CALGARY - For longtime Anglican Richard Harding, switching to the Catholic church feels like coming home.
Last month, Harding and other members of the St. John the Evangelist congregation in Calgary became the first Anglican parish in Canada to accept an offer from the Pope to rejoin the Catholic church.
Harding said they are excited about the change.
Only two members of the parish in Inglewood, one of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, voted against the move and a few others abstained.
But some, including the congregation's former priest, have decided not to switch, so the move is bittersweet.
"There is a bit of sadness. This is a very sobering step and is a serious step, but it is a positive one," said Harding, who has worshipped at St. John for more than 20 years. "Every new beginning is a goodbye to some of the past."
The congregation decided to leave a church that has been their spiritual home for all of their lives for varied and complex reasons.
Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when the pope refused to annul the first marriage of England's King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon.
But for the past 180 years there has been a growing movement by the Anglicans to move closer to the Roman Catholic faith. Last fall, Pope Benedict announced that the Vatican was making it easier for Anglicans to rejoin the church and would allow them to retain some traditions, including allowing married priests.
Harding said the Pope's invitation, coupled with growing discomfort among some parishioners over the Anglican acceptance of women priests, gay clergy and same-sex marriage, was the catalyst for the move. Many parishioners feel the liberal innovations, even though they haven't been accepted by all Anglican diocese, are standing between the two denominations.
"They throw huge monkey wrenches into the unity of the church," Harding said. "It is a reflection that the bulk of the Anglican Church of Canada has dropped the conserving of the traditional liturgy, traditional worship and traditional values."
The bishop and deacon of the Anglican Diocese of Calgary could not be reached for comment.
The vote by the St. John the Evangelist congregation doesn't automatically mean members will become Catholics. The parishioners must take some religious instruction before they will be allowed to officially make the switch, perhaps by Easter.
Not everyone in the parish is going. Rev. Canon Robert Greene is the former priest at St. John the Evangelist and has been acting as the current priest's assistant.
Greene declined to explain all the reasons why he isn't going to move with his former flock or if he shares their concerns about the Anglican church.
"I don't want to muddy the waters. I'm not going. I would have to be reordained. I've been a priest for 58 years and I can't accept reordination."
— By John Cotter in Edmonton
