Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross

A personal ordinariate established under the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus is canonically equivalent to a diocese. The faithful of the ordinariate are led by an ordinary. The ordinary may be either a bishop, if celibate, or priest, if married. So far, the pope has named all married ordinaries as apostolic protonota—that is, monsignors of the highest rank—soon after the respective appointments to that office. The only practical difference is that bishops may ordain clergy directly, whereas an ordinary who is not a bishop must ask a bishop to ordain clergy, just as the provincial superior of a clerical religious order must ask.

The ordinary of a personal ordinariate is the equivalent to a diocesan bishop, and thus wears the same ecclesiastical attire and uses the same pontifical insignia (mitre, crosier, pectoral cross, and episcopal ring) as a diocesan bishop, even if not a bishop.[8] The ordinary is also a full member of the episcopal conference(s) of the territory of the ordinariate, even if he is not a bishop.

In the first decade of the 21st century, a number of bishops from the Church of England and the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), a global "continuing Anglican" body, independently approached the Vatican seeking some manner of corporate reunion that would preserve their autonomy and their ecclesial structure within the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI promulgated an apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus, permitting erection of personal ordinariates equivalent to dioceses, on 4 November 2009.[9] The Vatican subsequently erected three ordinariates: the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the territory of the episcopal conference of England and Wales on 15 January 2011, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in the territory of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on 1 January 2012 and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in the territory of Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops on 15 June 2012.

The decree erecting the Personal Ordinariate of the Southern Cross designated the Church of Saints Ninian and Chad in Perth as the principal church of the ordinariate, which fulfills the same role as the cathedral church of a diocese. This church building previously housed a congregation of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia (ACCA), the Australian province of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC). Pope Benedict XVI concurrently appointed Harry Entwistle,[3] a former bishop of the ACCA who received ordination as a presbyter of the Catholic Church on the same day, as the first ordinary. The ordinariate has subsequently received the congregations and ordained the clergy of ten additional congregations throughout Australia and two congregations in Japan.

The ordinariate announced that the Church of Torres Strait, previously a separate ecclesiastical province of the TAC, was coming into the ordinariate substantially intact and was going to form a territorial deanery in that region.[10] However, the Church of Torres Strait later decided not to join the ordinariate. In spite of this, a parish on Dauan Island in the Torres Strait chose to enter the ordinariate anyway and a former priest of the Church of Torres Strait was ordained as a transitional deacon in June 2018 by James Foley of Cairns.[11]

On 26 March 2019, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the first ordinary, Harry Entwistle, after he reached retirement, and appointed as ordinary Carl Reid, until then the dean of the Deanery of St John the Baptist (Canada) of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.[12][13] Reid was installed on 27 August 2019.[14]

Since its inception, the ordinariate has grown to include 14 Australian congregations in Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales.[15]

• Anglican Communion
• Anglican realignment
• Anglican Use
• Anglican–Roman Catholic dialogue
• Anglo-Catholicism

• Official website
• Ordinariate Japan (in Japanese)