NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      LONDON (CWNews.com) - One of the Church of England's most vehement opponents of women priests announced this week he will join the Catholic Church. Father Francis Bown, vicar of St. Stephen's Church in Hull, England, has claimed the Church of England is spiritually, morally, and intellectually bankrupt.

      A leading campaigner against women priests, Father Bown hit the headlines four years ago when he paraded a coffin outside the church headquarters in London and performed the funeral rites of the Church of England while the General Synod voted to allow women priests. A notice outside his parish church in Hull reads: "This Anglican parish has no part in the apostasy of priestesses."

      Father Bown, who has been a priest for 21 years, said he felt sad to leave his parishioners, but the Church of England was no longer a fit home for anyone who believed in orthodox Christianity. "In contrast to the pathetic and broken Church of England," he said, "the Catholic Church speaks with the clear voice of authentic Christianity. I now realize that the proper course for faithful Anglicans is not to go on attempting to revive the corpse of the Church of England, but to place themselves in communion with the Holy See." Father Bown will officially leave his parish on October 17 and plans to move to London.