A new report has revealed that former Anglican clergy made up more than one-third of those entering Roman Catholic ministry in England and Wales between 1992 and 2024. 

The study, commissioned by the St Barnabas Society, identified spikes in 1994 after the Church of England approved women’s ordination and in 2011 with the establishment of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, a separate branch of the Roman Catholic Church that allowed former Anglicans to become Catholics.  

The charity’s report, Convert Clergy in the Catholic Church in Britain, said many men described “ecclesial unease” and personal sacrifice as they discerned their move. 

Researchers from the Benedict XVI Centre at St Mary’s University estimated that about 700 former Anglican clergy and religious leaders had been received into the Catholic Church since 1992, including 16 former Anglican bishops.  

Professor Stephen Bullivant, one of the report’s authors, highlighted that movement between denominations continued in both directions. 

Approximately 491 men have been reordained, with 69 per cent serving in dioceses in England and Wales, and 115 entering the Ordinariate. 

The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, wrote that most converts were not rejecting their “rich and precious Anglican heritage” but responding to an “an imperative to move into the full visible communion of the Catholic Church”.