The three former Anglican bishops, the Rev. Andrew Burnham, the Rev. Keith Newton and the Rev. John Broadhurst, will now be Catholic priests, not bishops, because the Catholic church “does not, in any circumstances, allow the ordination of married men as bishops,” the statement said.

The Vatican on Saturday welcomed the first group of traditionalist Anglicans who plan to convert to Roman Catholicism through a new structure the Vatican created to facilitate such group conversions.

The Vatican angered many Anglicans, including the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, when it announced the new structure in October 2009… But tensions were somewhat eased with Pope Benedict XVI’s state visit to Britain in September, which was widely seen as a success.

In the first concrete result of the Vatican’s offer, the archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, presided Saturday over the conversions of three traditionalist Anglican bishops at Westminster Cathedral in London, the Vatican said in a statement…

The new structure, called a Personal Ordinariate, allows groups of Anglicans to convert while preserving some elements of Anglican liturgy and other traditions, including in some cases married clergy.

Pope Benedict XVI named Father Newton as the first leader of the group, which will be known as the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The three former Anglican bishops will help the group prepare for conversion to Catholicism in a ceremony expected to be held at Easter.

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