SW News: Former Anglican Bishop of Rochester the Most Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali has converted to Catholicism.

This was announced by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on Thursday, October 14. According to their statement, he “was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church by Monsignor Keith Newton on the Feast of St Michael and All Angels.”

“With the permission of the Holy See, he will be ordained to the Catholic priesthood for the Ordinariate in due course,” said the statement. Michael, who was born in Pakistan, became an Anglican priest in 1976. He served as the bishop of Rochester from 1994 to 2009. He has been a strong voice for persecuted Christians around the world.

Rev. Nazir-Ali is the second prominent Anglican who converted to Catholicism this year. In September, Jonathan Goodall, the bishop of the Diocese of Ebbsfleet, had announced his conversion to Catholicism. The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI to help Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church.