See Apostolicae Curae. The Edwardine Ordinal was promoted in 1552. It soon displaced the old Catholic rite altogether. The defect in sacramental form was not corrected until 1662.
That’s a gap of 110 years during which invalid ordinations to the priesthood and consecrations to the episcopate were performed. Do you think any of the original, validly-ordained hierarchy of bishops were still alive after 110 years? Of course not. They died, and the power of ordination died with them; even if the correction had been sufficient to restore the rite to sacramental validity, it wouldn’t matter, as there would have been no Anglican left in England capable of affecting it.
Note that Apostolicae Curae did not nullify Anglican orders. It simply recognized their nullity. Actually it did even less than that – it simply confirmed that the Church has always recognized them as null. Hence why I urged you to read Apostolicae Curae.
Eh? I never said they “hardly had an effect.” I said they’d hardly been used by the time Mary came to the throne. Mary came to the throne a year after the promotion of the Ordinal. Rome hadn’t even seen a copy of it yet. So the fact that it wasn’t immediately quashed is proof of exactly nothing. The first ruling, when it did come, was negative and the consensus of the Church since then has echoed that sentiment. Sadly, Mary’s reign was short and her successor was a Protestant, so nothing was done about it.
No one denies no authority can command you to sin. Then again, no one is commanding you to sin.
Maybe the “modernist” part was premature. After all, their heresy could be motivated by any number of considerations, and very likely many of them aren’t even thinking deeply enough about the issues to really embrace modernism, though if you pressed them they might give modernist-sounding answers, i.e., ohh, the Church has grown out of that nonsense.
But there is no denying that heresy is widespread. Carlin, in “The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America,” cites a few polls, including one of religious ed teachers in 2000, showing that at best around 10% of Catholics accept the Church’s teachings.
Charity doesn’t oblige us to believe nonsense. The laity in bad shape. Hence, don’t aspire to be like them, but like the saints, who in humility and obedience did the will of their Father.
The truth is, whether you want to accept it or not, the Catholic Church could have reversed the ordinals under Queen Mary and they didn’t. They had several years to, and they didn’t. Why? I don’t know. You say they didn’t know about it until it was too late, I find that INCREDIBLY hard to believe. You mean to tell me the Catholic Church, for multiple years, had no idea their ordinal rites were changed? Yeah right. They knew exactly what was going on and they chose to do nothing about it, just as they chose not to force all of the priests who were ordained under those false rites to be re-ordained when they had years to do it. Some of them, yes. Even many of them, but not all of them, and according to the response made by the Church of England to Apostolicae Curae, they do not have a record of a single priest being removed simply because of invalid authority. It just doesn’t exist according to them, perhaps they are lying.
Second, again, I reject the idea that during Mary’s reign, the Catholic Church didn’t know. That seems to be what you are implying and that is totally unacceptable given the historical context. They had years to fix it and they didn’t. That makes no sense.
Third, “sadly” is hard the word I would use to describe Mary being deposed. She was a ruthless and terrible monarch and the Church, quite frankly, should be ashamed of its support of her given the hundreds of people who burned to death because of her reign.
Fourth, your previous argument was that no child is in a position to question the authority of their parents…Now you are saying no one is saying you have to listen to your parents when they tell you to sin…SO which is it? In one case, we are required to adhere no matter what, in another case, we have a choice. Also, one could certainly argue that the Church has sinned and commanded many within the Church to sin MANY, MANY times. Yes, the Catholic Church has probably done more good in this world, no it definitely has, than any other single organization in history, but they have also asked many people to sin and to break God’s laws as well. So yes, the Church, as well as many other churches, has asked people to sin.
Fifth, heresy or not…We shouldn’t talk about people who disagree with our theological beliefs as “unwashed.” That is the point and it is also the command of Jesus. You are right though, the Catholic laity don’t generally believe in many Catholic teachings which are “infallibly” true.
Of course, if one believes in Apostolic Succession and if the tale were true, how could Wesley (an Anglican priest, NOT a bishop) ordain others to the priesthood?