When I was a boy, my dad often talked about my grandmother, who back in the “old country” (Hungary) belonged to a Catholic parish where the priests were married and had families and where Hungarian (rather than Latin) was used for the liturgy of the Mass. It all sounded pretty fanciful where I grew up, in English-speaking Canada. But he was talking about something very real: the Hungarian Greek Catholic church was a tiny group of Byzantine-rite congregations that emerged from grassroots in the 17th century, when the Ottomans were driven out of what is now Hungary.

I remember him telling other members of our church who wondered after the Vatican II reforms (1962 to 65) whether priests would soon be permitted to marry, “but the Catholic church already permits married priests.” His remark was greeted with skepticism. The only forms of Catholic religious life people knew about then were the Western ones. Priestly office required a vow of lifetime celibacy, and that was that.

This may be about to change. Last week the Vatican announced that Anglicans would now be able “to enter full communion with the Catholic church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” including, it seems, married clergy (the announcement did make clear that married Anglican priests and bishops could not become Catholic bishops). This is remarkable for two reasons. First, married priests will be coming to the Catholic church from a tradition that is central to American religious and cultural history.

For many centuries, the church has permitted married clergy among certain very small (and usually isolated) ethnic groups where it was the long-standing practice. But the language and practices of Anglicans are much more familiar to us, and indeed, part of our own cultural history. Second, the numbers of married priests joining the Church could be significant. Apparently, between 20 and 30 Anglican bishops petitioned the Vatican for the recognition that will soon be granted. Married Catholic priests are going to be more visible in the U.S., and perhaps even part of the religious mainstream.

It remains an open question, of course, how many Anglican bishops, priests and congregations will actually “come home to Rome.” This breakaway group is quite traditionalist, opposing the ordination of women and, more recently, the elevation of an openly-gay man, Eugene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire (which goes a long way toward explaining the Vatican’s receptiveness to them, I think). But there are Catholic teachings on the family and human sexuality that might not go down so well, even among traditionalists.

Divorce is not an obstacle to remarriage in the Episcopal church, but it is an obstacle in the Catholic Church. I can’t imagine that Pope Benedict XVI will permit remarriage after divorce for members of this group because that has been their practice. Likewise, there is a clear prohibition against artificial birth control in Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae.

Are Anglicans willing to embrace this in the conduct of their intimate lives with their spouses? Admittedly, very few U.S. Catholics do, but if it’s a matter of principle — which I assume is what motivates their desire for union with Rome — then it doesn’t seem right to be a ‘cafeteria Catholic,’ picking and choosing which church teachings to follow based on personal preference.

I may be wrong about all of this. But in recent years I’ve been struck by how often the Vatican is not in control of the consequences of its decisions, despite the Pope’s efforts to take a firm stand on things and promote the teachings of the faith. I could multiply examples, but one would be the chilling effect Pope John Paul II’s 1990 decree, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, has had on academic freedom at Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S.

In the present case, we have a group that does not want simply to be left alone with their local customs, like the Hungarian Greek Catholic church. They are well-organized, vocal and contrarian in two relevant senses: both as Anglicans, who broke from Rome during the English Reformation, and now as a breakaway group within the worldwide Anglican/Episcopal Communion. I think the next few years in the Roman Catholic church are going to be very interesting.

Jack Zupko is an associate professor in the department of philosophy. He is the director of the Catholic Studies minor and the author of John Buridan: Portrait of a Fourteenth-Century Arts Master.