Why are anglican orders invalid?

[Duane1966]

Picky Picky is unlikely to have an opinion on that topic.

As to Anglicans, the answer would depend on which Anglican you asked.

Those who do not attempt that exercise have no doubts as to the reason why they do not. And no doubts arising therefrom, as to their own orders.

Those who do attempt it will answer yes, and no doubts arise, etc.

And if they answer maybe, or not sure?

 

[GKC]

And if they answer maybe, or not sure?

Then the motleydom of Anglicans would be complete. There could be those then who doubt, not Anglican orders, but those Anglicans who are not validly ordained.

Though you would also have to include those who don’t think it matters, or have no opinion on the subject.

Added:

Have I ever congratulated you on your tag quote? I love to see that sort of thing.

ORTHODOXY, Chap. IV (Ethics of Elfland), p.83.

 

[Duane1966]

Then the motleydom of Anglicans would be complete. There could be those then who doubt, not Anglican orders, but those Anglicans who are not validly ordained.

Though you would also have to include those who don’t think it matters, or have no opinion on the subject.

Thank you. And you state a problem. Though none of your Anglicans have doubts (not doubting that they are right), they come to different conclusions. They can’t all be right can they?

All Leo and the RCC did in Apostolicae Curae, was exercise the charism that Jesus gave her to bind and loose. At this time, Anglican orders are invalid, and bound that way in Heaven. Now you may not agree that the Catholic Church holds that charism, but if she doesn’t, who does?

Yes you have, thank you. :tiphat:

 

[GKC]

Thank you. And you state a problem. Though none of your Anglicans have doubts (not doubting that they are right), they come to different conclusions. They can’t all be right can they?

All Leo and the RCC did in Apostolicae Curae, was exercise the charism that Jesus gave her to bind and loose. At this time, Anglican orders are invalid, and bound that way in Heaven. Now you may not agree that the Catholic Church holds that charism, but if she doesn’t, who does?

Yes you have, thank you. :tiphat:

I’m conciliarist, myself.

But there is no doubt whatsoever that the RCC has stated what she has stated, with respect to Anglican orders, and any and all RCs should affirm that, at the appropriate level of theological certainty.

 

[KjetilK]

But the situation still exists today, and has in essence existed since the formulation of the 39 Articles.

No that situation does no longer exist (if it ever did). If we assume that the situation was accurately described in the document, we have to acknowledge that the situation changed in the 1930s, after the so called ‘Duch Touch.’

 

[Picky_Picky]

Picky Picky is unlikely to have an opinion on that topic.

Correct. Thank you.

 

[liturgyluver]

Actually it doesn’t. There are 25 million Anglicans, and 4.2 million Catholics. If you’re referring to the 1.7 million Anglicans they say regularly attend mass, they don’t provide a comparable number of that 4.2 million total Catholics who are actually practicing. But presumably the numbers will be similar as they are across Europe.

But it’s not really relevant given the thread topic.

Agreed that this is a red herring, but just for completeness, this is what the article says:

*The 4.2 million-strong Catholic minority in England and Wales (eight percent of the population) is both more active and more resilient than in most European countries.

In an age of secularization, one million Catholics (according to recent surveys) say they are regular churchgoers; so that while priests in such predominantly Catholic countries as Spain and Italy celebrate Mass on Sundays in near empty churches, this is not the case in Catholic Britain.*

What the article is doing is comparing 24% weekly mass attendance of English Roman Catholics with much lower church attendance rates among Anglicans. A bit of a false analogy since church attendance is not mandatory among Anglicans in the same way as Roman Catholics, and many attend monthly rather than weekly.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Agreed that this is a red herring, but just for completeness, this is what the article says:

*The 4.2 million-strong Catholic minority in England and Wales (eight percent of the population) is both more active and more resilient than in most European countries.

In an age of secularization, one million Catholics (according to recent surveys) say they are regular churchgoers; so that while priests in such predominantly Catholic countries as Spain and Italy celebrate Mass on Sundays in near empty churches, this is not the case in Catholic Britain.*

What the article is doing is comparing 24% weekly mass attendance of English Roman Catholics with much lower church attendance rates among Anglicans. A bit of a false analogy since church attendance is not mandatory among Anglicans in the same way as Roman Catholics, and many attend monthly rather than weekly.

I would not argue with your last paragraph. The Catholic Church seems to me to be faring reasonably well in England. Apart from the recusant strain and descendants of 19th century working class converts, Catholicism seems to have gained ground among the aristocracy, while of course one very healthy part of the plant is the huge Irish community in England, boosted over the past few decades by substantial immigration from Catholic central and eastern Europe. An interesting mix.

In my (not necessarily at all typical) part of the country almost all the Catholics I know are thoroughly English, but with Irish surnames. Fascinating.

 

[KjetilK]

I think it’s likely brought up here more often, as folks here are likely more in tune with the existence and nature of Catholic churches outside the Latin Rite. To even be on a forum like the one we’re on evidences a heightened degree of attention on such matters.

But when Pope Pius XII used the term, he used it to describe the entire communion of churches in communion with him, including the eastern rite churches. Don’t confuse ‘roman’ and ‘latin.’

 

[Padres1969]

Agreed that this is a red herring, but just for completeness, this is what the article says:

*The 4.2 million-strong Catholic minority in England and Wales (eight percent of the population) is both more active and more resilient than in most European countries.

In an age of secularization, one million Catholics (according to recent surveys) say they are regular churchgoers; so that while priests in such predominantly Catholic countries as Spain and Italy celebrate Mass on Sundays in near empty churches, this is not the case in Catholic Britain.*

What the article is doing is comparing 24% weekly mass attendance of English Roman Catholics with much lower church attendance rates among Anglicans. A bit of a false analogy since church attendance is not mandatory among Anglicans in the same way as Roman Catholics, and many attend monthly rather than weekly.

Thank you for noting this key difference which undoubtedly skews their numbers further and does make it even more of a red herring than I was implying.

 

[Padres1969]

Thank you. And you state a problem. Though none of your Anglicans have doubts (not doubting that they are right), they come to different conclusions. They can’t all be right can they?

All Leo and the RCC did in Apostolicae Curae, was exercise the charism that Jesus gave her to bind and loose. At this time, Anglican orders are invalid, and bound that way in Heaven. Now you may not agree that the Catholic Church holds that charism, but if she doesn’t, who does?

Yes you have, thank you. :tiphat:

Anglicans come to different conclusions on all sorts of things. It’s never stopped them in the past, and I doubt it will stop them in the future. I mean we don’t even all agree on the exact nature of the Eucharist. It’s why the very general “Real Presence” is used to describe it, in part because Anglicans run the gamut on what that actually entails. Why should the nature of holy orders be any different

 

[GKC]

Anglicans come to different conclusions on all sorts of things. It’s never stopped them in the past, and I doubt it will stop them in the future. I mean we don’t even all agree on the exact nature of the Eucharist. It’s why the very general “Real Presence” is used to describe it, in part because Anglicans run the gamut on what that actually entails. Why should the nature of holy orders be any different

From my standpoint, to ensure that one receives that Real Presence, in the sense that the Church from the beginning understood how it was confected.

 

[Padres1969]

From my standpoint, to ensure that one receives that Real Presence, in the sense that the Church from the beginning understood how it was confected.

Fair enough. I mean I don’t think most anyone who is Anglican doubts the veracity of our orders be they the original Edwardian interpretation or the post Elizabethan settlement. But if the Dutch Touch/Polish Poke gives one an added level of assurance/insurance… so be it

 

[GKC]

Fair enough. I mean I don’t think most anyone who is Anglican doubts the veracity of our orders be they the original Edwardian interpretation or the post Elizabethan settlement. But if the Dutch Touch/Polish Poke gives one an added level of assurance/insurance… so be it

I doubt the validity of any orders that depend on invalid subjects for confecting the sacrament of orders, and the validity of any Eucharist, depending on the same.

Hence (among other reasons), the Continuum.

 

[Padres1969]

I doubt the validity of any orders that depend on invalid subjects for confecting the sacrament of orders, and the validity of any Eucharist, depending on the same.

Hence (among other reasons), the Continuum.

Hence why I said most

I’ve been hanging around you too much GKC. Anglicans and absolutes don’t tend to mix.

 

[GKC]

Hence why I said most

I’ve been hanging around you too much GKC. Anglicans and absolutes don’t tend to mix.

I absolutely agree.

Mostly.

 

[Duane1966]

No that situation does no longer exist (if it ever did). If we assume that the situation was accurately described in the document, we have to acknowledge that the situation changed in the 1930s, after the so called ‘Duch Touch.’

You do not understand the key point of the document, one which the Dutch Touch cannot fix, in a Catholic’s eyes. The rite of Anglican ordination in use, was, is, and will always be, defective. This is just part of an article found here: rtforum.org/lt/lt14.html

Why, then, did Leo XIII judge the form of Anglican orders to be invalid, when the actual words do not seem significantly different from those used in Catholic ordinations? After all, the Pontiff himself did not rule out the possibility that in themselves, the words “for the office and work of a priest” in the above Anglican prayer “might have lent the form a legitimate signification,” even though they were in any case added a century too late, when no more true Bishops were left in England - that is, nobody left with the capacity to make fruitful use of even a valid rite of ordination (AC, 26).

    To answer this question, we must refer to the crucial point in Pope Leo's argument, which we have already referred to above: what he called the **"native character and spirit" of the whole Anglican Ordinal. The point is that the mere use of the words "priest" and "bishop" *will be insufficient for a valid form of ordination if those words bear a different meaning from that which the Catholic Church understands.*** And in order to determine what meaning these words have in the Anglican rite, **one has to consider their historical and literary context - that is, what doctrine of ministry or priesthood is taught by that rite of ordination considered as a whole.** This involves looking not only at the central prayer - the essential form of ordination - but also at the other prayers and texts of the Ordinal, ***as well as the opinions which are known to have been held by its authors.***

    Once an investigation of this sort is carried out, it very quickly becomes apparent what the Anglican Reformers did and did not understand by the word "priest." As Leo XIII called to mind, the Catholic idea of the priestly character - an idea which must be expressed or at least intended in any valid form of priestly ordination - is **"pre-eminently the power 'to consecrate and offer the true body and blood of the Lord'** in that sacrifice which is no 'mere commemoration of the sacrifice performed on the Cross'" (AC, 25). **However Thomas Cranmer and the other original Anglican Reformers not only did not believe in the sacrificial power of the priest, but were positively hostile to this Catholic doctrine, which they regarded as heretical and blasphemous.** Therefore, in revising the Catholic rite of ordination, **they deliberately made sure that none of the texts or prayers or gestures contained even the slightest hint of this* "pre-eminent" and essential feature*** of the priestly character as understood by Catholics. *Thus, the "native character and spirit" of the whole Anglican rite (including, of course, the central prayer embodying the form of ordination) was one of a deliberate exclusion of what Catholics understand by the priesthood.* As Leo XIII said,

* these prayers have been deliberately stripped of everything which in the Catholic rite clearly sets forth the dignity and functions of the priesthood. It is impossible, therefore, for a form to be suitable or sufficient for a sacrament if it suppresses that which it ought distinctively to signify.10*

    The inevitable consequence of this deliberate suppression, the Pope continues, is that even though this or that Anglican prayer "conceivably ... might be held to suffice in a Catholic rite which the Church had approved,"11  ** the fact remains that words such as "priest" or "bishop," occurring in the existing Anglican Ordinal,**

cannot bear the same sense as they have in a Catholic rite. For, as we have seen, when once a new rite has been introduced denying or corrupting the sacrament of Order and repudiating any notion whatsoever of consecration and sacrifice, then the formula, “Receive the Holy Ghost” (that is, the Spirit who is infused into the soul with the grace of the sacrament), is deprived of its force;

nor have the words, “for the office and work of a priest” or “bishop,” etc., any longer their validity,** being now mere names voided of the reality which Christ instituted.12**

Part I.

 

[Duane1966]

Conclusion.

Leo XIII’s argument could be summed up, then, as being based on the principle that** a rite cannot convey something which it was intended specifically to exclude and repudiate.** And in fact, as the Pope and many others since have pointed out, there have always been many Anglicans who agree entirely with Leo’s condemnation of Anglican orders - in the sense that they do not believe their rite conveys those powers which Catholics ascribe to ordained priests, and indeed, would be totally opposed to any attempt to convey such powers. They do not want their orders to be valid in the Catholic sense! A recent study by an Evangelical Anglican scholar, Colin Buchanan,13 expresses this viewpoint very clearly, underlining the fact that Cranmer knew what the Catholic doctrine was and wanted to make quite sure it was utterly excluded from his new rite of ordination.**

    At this point someone might object that the argument we have expounded seems to contradict what we said earlier about the defect of form being quite independent from, and anterior to, the defect of intention. Leo XIII's argument for the defectiveness of the form (it might be said) turns out after all to depend crucially on Cranmer's intentions, and not simply on the actual words he used in his Ordinal.

    The answer to this objection - which seems to have been a source of confusion for quite a few people who have studied this problem - would be that we must distinguish carefully between the intention of those who use the Anglican Ordinal in ordaining men to the Anglican ministry, and the intention of the authors of the Ordinal when they were composing it. **What Pope Leo teaches is that the latter intention - an anti-sacrificial and anti-Catholic one - is written into the Anglican rite, and "sticks" or "clings" to it, so to speak, for ever afterwards.** That anti-sacrificial intention is thus the objective and perduring meaning of the rite, and "infects," as it were, the words "priest" and "bishop" in the essential prayers in such a way that those prayers are an invalid form of the sacrament. In other words, according to Leo's teaching, it is not good enough for an Anglo-Catholic bishop to come along at a later date (even assuming he has been validly consecrated) and say, "When I use the Anglican Ordinal, I am using the words "priest" (or "bishop") to mean exactly what the Roman Catholic Church means. Therefore the form is quite valid when I use it, and since my intentions are also Catholic, my ordinations convey true priestly powers." Not good enough, says Leo - the reason being that the words in the rite mean only what the original Anglican authors intended them to mean. They cannot have that meaning "flushed out" by some well-intentioned individual who wants to inject into them a Catholic meaning of his own choosing. When the Pope says that the defect of intention is a distinct and secondary defect, however, he is not talking about the intention written into the Ordinal by its authors. Rather, he is referring to the presumed intentions of the original users of the Anglican Ordinal - some of whom, of course, were the same persons who had a hand in composing it. At that time, long before there was a definite Anglo-Catholic party which had recovered a Catholic understanding of the Eucharist and Priesthood, **those who knowingly chose to use a rite from which essential Catholic doctrines had been "deliberately stripped" must be presumed, says Pope Leo, to have had an un-Catholic intention. And this would be a further reason for the invalidity of their ordinations, over and above the fact that they used a defective form of the sacrament.**

It’s quite obvious to me that Peter spoke through another Leo.

 

[Duane1966]

Anglicans come to different conclusions on all sorts of things. It’s never stopped them in the past, and I doubt it will stop them in the future. I mean we don’t even all agree on the exact nature of the Eucharist. It’s why the very general “Real Presence” is used to describe it, in part because Anglicans run the gamut on what that actually entails. Why should the nature of holy orders be any different

Ahhh yes. I hear you loud and clear. Christ came to not witness to the truth but to witness to ambiguity.

 

[GKC]

Conclusion.

It’s quite obvious to me that Peter spoke through another Leo.

Would seem simple to have a definitive statement on the OC/PNCC question,as I have oft observed. But none comes, definitively and authoritatively.

Go to the last list of sources at the bottom of the page following the article (which I am familiar with). Note two of the recommendations: Clark and Hughes. I recommend them, too. Plus Hughes’ STEWARDS OF THE LORD.