Don’t forget that the Anglican Church was originally a part of the True Catholic Church with true faith and loyalty and perfectly valid priesthoos.
Before the breach with Rome under Henry VIII there was absolutely no doctrinal difference between the faith of Englishmen and the rest of Catholic Christendom, and “Anglicanism”, as connoting a separate or independent religious system, was unknown.
Thus all the original Bishops and Priests in the Ecclesia Anglicana branch of the Catholic Church were 100% Catholic and in union with Rome.
After Henry’s royal temper tantrum for not getting his way in the divorce he usurped the Church authority and declared it all subject to himself and the crown. At this time the scourge of Protestantism was sweeping across all of Europe and Henry went with the flow so to speak to consolidate his power base as other European Monarchs were doing in the big power grab. It is his son King Edward who really tries to gut The Church of its Catholic culture and spirituality and authority and forces the new secular Edwardian rites (Edwardine Ordinal) to be used in the appointment of new bishops or priests. This is a complete secularization takeover of the religion which completely severed the apostolic succession and true spiritual authority. The Edwardine Ordinal rejected core tenants of Christianity as practised continuously by Christians and the Catholic Church for 1500 years prior. It was briefly set aside when Queen Mary ascended to the throne in an attempt to restore the church but then Queen Elizabeth restores it to force England back into secular protestantism.
Thus the original true and validly ordained apostolic Catholic bishops died off over the years were prevented from using the proper Catholic rites. Those loyal to Rome and The True Church were removed (and executed) and replaced with “the king’s bishops” and so never received valid apostolic succession since the king did not have divine apostolic spiritual authority to convey and any genuinely ordained Catholic bishop remaining in the Anglican Church (I don’t think any were alive) were prevented from using the proper rites so they could pass on their apostolic authority.
The authoritative Catholic ruling on the matter proclaimed years later is the famous papal bull of Pope Leo XIII in 1897 is:
Apostolic Curae: Anglican Orders Absolutely Null and Utterly Void
Since this ruling some sly Anglican ecclesial authorities have tried to use other rogue Catholic religious order’s apostolic bishops from other alienated Catholic Branches who still manage to have valid but illicit true apostolic succession to restore the apostolic priesthood (e.g. “Old Catholics”, PNC, Coptics, Orthodox etc.) but I think this has failed and these others are genuinely fearful of invalidating themselves before God through religious entanglement.
Once Anglicans lost their apostolic succession and permitted the teaching to be perverted by the heretical teachings of Protestantism the faith was pushed into a sort of very muddled middle-ground between Protestantism & Catholicism where pretty much “anything goes” as far as what anyone wants to believe is really going on in the new ecclesial community (Catholics no longer consider it a “Church”). In the new secularized Anglican religious system the laity and bishops are on equal footing spiritually so Anglican Bishops have no real teaching or ecclesial authority over the laity; who are free to believe pretty much whatever they want. Thus today in the same pew Anglicans who consider themselves still Catholic profess real presence in the Eucharist (they do have a liturgy - just no valid priesthood) and others professing symbolic presence (a remembrance only) and still others who just like the traditions and ceremonies independent of any theological teachings.
It’s a sad mess in the Anglican world and no doubt God has a very special place reserved for King Henry and his down line for what severe damage he did to make a mockery of the faith of the original good Anglicans in God’s Church. I can’t imagine…
James
