A new beginning for the Catholic Church ?

After almost five centuries the Catholics and Protestants, as of now only in the USA,  are thinking of letting go of their silly quarrels and petty differences and merging into one faithful body.  Although,  at the present time, only a few hundred Anglicans are coming into the Catholicism fold, this clearly heralds the thousands more to come. Will the Catholic Church now re-think their unholy stance on celibacy and allow marriages for those in the priesthood like the Protestants?  I sure hope so.   I have always thought it the height of hypocrisy that Catholic congregations expect their priests to be goody goody while they go about sinning merrily.

What other wonders not yet envisioned  will come to pass in 2012?

The Vatican is set to launch a structure on Monday that will allow Anglican parishes in the United States — and their married priests to join the Catholic Church in a small but symbolically potent effort to reunite Protestants and Catholics, who split almost 500 years ago.

More than 1,300 Anglicans, including 100 Anglican priests, have applied to be part of the new body, essentially a diocese. Among them are members of St. Luke’s in Bladensburg, which this summer became the first group in the country to convert to Catholicism.

St. Luke’s and Baltimore’s Mount Calvary, which also applied to join, were part of the Episcopal Church, the official wing of American Anglicanism. But most of those joining the new structure are Anglicans who aren’t part of the Episcopal Church.

It’s unclear how many priests and their followers will ultimately convert to Catholicism. Compared with the tens of millions of Americans who identify as Catholic or Protestant, the movement is small. But it is the most tangible progress in decades for Catholic leaders, who see Catholics and Protestants as estranged siblings who should be reconciled......

h/t: Irene