Anglicans hesitate on the path to Rome

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This is too precious to pass by: Anglicans hesitate on the path to Rome. I’ll only quote one section - an anaylsis of the current state of Anglo-Catholicism and its relationship to the Holy See. (As usual, comments in red, emphases in blue.)

Some tremendously talented Anglican priests did cross the Tiber. Of those that remained, I think we can identify four broad groups:

1. Anglo-Catholics who now accept women priests - I would never have believed, 15 years ago, that so many “bells and smells” types would become reconciled to this innovation, but they have. [This must be the majority of Anglo-Catholics. If not explicitly, most Anglo-Catholics implicitly accept women priests: they work with bishops who ordain women priests.]
2. Anglo-Catholic clergy who, despite their extreme Roman ritualism, are in irregular relationships that would not be tolerated by the Catholic authorities, so they pull up the drawbridge. [I assume he means divorced heterosexual priests and bishops or clergy in homosexual relationships.]
3. Anglo-Catholics who still believe, against all the evidence, that they will be able to preserve their male-only priesthood until their fellow Anglicans see the error of their ways. [This is an interesting one! I normally call these Catholic without the pope Anglicans. They, in a phrase, continue to live the Anglo-Catholic dream.]
4. Anglo-Catholics who know the game is up, that there will never be corporate reunion with Rome, and that their future lies in submitting to the Holy See.

H/T: Serge.

There is a Norah Jones song that I think puts it well:

Well I stumbled in the darkness
I’m lost and alone
Though I said I’d go before us
And show the way back home
IS there a light up ahead
I can’t hold onto very long
Forgive me pretty baby but I always take the long way home

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