From my perspective it seems that some theologians would love to find some way of moving to a position on the technical validity of ordinations that would be essentially the same as that of the Eastern Orthodox and this that would be one way to do it.
IMHO, the approach you mention some theologians as advocating is a “slipprey slope,” because the SSPX clergy I know (including their head in the U.S. whose HQ is not far from where I live,) are now saying that Roman Catholic ordinations must be using the Tridentine Latin Ordinal or they are not valid. Invalidating Dutch Old Catholic Ordinations on the basis of the rationale you mentioned would seem to open the door for some (like the SSPX) - and others - applying that same criteria to them. Arguably it would be best “not to go down that path.”
Perhaps the “800 pound gorilla in the room” is that Rome’s present (Augustinian) position is based on the contents of documents included in the Sacred (rather than the Ordinary) Magesterium which is by definition infallible. The Greeks and Russians (as well as the Utrech Union - Dutch and others - Old Catholics and Anglicans) are not concerned about that sort of thing. One interesting note which muddies the water as far as the Episcopal Church is concerned, is that the Episcopal Church is in full communion with the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands and through them, with the Utrech Union itself (
anglicansonline.org/communion/infull.html .)
Another point is that acceptance by the Vatican of the technical (material) validity of an Episcopalian or Old/Independent Catholic priest’s orders followed by a conditional (
sub conditione) re-ordination, may get him into the Catholic Church as a priest but does not necessarily mean that he will be welcomed with open arms . . . sometimes it is quite the contrary, as was the experience of Fr. John Jay Hughes as told in his biography, “No Ordinary Fool,” Tate Publishing, Mustang, OK, 2008. In his case Rome’s ruling that his ordinations were valid (he had the “Dutch Touch” and the PNCC lineage as well,) actually angered his bishop at that time (though there was nothing he could do about it.) Though Fr. Hughes was conditionally re-ordained, it was a very, very long time before he was given a significant job in the Church. Titles? Yes. Nice ones. But with little if any real duties, or assigned to failing parishes.
But there are other theologians in the Catholic Church who take the opposite opinion to those of the ones you mention in your comments, and think the Church should be far more welcoming than it is today, and base that on an imperative to re-unite the Church as per “Ut Unum Sint.” Some of them are important Church officials.
Blessings,
Irl
