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The "pastoral provision" or "statute"〔(Letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith )〕 for United States Episcopalians entering the Catholic Church authorizes some departures from the normal practice of the Latin Church. The provisions allows diocesan bishops to establish so-called personal parishes for the former Episcopalians and to use a liturgy known as the Anglican Use that keeps some elements of the Anglican liturgy. Many of these parishes are led by former Episcopalian clergy who have been ordained as priests in the Catholic Church. Under the provision a case-by-case exception, or dispensation. from the rule requiring Latin Rite Catholic priests to be unmarried and celibate can be granted.〔 This is not new. Since at least the early 1950s, former Anglican, Lutheran and other clergy who join the Catholic Church have been granted such exceptions and is a practice mentioned in Pope Paul VI's encyclical ''Sacerdotalis caelibatus'' of 1967.〔( ''Sacerdotalis caelibatus'', 42-43 )〕 There are seven parishes of this kind, located in four states: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Texas.〔(Personal Parishes of the Pastoral Provision )〕 ==Origins== In the article that he has entitled ''The Pastoral Provision for Roman Catholics in the U.S.A.'' an account of the origins of this provision,〔The text is available on the website of the (Catholic Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Arlington, Texas. )〕 The Reverend Jack D. Barker traces the origins of the demand for such an arrangement to the Oxford Movement in nineteenth-century England and more immediately to developments in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in the 1970s, when the church changed its canons regarding divorce, refused to take a strong public stand against abortion, ordained women to the diaconate and added a ''Rite II'' in contemporary language to the Book of Common Prayer. Some whole parishes began to leave the church.〔The Pastoral Provision for Roman Catholics in the U.S.A.〕 In 1977, some of those who desired union with the Catholic Church contacted individual Catholic bishops, the Apostolic Delegate Archbishop Jean Jadot and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, to inquire about the possibility for married Anglican priests to be received into the Catholic Church and function as Catholic priests.〔〔( History of the Pastoral Provision )〕 In 1979, after the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had reacted favourably to the proposals that had been put before them, a formal request for union was presented in Rome on 3 November for acceptance into the Roman Catholic Church, for steps to be taken to eliminate any defects that might be found in their priestly orders, and that they be granted the oversight, direction, and governance of a Catholic bishop. They offered the allegiance of their whole hearts and minds and souls, and also "with that allegiance the Anglican patrimony that has been ours in so far as it is compatible with, acceptable to and an enhancement of Catholic teaching and worship".〔〔 The decision of the Holy See was officially communicated in a letter of 22 July 1980 from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the President of the United States episcopal conference, who published it on 20 August 1980.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pastoral Provision」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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