Apostolic Succession - Teachings - Anglican Churches - Roman Catholic Judgment On Anglican Orders

Roman Catholic Judgment On Anglican Orders

In the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIII stated in his 1896 bull Apostolicae Curae that the Catholic Church believes specifically that the Anglican Church's consecrations are "absolutely null and utterly void" because of changes made to the rite of consecration under Edward VI, thus denying that Anglicans participate in the apostolic succession. Anglican clergy, then, are ordained as Catholic priests upon entry into the Catholic Church.

A reply from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (1896) was issued to counter Pope Leo's arguments: Saepius Officio: Answer of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Bull Apostolicae Curae of H. H. Leo XIII. They argued that if the Anglican orders were invalid, then the Roman orders were as well since the Pope based his case on the fact that the Anglican ordinals used did not contain certain essential elements but these were not found in the early Roman rites either. However, Catholics argue, this argument does not consider the sacramental intention involved in validating Holy Orders. In other words, Catholics believe that the ordinands were reworded so as to invalidate the ordinations because the intention behind the alterations in the rite was a fundamental change in Anglican understanding of the priesthood.

It is Roman Catholic doctrine that the teaching of Apostolicae Curae is a truth to be "held definitively", as evidenced by commentary by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, currently Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Basil Hume explained the conditional character of his ordination of Graham Leonard, former Anglican bishop of the Diocese of London, to the priesthood in the following way: "While firmly restating the judgment of Apostolicae Curae that Anglican ordination is invalid, the Catholic Church takes account of the involvement, in some Anglican episcopal ordinations, of bishops of the Old Catholic Church of the Union of Utrecht who are validly ordained. In particular and probably rare cases the authorities in Rome may judge that there is a 'prudent doubt' concerning the invalidity of priestly ordination received by an individual Anglican minister ordained in this line of succession." but this opinion is not widely endorsed. Since Apostolicae Curae was issued many Anglican jurisdictions have revised their ordinals, bringing them more in line with ordinals of the early Church.

Timothy Dufort, writing in The Tablet in 1982, argued that by 1969 all Anglican bishops had acquired apostolic succession fully recognized by Rome, since from the 1930s Old Catholic bishops (whose orders Rome recognizes as valid) have acted as co-consecrators in the ordination of Anglican bishops. This view is not accepted by the Roman Catholic Church itself, which continues to require that Anglican clergy be ordained absolutely (not conditionally) if they are to exercise a ministry in that church.