Pastoral Provision

The term "Pastoral Provision", in the context of the Catholic Church in the United States, refers to a set of practices and norms by which bishops are authorized to provide spiritual care for Roman Catholics coming from the Anglican tradition, by establishing parishes for them and ordaining priests from among them.

The provision was authorized by Pope John Paul II in 1980 and announced in 1981, in response to requests from former United States Episcopalians and members of Continuing Anglican churches.

It allows diocesan bishops to establish personal parishes for former Anglicans, which use liturgical forms that keeps some elements of the Anglican liturgy. Such liturgies are known as Anglican Use forms of the Roman Rite, and include the Book of Divine Worship and Divine Worship: The Missal.

The provision also enables bishops to ordain married former clergy as diocesan priests, when the Holy See grants a dispensation from the usual rule requiring Latin Rite Catholic priests to be celibate (i.e., unmarried).

Since 1981, over 100 ordinations have taken place under the Pastoral Provision, and several personal parishes were established within dioceses. Starting in 2012, most of those parishes were transferred from their dioceses to a new nationwide jurisdiction, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.

In 2017 the Vatican ordered that all parishes within the Pastoral provision enter into the North American Ordinariate. Currently only one parish in Boston established under the Pastoral Provision remains in its care, after a parish in San Antonio was transferred to the Ordinariate. It is expected that the Boston Congregation will soon be transferred also, officially ending the Pastoral Provision.

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