Bishop quits ‘PC Anglican church’ to be a Catholic
ONE of Britain’s best-known Anglican bishops has converted to Catholicism after accusing the Church of England of pandering to political and cultural correctness.
Michael Nazir-Ali, 72, who was the Bishop of Rochester from 1994 until 2009, says he was galvanised by the Church of England “jumping on to every faddish bandwagon about identity politics, cultural correctness and mea culpas about Britain’s imperial past”.
He added that by becoming Catholic he will be “belonging to a church where there is clear teaching for the faithful”.
The father of two, who could be ordained as a Catholic priest next month, had been contemplating the switch for “some years”.
He has joined the Catholic Ordinariate, set up in 2011 by Pope Benedict to allow Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church. However, because he is married he cannot become a Catholic bishop.This comes weeks after the C of E
Bishop of Ebbsfleet,
Jonathan Goodall, stepped down following concerns cited by friends over the “direction of the church”. In 2010, five bishops left because of their dissatisfaction over the introduction of female bishops. Dr Nazir-Ali’s conversion is seen as the most significant since Graham Leonard, the former Bishop of London, was received into the Catholic Church in 1994 after rejecting the ordination of women priests. Other conversions have included the Duchess of Kent, former prime minister Tony Blair and Daily Express columnist Anne Widdecombe.
In 2008 Dr Nazir-Ali claimed that radical Islam was filling the moral vacuum left by the decline in Christian virtues and said the “social and sexual revolution” of the 1960s had wrecked British society. Yesterday the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, thanked Dr Nazir-Ali for his “decades of devoted service”. He added: “I will be praying for him and his wife, Valerie, that this new step in their journey might draw them ever closer to God in Christ.”