Summary
Former Anglican canon Robin Ward, who served as principal of St. Stephen’s House in Oxford for 19 years until last year, has been received into the Catholic Church by Abbot Benedictine Dom Cuthbert Brogan at St. Michael’s Benedictine Abbey in Farnborough. Ward, now a member of the Vatican’s newly established Congregation for the Oriental Churches and an honorary canon of Rochester Cathedral, made this announcement on social media on February 14. Known as a prominent Anglo-Catholic clergyman and scholar who studied medieval English at Magdalen College, Oxford, Ward began his conversion journey in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life. His transition to the Catholic Church is seen by Gavin Ashenden, another former Anglican received into the Church in 2019, as particularly poignant given Ward’s roots in Anglo-Catholicism and intellectual and pastoral life within that tradition. Ward was ordained in the Church of England in 1992 and served various parishes before becoming a principal at St. Stephen’s House, where he played a significant role in its history representing the Tractarian Movement, an Anglican movement seeking continuity with Catholic traditions. His journey reflects his transition from low-church habits of Anglo-Catholicism to more liturgical practices seen as eccentric and marginal by those outside this tradition, including Catholics.
Key Topics
Oxford University, Anglican Church, Catholic Church
