‘The Church I so loved has lost its way. I simply HAD to leave’:

Oct 22, 2021 by

by Michael Nazir-Ali, Daily Mail:

In his own words, former Bishop of Rochester Dr Michael Nazir-Ali explains his dramatic defection from CofE to Catholic church

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali today defends his decision to join the Ordinariate in the Catholic Church and describes his disappointment with the Church of England for failing to support ‘core values’.

The former Bishop of Rochester, 72, who revealed the move last Friday, said the Anglican Church had become permeated by activists who pursue ‘a single-issue, often faddish agenda’.

Writing exclusively in the Daily Mail, the married father-of-two said divisions in the Church of England had left him feeling he was ‘at odds with the Church as an institution’. Dr Nazir-Ali, who will be ordained as a Catholic priest this month, is the third English bishop to make the move this year.

When I was ordained an Anglican priest back in 1976, it was a moment of joy, and hope: I looked forward to a lifetime in the service of God in the Anglican Church which had Christ and the Bible at its centre.

The Church’s values were everything I believed in: helping others to come to faith and be formed by it, tolerance and freedom, the sanctity of the person, of marriage and the importance of the family.Back then the Church celebrated and defended those values. It wasn’t reticent, apologetic or ashamed of them.

I could never have imagined that 45 years later I would feel compelled to leave the Anglican Church I have loved, or that I would be received, as I was a fortnight ago, into the Ordinariate – provided for Anglicans who wish to be part of the Catholic Church while keeping their Anglican inheritance.

Read in the Daily Mail here

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