In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI issued Anglicanorum coetibus, a historic move that provided a unique new avenue for Christians from the Anglican world to join the Catholic Church while keeping elements of their liturgical patrimony.

As the first head of the Personal Ordinariate in the United States and Canada, Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson shares his background as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, the meetings with then-Cardinal Ratzinger that laid the foundation for Anglicanorum coetibus, and what it was like to have a front row seat to this extraordinary moment in Christian history.

NOTE: This conversation was recorded shortly before the appointment of Archbishop Sarah Mullally to the See of Canterbury, but we decided to leave the comments about the lengthy vacancy of that office in the episode because of their pertinence to the overall discussion.

More about the Ordinariate: ordinariate.net

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