The Washington Post reports:
An Episcopal church in Maryland – including its pastor – has decided to convert to Catholicism, the first in the United States to make the move under new Vatican rules meant to appeal to disaffected Protestants.
St. Luke’s, a small, tight-knit congregation in Bladensburg with a majority of members from Africa and the Caribbean, will be allowed to hold onto its Anglican traditions even as it comes under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. That will include being led by its married pastor, the Rev. Mark Lewis, and retaining much of its liturgy.
Church leaders say they were motivated by a “longing for a clear religious authority” rather than the ordination of gays or other controversies that have divided Anglicans in recent years.
