Canadian Anglicans ask to join Catholic Church

The Anglican Communion split from Catholicism in the 16th century, when Pope Clement VII refused to grant King Henry VIII a divorce.

VATICAN CITY, March 19, 2010 (AFP) - The Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, a member of the Traditional Anglican Community, asked the Vatican to join the Catholic Church, the religious news agency Zenit reported on Friday.

"We respectfully demand that the Apostolic Constitution be implemented in Canada," said the letter, sent on March 12 to Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine on Faith by the Anglican bishops Peter Wilkinson, Craig Botterill and Carl Reid.

In late 2009, the Roman Catholic Church unveiled a new juridical framework that made it easier for Anglicans unhappy with the Church of England's ordination of female and homosexual clergy to join Catholic ranks.

The move came in response to "repeated and insistent" petitions from Anglicans to join the Church, the Vatican said in a statement in November.

The Anglican Communion split from Catholicism in the 16th century, when Pope Clement VII refused to grant King Henry VIII a divorce.

The Church of England is the mother church of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has about 77 million followers. The Catholic Church counts some 1.1 billion faithful.