Behold, I make all things new: an Anglican order of nuns becomes Catholic

Details, from the Baltimore Sun:

The Archdiocese of Baltimore added a new religious order of nuns Tuesday, its first in decades and one that began as an Anglican community.

The All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor left the Episcopal Church for the Roman Catholic Church two years ago. By a decree from the Vatican, they are now an official diocesan priory, or order, the same designation carried by the School Sisters of Notre Dame or the Daughters of Charity.

“We feel we have broken ground,” said Mother Christina Christie, leader of the community and a nun since 1966.

Yesterday, All Saints’ Day, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, all 10 members of the Catonsville convent individually professed perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience “for the rest of my life in this world.” Then each signed her profession at the altar before nearly two dozen priests and bishops.

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien chose Nov. 1, the sisters’ patronal feast day, to officially receive the community into the archdiocese.

“This is a great day and a great gift to the church in Baltimore,” O’Brien said to the congregation. “Few bishops have had such an opportunity.”

The sisters and their chaplain, who was ordained a Catholic priest in June, felt they were “drifting farther apart from the more liberal road the Episcopal Church is traveling,” Christie said. One of the leading factors in their decision to leave the faith was the decision by Episcopal leaders to sanction the ordination of gay men and women.

Read on — and find out why this may offer a glimmer of hope on the vocations front.

Congratulations to all!  Welcome!