Independent Catholic Churches - Holy Orders

Holy Orders

Independent clergy have often received multiple ordinations/consecrations in an attempt to ensure a broad and diverse claim to apostolic succession. Though perhaps less prevalent than in the past, the practice continues; for example, Archbishop Peter Paul Brennan of the African Orthodox Church, one of four who were conditionally ordained to the episcopate by the excommunicated Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo on 24 September 2006, claims to have been first consecrated on 10 June 1978, and subsequently conditionally re-consecrated a number of times prior to the ceremony conducted by Archbishop Milingo. Also, in 2007, various independent Catholic bishops in the UK underwent multiple mutual reconsecrations "as a gesture of unity".

The claims of many within the independent movement to continuity with holy orders as found in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy are based at least in part on an understanding of apostolic succession that has been held by some within the Latin Church since the time of the Donatist controversy in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. According to those who hold this view, a person becomes a bishop if consecrated in an approved rite by another (validly ordained) bishop even when he is outside the boundaries of Catholicism. However, some contemporary Roman Catholic theologians consider this view to be mechanical and reductionist; teaching that such ceremonies have no effect on the grounds that ordination is for service within an established Christian church. Therefore an ordination ceremony that concerns only the individual himself does not correspond to the understanding of ordination held by the Roman Catholic Church and is subsequently without efficacy. Independent clergy reject this characterisation, seeing their bishops as always ordained for the service of others and for the Christian community, whether in a defined jurisdiction or more broadly. As for the Old Catholics of the Union of Utrecht, the Coptic Church and the various Orthodox churches, they completely reject the validity of the ordinations of heretics or schismatics, and thus do not recognise the orders of independent clergy, to whom they apply these categories.

Whilst the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church has more than once declared that certain episcopal consecrations have no canonical effect, it has occasionally stated that it was not thereby expressing a judgement on the validity, but merely on their canonical efficacy (see also Valid but illicit). Thus, when it declared devoid of canonical effect the consecration ceremony conducted by Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục for the Carmelite Order of the Holy Face group on 31 December 1975, it refrained from pronouncing on its validity. It made the same statement with regard to later ordinations by those bishops, saying that, "as for those who have already thus unlawfully received ordination or any who may yet accept ordination from these, whatever may be the validity of the orders (quidquid sit de ordinum validitate), the Church does not and will not recognise their ordination (ipsorum ordinationem), and will consider them, for all legal effects, as still in the state in which they were before, except that the ... penalties remain until they repent" (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Decree Episcopi qui alios of 17 September 1976 - Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1976, page 623). The clause "as still in the state in which they were before" indicates that the Holy See views as juridically laymen those whose sole claim to be clergy is based on the ordinations in question.

The Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church did not question the validity of the consecrations that the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre performed in 1988 for the service of the followers of the Traditionalist Roman Catholic Society of St. Pius X that he had founded. Lefebvre was capable of forming the necessary intention whilst questions were raised regarding the mental capacity of Archbishops Ngô and Milingo to perform ordinations according to the understanding of the Catholic Church. Ngô was advanced in age and possibly suffering from dementia and Milingo had undergone a marriage conducted by the Unification Church which would raise questions about his theology; the Vatican statement concerning Milingo also refers to him as "elderly", with obvious attendant implications.

The official view of the Eastern Orthodox Churches may be summarised as follows: "While accepting the canonical possibility of recognising the existence (υποστατόν) of sacraments performed outside herself, (the Eastern Orthodox Church) questions their validity (έγκυρον) and certainly rejects their efficacy (ενεργόν)." It sees "the canonical recognition (αναγνώρισις) of the validity of sacraments performed outside the Orthodox Church (as referring) to the validity of the sacraments only of those who join the Orthodox Church (individually or as a body).". It is therefore clear that the Orthodox Communion does not, and will not, accept as valid any ordination ceremonies of clergy not accepted into their own communion.