Church of roam: CoE bishop ‘jumps ship’ to Catholicism
A HIGH-PROFILE bishop who
accused the Church of England of ‘jumping on faddish bandwagons’ has joined the Catholic Church.
The move by Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican Bishop of Rochester, was yesterday called ‘one of the most politically significant’ recent conversions.
Dr Nazir-Ali, 72, who was once tipped to be Archbishop of Canterbury, is the third English bishop to make the move this year.
He said the Church of England ‘seems engrossed’ in ‘jumping onto every faddish bandwagon about identity politics, cultural correctness and mea culpas about Britain’s imperial past’, in an article he wrote for the Daily Telegraph in February. Dr NazirAli,
who is married with two children, was received into the Catholic faith a fortnight ago, the Catholic Church Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales confirmed yesterday.
He is due to be ordained by Cardinal Vincent Nichols in Westminster Cathedral on October 30.
Dr Nazir-Ali will serve in the Ordinariate, which was set up by Pope Benedict XVI ten years ago for former Anglicans. Yesterday he said in a statement that he believes traditional Christian teachings ‘can now best be maintained in the Ordinariate’.
His move comes a month after the Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet Jonathan Goodall resigned his position to become a Catholic.
In May, John Goddard, the former Bishop of Burnley, was received into the Catholic Church, while Dr Gavin Ashenden, a former royal chaplain to the Queen and traditionalist Anglican bishop, joined in Christmas 2019.
Born in Pakistan, Dr Nazir-Ali was raised a Christian and opted to become an Anglican at 20.
He moved to Cambridge to study theology and returned as a priest to Pakistan before being brought to London in the 1980s to serve as an assistant to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie.