Md. Episcopal Church Becomes First to Join Catholic Church

From Christian Post-

An Episcopal church in Maryland will be the first in the nation to join the Roman Catholic Church, both church groups announced Monday.

Both the members and pastor of St. Luke's Episcopal parish in Bladensburg, Md., will be converting to Catholicism under a process set up by the Vatican to bring disaffected Episcopalians and Anglicans into its fold.

St. Luke's, a small congregation of about 100, will come under the care of the Archdiocese of Washington until an ordinate is established in the United States.

"My decision to seek reception in the Personal Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church was not influenced so much by a desire to leave Anglicanism as it was to enter into full communion with the Holy See of Peter," the Rev. Mark W. Lewis, rector of St. Luke's Parish, said in a statement.

For several years, The Episcopal Church – the U.S. member of the Anglican Communion – has been consecrating women clergy and openly homosexual bishops.

Lewis indicated those issues alone are not what led St.Luke's to leave Anglicanism, but rather it was a desire for a more defined religious authority.

More here-

http://www.christianpost.com/news/md-episcopal-church-becomes-first-to-join-catholic-church-50948/