Pakistan-born Anglican bishop converts to Catholic Church

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Pakistan-born Michael Nazir-Ali, a prominent Anglican bishop, has joined the Catholic Church and will be ordained a priest at the end of October.

Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican bishop of Rochester, England, was received into the Church on September 29 by Mgr. Keith Newton, Head of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, created in 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI for the corporate reception of Anglican communities.

He will be ordained a deacon by Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham on October 28 and ordained a priest for the ordinariate by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster on October 30.

Married with two children, he retired from Rochester in 2009 and since 2010 has been guest bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina in the United States.

Nazir-Ali is the first former Anglican diocesan bishop – rather than a suffragan or “flying” bishop – to join the Catholic Church since Bishop Graham Leonard of London and Bishop Richard Rutt of Leicester were received into the Catholic Church. Catholic faith in 1994.

In a statement published Oct. 14 on the website of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Nazir-Ali said: “I believe that the Anglican desire to adhere to apostolic, patristic and conciliar teaching can now to be better maintained in the ordinaria.

I look forward to receiving riches from other parts of the Church

“The provisions therein to safeguard the legitimate Anglican heritage are very encouraging, and I believe that this heritage – in its liturgy, its approaches to Bible study, its pastoral commitment to the community, its methods of moral theology and much others – has much to offer the larger Church.

“I look forward to receiving riches from other parts of the Church.”

Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury said in an Oct. 14 statement that he was grateful for the bishop’s “decades of dedicated service” and said his expertise in evangelism, interfaith dialogue, d ‘ecumenism and theological education “will continue to be a blessing to the church world.”

Nazir-Ali, 72, was once considered a potential leader of the Anglican World Communion. In 2002, British media reported that this was one of two names submitted to then Prime Minister Tony Blair as a possible successor to Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury.

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He was for many years a member of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission and the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission.

He is the third Anglican bishop to become Catholic this year and the fourth in just two years.

Jonathan Goodall, the former “flying” bishop of Ebbsfleet, resigned in September to become a Catholic after a period of reflection which he said was “one of the most trying times of my life”.

In May, John Goddard, a former bishop of Burnley, was received into the Catholic Church in Liverpool, while Gavin Ashenden, a former royal chaplain to the Queen, was received into the Catholic faith on Christmas 2019.

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