Not to question the accuracy of the link already supplied, but I always like to hear things from “the horse’s mouth”.
Fair enough, but when the horse’s mouth is actually a schismatic group, how credible can their testimonies actually be? A schismatic group will say anything to bad-mouth the Mother Church, don’t you think?
That is what I suspect but I am hoping to find something official, like Apostolicae Curae and Anglican orders. Do you know of anything official from Rome? According to Wikipedia, the late Cardinal Hume, in discussing Apostlicae Curae, mentioned some Anglican orders might now be valid because of the presence of Old Catholic bishops at some of their ordinations. I confess a great deal of ignorance about Cardinal Hume and so I don’t know whether or not this statement is a reliable indication of OCC holy orders’ validity.
Well, no matter how I feel about the Catholic Church, or the Orthodox, or Old Catholics, I certainly wouldn’t look to another’s opinion of them to understand what they teach, even my own LCMS. At least not initially. The Catholic Church deserves to be understood by the CCC, The Lutheran Church by The Book Of Concord, etc.
Understood and thank you for the links to some Old Catholic websites. I’m happy to learn what they believe from Old Catholic sources. However, I’m also trying to find out if the Catholic Church recognizes their holy orders as valid. That is, of course, something that I’d like to hear from a Catholic source. I would prefer not to take the Old Catholics word for it.
I think this is all due to one excommunicated Archbishop’s rebellion against the Church by consecrating an OCC ‘archbishop’ and comment about his so-called ‘validity’ but it does not make it so. It’s going to take a lot of research looking for an official document from the Vatican, but i hope this will surmise for now, since this is from the ‘horse’s mouth’ itself:
Probably not universally throughout the ‘Old Catholic’ sect. Reason being, it’s difficult to trust if the apostolic succession was legit. For those ‘old catholic’ bishops having apostolic succession, they are validly ordained and as such, their sacraments are valid (though schismatic), as are sacraments validly adminstered by priest ordained by them (given all other conditions for valid sacraments are met). Yet the “trustworthiness” of the apostolic succession would be at least in doubt in my mind.
Well, i posted a reply to ChristIsTheWay with a link describing themselves pretty clearly.
But even the Union of Utrecht is quite shadowy in terms of their legitimacy. Its pretty hard to tell them apart nowadays.
Yes, I view all of these schismatic groups as having at least “doubtful” sacramental validity, unless the Catholic Church decrees otherwise.
Glad to help, and if I misunderstood your request, I apologize. Obviously, if you’re looking for the Catholic Church’s view of their sacraments and orders, the Vatican site would be the best bet.
Nah man, your opinions are still appreciated although we may not necessarily be from the same background. So stick around and give us your (name removed by moderator)ut whenever necessary.Now that I stuck my foot in my mouth, I’ll shut up and back out of the thread.
Jon
I placed in bold a sentence I found very interesting. It would seem that, assuming this website is correct, not even some Old Catholic bishops are entirely sure about the issue of validity.
No need to apologize. I asked two questions and you’ve been very helpful in answering. Please, continue to contribute.Glad to help, and if I misunderstood your request, I apologize. Obviously, if you’re looking for the Catholic Church’s view of their sacraments and orders, the Vatican site would be the best bet.
Now that I stuck my foot in my mouth, I’ll shut up and back out of the thread.
Jon
I think you should refer to wikipedia on this one. The information there is not entirely reliable, but at least it gives you a better picture of what the bolded words you highlighted actually points to.