New report: Former Anglican clergy make up ~1/3 of Catholic priestly ordinations in England & Wales since 1992, highlighting major ecumenical contribution.
Newsroom (20/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) A landmark report released Thursday reveals that roughly one-third of all Catholic priests ordained in England and Wales over the past three decades were former Anglican clergy, underscoring the significant pastoral contribution of converts from the Anglican Communion to the Catholic Church amid ongoing vocational shortages.
The study, titled Convert Clergy in the Catholic Church in Britain: The role of the St Barnabas Society, documents that nearly 500 former Anglican clerics received Holy Orders as Catholic priests between 1992 and 2024, representing 29 percent of diocesan priestly ordinations in England and Wales during that period. When including ordinations for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham – established under Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus to accommodate Anglicans entering full communion while retaining compatible elements of their liturgical heritage – the proportion rises to 35 percent.
Since 2015 alone, former Anglican clergy have accounted for 9 percent of all Catholic priestly ordinations in England and Wales, climbing to 19 percent when Ordinariate ordinations are factored in.
In total, approximately 700 former clergy and religious from the Church of England, Church in Wales, or Scottish Episcopal Church have been received into the Catholic Church since 1992. This figure includes 16 former Anglican bishops, two bishops from Continuing Anglican jurisdictions, and five individuals ordained as permanent deacons (as of December 2024).
Commissioned by the St Barnabas Society – a Catholic charity founded in the late 19th century to support Anglican clergy converting after Pope Leo XIII’s 1896 bull Apostolicae Curae declared Anglican orders “absolutely null and utterly void” – the report was authored by Prof. Stephen Bullivant, director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion, Ethics, and Society at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and St Mary’s University, Australia.
Speaking to Crux following the report’s launch in London, Bullivant said the scale of the contribution “took me aback.”
“I had a sense that it was quite a big number – a bigger number than people thought,” he said. “But the fact that it’s basically a third of all ordinations over the past thirty years… I think everyone’s taken aback by that, because the bishops themselves only know their own patch.”
Convert clergy typically enter the Catholic Church later in life, often with families to support and having sacrificed income, pensions, and church-provided housing. Many face extended discernment periods and retraining before ordination, with no guarantee of acceptance as priestly candidates.
In a foreword to the report, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, described the document as “fascinating reading” that collates “disparate stories and facts” alongside moving personal testimonies.
He emphasized that for many converts the journey is “not so much a turning away or rejection of their rich and precious Anglican heritage but an experience of an imperative to move into the full visible communion of the Catholic Church, in union with the See of Peter.”
Bullivant told Crux the Church in England and Wales “should be grateful for the sacrifices that these priests and their families have made,” adding that without their contribution the priest shortage would be markedly more acute.
The report highlights the St Barnabas Society’s continuing role in providing financial, pastoral, and practical support to convert clergy and their families during what is often a protracted and financially precarious transition.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
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