The Anglican Bishop of Fulham in London, who heads the leading grouping of Anglo-Catholic priests in the UK called Forward in Faith, has announced that he will join an ordinariate once one had been created in the UK, possibly next year. Speaking at the FiF assembly yesterday in London, he said he would be resigning as Bishop of Fulham before the end of the year, but remain chairman of Forward in Faith which is not, he points out, an Anglican organisation.

The Catholic Herald has the story here. Damian Thompson analysis here. Bishop Broadhurst speech here. Comments reported in tomorrow’s Telegraph here.

Bishop Broadhurst is the first leading Anglo-Catholic bishop to announce the move, but three others have been in communication with Rome about joining an ordinariate, and it looks certain now that it will happen. Bishop Broadhurst is the leading figure in English Anglo-Catholicism, and his decision will doubtless influence others. It doesn’t mean an “exodus” of Anglo-Catholic clergy across the Tiber; but it certainly signals the beginning of a drift which will take some years — and reshape the boundaries of Christianity in the UK.

The ordinariate will almost certainly be named after the Blessed John Henry Newman, who, in his way, foresaw and planned for all this.

[UPDATE]. An Anglican parish in Kent, in southern England, has voted to join the ordinariate. St Peter’s has a congregation of just 45, but is choosing to blaze a trail on a path others are expected to follow.

Austen Ivereigh is a fellow in Contemporary Church History at Campion Hall, at the University of Oxford, and a biographer of Pope Francis. In 2020 he collaborated with Pope Francis on Let Us Dream: the Path to a Better Future, published by Simon & Schuster. His most recent book is First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis, published by Loyola Press.