Should We See Anglican Holy Orders As Valid?

[KnightofChrist]

Anglican Orders

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01491a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01491a.htm[/url]

THE AUTHORITY OF "APOSTOLICAE CURAE"

The question has been raised whether the pronouncement of the Bull "Apostolicae Curae" is or is not to be taken as an infallible utterance of the Holy See. But even if it were not it would not follow that it can be disregarded, and its eventual withdrawal confidently anticipated. What may be safely assumed is that it fixes the belief and practice of the Catholic Church irrevocably. This at least Leo XIII must have meant to signify when in his letter to Cardinal Richard, of 5 November, 1896, he declared that his "intention had been to pass a final judgment and settle (the question) forever" (absolute judicare et penitus dirimere), and that "Catholics were bound to receive (the judgment) with the fullest obedience as perpetuo firmam, ratam, irrevocabilem".

Still, as a matter of speculative interest, it may be asked whether the definition is strictly infallible, and the answer may be stated shortly thus. It belongs to a class of ex cathedral utterances for which infallibility is claimed on the ground, not indeed, of the terms of the Vatican definition, but of the constant practice of the Holy See, the consentient teaching of the theologians, as well as of the clearest deductions from the principles of faith.

To understand what is meant it is necessary to bear in mind the distinction between a dogma and a dogmatic fact, the former being a doctrine of revelation, the latter a fact so intimately connected with a revealed doctrine that it would be impossible without inconsistency to assert the former and deny the latter. It may be urged that the Vatican Council merely defined that the Pope when speaking ex cathedra has "that infallibility which the divine Redeemer wished His Church to have in defining doctrine of faith and morals", without going on to define the range of infallibility which Our Lord wished His Church to have. But it must be remembered

* that the Vatican Council, had it not been forced to suspend its sittings by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, intended to supplement this first definition by others which would have gone into details in regard to the object of infallibility;
* that to suppose that Church authority can define a doctrine to be true, but cannot decide whether it is contained in or denied by any particular writing — such as an ordination rite — is to suppose that the power of defining doctrine is largely nugatory; and
* that since the time of Jansenius there has been a practical consensus theologorum in holding that infallibility does extend to dogmatic facts, a judgment which would undoubtedly bring this Bull within the category of infallible utterances.

Edited December 4, 2007 by KnightofChrist

[jeffpugh]

[quote name='PopeClementI(MorClemis)' post='1427150' date='Nov 30 2007, 12:44 AM']The fact that Lutherans and Episcopalians swap ministers, that they ordain women to the role of priest and bishop, that they changed the form of ordination and consecration, and that now even "lay consecration" is becoming more and more common - there is no question from the Catholic perspective - if not before, then definitely now - "utterly null and void!"

It should be noted that Lutherans don't have bishops in the same sense as Catholics or Orthodox - they are pastors temporarily elected to supervise the diocese (about a 6 yr term), after which they return to being a pastor - this cannot ever be consider valid to the Catholic/Orthodox understanding of Holy Orders. Also, the Lutheran "ordinations" are not necessarily done by the (temporary) "bishop" - the bishop can have another minister lay hands on the ordinand - they consider this completely valid and do this often. Practically, I have no idea how Anglicans/Episcopalians can reconcile this complete difference and accept their ministers are equal to their own and swap with them.

The other concern with Orders here is that the Lutheran have had for some time now, a practice called "lay consecration", where they elect a lay person or a rotating group of lay persons to stand in the place of the minister and do the whole service - words of consecration and all. This is not a Communion Service, with pre-consecrated Hosts, but a full-blown service, with the laity doing the "consecrating". They consider this a valid Eucharist.
This practice has blended into Anglicanism as well, the low-church Anglicans have been doing this for years in the [b]Diocese of Sydney (one of the most low-church evangelical Anglican dioceses in the world).[/b] My question is - if the layperson is doing everything an ordained is doing - why bother ordaining anyone? Wouldn't it be much cheaper and simpler to just get rid of the ordained ministry all together?[/quote]
So, do they hold that title with honour or what?

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1428593' date='Dec 3 2007, 11:29 AM']I brought up the points here and this is the response I got. He is still arguing that

--by the standards we state some Catholic and Orthodox bishops are invalid
--Anglican bishops from Augustine of Cantervery is valid
--During Queen Mary's reign the Church recognized anglican orders as valid, thus a valid succession.
--the quotes (church teaching) are something anglicans can affirm and are only aimed at protos (apparently anglican are not protos?)

Does he have a point? (keeping it a debate) any rebutal help would be great[/quote]

Peter Kreeft once posed the question (in his audio lecture on ecuminism on his website) "Are Anglicans: A, Catholic B, Protestant, C, Both?" (and my addition, D, Non of the above?). The Church of England and dissintigrating offshoots are a phenominon. Sad, really.

[ironmonk]

Angelican Orders are [b][u]not [/u][/b]valid.




[quote][b]How can you deny the Orders of the anglican bishops? They go back to the Bishops of the Reformation period.[/b]

There have been anglican bishops continuously since the reformation, but valid Orders have not been continuously handed on. Henry VIII began the Church of England in 1534. The Bishops who submitted to him were validly consecrated, and validity lasted until 1550. But in that year, under Edward VI, a great effort was made to protestantize still more the Church of England both in doctrine and in practice. The form of Ordination was deliberately changed, all reference to priesthood in the true Christian sense of the word being eliminated. This defective form utterly useless for the true ordination of priests, remained unchanged until 1662- 112 years later. then the mistake was realized and the form was corrected. But the correction was too late, for those whith correct Orders had died, and oly those who had been invalidly consecrated remained to hand on their pretended Orders. Not a few Anglicans have tried to make sure of Orders by re-ordination at the hands of schismatical Bishops. The Angelican Bishop Knox, writing in the National Review for September, 1925, said correctly, "The Pope refused absolutely to recognize our Anglican Orders on the ground that our Church does not ordain priests to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass. In spite of attempts made by our Archbishop to conceal this defect, the Pope from his point of view was unquestionably right. It is true that certain priests of the Church of England offer so-called Masses, but as they were not ordained by the Church with the intention that they should offer the Body and Blood of Christ to the Father, the Sacrament of their Ordination is for this purpose a failure. The Prayer Book and Ordinal are simply un-Catholic, since they show no sign of fulfilling the most important of all Catholic functions.

[b]Radio Replies. Vol. 1. #286 [/b][/quote]

God Bless,
ironmonk

Edited December 4, 2007 by ironmonk

[N/A Gone]

But what about the notion that Anglicans have a valid apostolic succession, since they can trace the laying on of hands to Augustine who was a valid Roman Catholic Bishop.

[Noel's angel]

Does the term 'Roman Church' bother anyone else as much as it bothers me?

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1429390' date='Dec 4 2007, 07:53 PM']But what about the notion that Anglicans have a valid apostolic succession, since they can trace the laying on of hands to Augustine who was a valid Roman Catholic Bishop.[/quote]

As I highlighted before it doesn't make a difference. If the Pope himself laid hands upon me and did not adhere to the ordination rubrics then my ordination would be invalid. Likewise if the Pope decided he didn't really like Trinitarian baptism and changed the words that baptism would be invalid. Or if, shock horror, the Pope decided he didn't really like the anaphora or the consecration so he was gonna mix it up a little etc.etc. I'm sure my point has been duly illustrated. When the Anglican bishops altered their rubrics their apostolic succession ceased Leo XIII has already ruled upon this issue and did so after an exhaustive study of the whole affair. Anglicans do not have valid orders.

[PopeClementI(MorClemis)]

It should be noted, that should a group like the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) come into Communion with the Church once again, they would have their Rites approved and ordained by valid Bishops.

Let's pray that this happens soon!

[PopeClementI(MorClemis)]

The way the Anglicans use the term "Roman Church" is incorrect, but the term "Roman Church" or "Latin Church" can be used properly when differentiating from the "Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church", or the "Syriac Church", the "Chaldean Church", etc..

[quote name='Noel's angel' post='1429397' date='Dec 4 2007, 02:15 PM']Does the term 'Roman Church' bother anyone else as much as it bothers me?[/quote]

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1429390' date='Dec 4 2007, 12:53 PM']But what about the notion that Anglicans have a valid apostolic succession, since they can trace the laying on of hands to Augustine who was a valid Roman Catholic Bishop.[/quote]

Their alleged apostolic succession doesn't actually trace to St. Augustine of Canterbury: "[b]It is uncertain whether the consecration of the Anglican Archbishop Martthew Parker (1559), on whom the apostolic succession in the Anglican Church depends, was performed by validly consecrated consecrator or by a consecrator who was consecrated at all.[/b]" (cf. Ludwig Ott, [i]Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma[/i] p. 456)

Edited December 5, 2007 by StThomasMore

[N/A Gone]

update response...

[quote]As the new advent page sort of showed, Ott's claim is suspect.

but yeah. i guess from a Catholic point of view there can be no conversation (which is one minor problem i have with Catholics. in some ways i think the infallible claims can be good, but in other ways i think they are overstated and leave no room for what i feel is valid conversation.)

I feel that the CAtholics may be right that according to Catholic standards, Anglicans probably do not have valid orders. But i do not feel that these standards are right. And if you claim that we do not have Apostolic Succesion then you are saying we do not partake in true sacraments and therefore are barely Christians or not Christians.

I immensely respect the Catholic Church, however i do not respect their sorry attempt at ecumenism. (Though i respect John Paul II and Benedict XVI's attempts at ecumenical conversation)...

It all comes back to my one problem with Catholicism: that is, they say too much too explicitly. Sometimes they seem to be the fundamentalists of Sacramental Churches.

so yeah, i guess you can accept Anglicans as true Christians or not, but the truth is we have apostolic succession and we have true sacraments. I cannot believe that God would reject imparting grace, simply because someone may have been corrupt in history.

here's a little quote. a little biased, but no more biased than the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"There have been disputes about the continuity of the succession of bishops, and some writers in the Protestant tradition have questioned the need for it. Questions about the historic succession led to the condemnation of Anglican Orders by Pope Leo XIII in 1896. The grounds put forward for this attack on the Church of England ordination rites were: that the actual succession had been broken in a number of irregular ordinations; that the English ordinal was insufficient in conveying the ministry because of the removal of certain traditional rituals; and that there is no mention in the rite of the priestly power to offer sacrifice.
Scholars today do not take seriously the questioning of certain bishops' ordinations (notably Parker and Barlow). The Anglican Ordinal is more strict than most in insisting that three bishops take part in the consecration of a new bishop, so maintaining the historic succession. Even if some of the earlier consecrations were suspect, the succession was surely restored in the consecration of Archbishop Laud, who was consecrated by bishops both in the Irish and Italian succession .
To the Bull of Pope Leo (Apostolicae Curae), the Archbishops of Canterbury and York replied in 1897: that the Anglican Church confers the office instituted by Christ and all that it contains. They affirmed that the Anglican Church teaches the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice in terms as explicit as the Canon of the Roman Mass, and finally, that the words and actions required by the Pope are not even found in the earliest Roman Ordinals. This latter point puts the validity of Roman orders on no surer footing than those of the English Church. Although theologians have come to major agreement on these issues, the Church of Rome refuses at this point to rescind the Papal Bull condemning Anglican Orders. It is a major sore point between our two churches.[/quote]

WOW...interesting perspective on catholicism.

[jeffpugh]

This sort of thing can be easy to ignore... and pretend people aren't sore over this... at least it was for me till this article came up. Thanks Rev. My beef with Anglicans though is the lack of tabernacles in some of their churches. Maybe I've only been to the "low Anglican" buildings... I guess I grew up as a "low" Anglican as well...

[jeffpugh]

I guess I should explain my point... the point is... if they believe their sacraments are valid (including the Eucharist) then why do some Anglican communions not respectably put "Jesus" in a tabernacle instead of leaving the hosts to the side for later?

[N/A Gone]

I was hoping you would look at this thread SMM. What do you think of his angle on catholic ecumenism?

[jeffpugh]

I think his angle on the whole Catholic ecumenism picture is quite fair from his perspective. This is how I see it: we need to approach this point of view both subjectively and objectively. Subjectively insofar that we need to see through his eyes on the matter, and objectively according to the standard of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Now, the articles do say things about succession being "true" and points to certain individuals. I can't pretend I know what he's talking about, or what other sources on the matter say. In fact, it brings up this question: "what if the orders are 'valid'? What is the consequence for 're-ordaining' and re-installing [unmarried] bishops?". So this is the deal... we need to figure out what power the bishops of the schism had, what damage the changes (which were absolutely made during the protestantizing of the Church of England) to the ordination and Eucharistic sacraments were done (ie removing of authority/power).
It would have been a lot easier if the effects of the schism ended after the king's declaration... unfortunately, I think disintegration of the Anglican communion accelerated when it became a political thing, that is when the government started slaughtering people who would not knuckle. It was a sort of a symbolic act of breaking away completely...
I digress...
I'll do a bit of reading, if I make time and I'll try and give more than my two cents. I'll follow this thread if it stays afloat... I wish I could say more.
I'll talk to some other Anglican friends on the subject. Might enlighten me a bit.

God bless/

[ironmonk]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1429390' date='Dec 4 2007, 02:53 PM']But what about the notion that Anglicans have a valid apostolic succession, since they can trace the laying on of hands to Augustine who was a valid Roman Catholic Bishop.[/quote]

The Anglican church changed the the ordination when they didn't have the authority to. All "priests" created with the Anglican ordination did not have succession.


God Bless,
ironmonk