forbidden from remaining priests though maybe a path would be opened to being a nun, that much is unclear. It would likely mimic what a similar arrangement with the orthodox would look like with a church within the Church, a church “breathing with two lungs” as theologians have referred to it. It would probably look something like the Oriental Catholic Churches where Priests are allowed to still marry to serve Oriental parishes, and much the same would be the case for Anglicans. Going to an Anglican mass would serve as meeting ones Holy Obligation as going to a mass in an original Catholic church.

Where this is likely to do the most good would be in African and elsewhere where the combined Churches would be in a better position to fight the growing spread of Sharia induced radical Islam