Strange but true. Well, the rumour is true, anyway.
According to Rocco Palmo:
And elsewhere, another consideration unique to the States has been rumored about — namely, given the Episcopal Church’s 2001 covenant with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which joined the two denominations in full communion, that American Lutherans wishing to be received as Catholics could be grandfathered into the set-up’s Stateside incarnation.
I propose that
1) We replace the absentee monarch of Australia (who is also the Monarch of Great Britain) with an elected Australian monarchy.
2) The elected monarch exactly replaces the current monarch in the current constition.
3) The elected monarch has exactly the same powers, duties and responsibilities as those of the current absentee monarch. All the monarch's functions are carried out by his/her personal representatives (as is currently the case): federally by the Governor General, and in the states by the State Governors.
4) The Governor General and the Governors continue to be selected and appointed as they currently are, that is, by the premier with the approval of the monarch.
5) The monarch is elected to sovereignty over Australia for life, but his/her sovereignty is strictly non-hereditary.
6) The elective body is the "college of electors" comprised of the state governors and federal governor general.
7) The election of the monarch must be a unanimous decision on the part of the college of electors.
And if the ELCA Lutherans, why not other interested Lutherans as well?
Sure; why not?
I’ve heard of married former Lutheran and Methodist pastors being dispensed from celibacy, like former Anglican priests, to be ordained Catholic priests (I think the first such was an ex-Lutheran, a Fr Beck, an American, in the ’60s… I think he went to Germany to do it).
But my impression is ELCA is a bigger, more ethnic (German and Nordic), more geographically concentrated version (America’s upper Midwest where all the Swedish immigrants settled, giving Minnesota its accent) of the Episcopalians: sort of high-church liberal Protestants. So I imagine there’s not much interest among them in the ordinariate. Their relative conservatives are doing what recent ex-Episcopalians are: forming small, slightly less liberal Protestant denominations (women pastors but no gay weddings) rather than look into Catholicism. Which may be just as well because Catholicism is about an infallible church and not the surface issues of sex and the sexes. The surface differences are because of that big difference. Catholics can’t change the church by convention vote. If you’re not ready for an infallible church; don’t convert. It’s a big change from Lutherans’ seemingly weak ecclesiology. Run towards rather than away from something as they say.
There are Catholic-minded Missouri Synod pastors’ blogs I like: incarnatus est, Father Hollywood, Gottesdienst.
There’s a small high-church Lutheran group in the US, sort of their version of Continuers, who’ve said they want in. I don’t know if Rome has answered.
There’s a small high-church Lutheran group in the US, sort of their version of Continuers, who’ve said they want in. I don’t know if Rome has answered.
The ALCC, and Rome has answered:
http://www.theanglocatholic.com/2011/02/our-family-is-growing/