Last week’s post examined the role of the defender of the bond, specifically the duty regarding the nullity of sacred orders. In light of this, today’s post briefly deviates to examine whether the Catholic Church considers ordinations done in the Anglican Church as valid.
Following King Henry VIII’s establishment of the Church of England in 1534 and King Edward VI’s introduction of a new rite for conferring holy orders in the Anglican Church in 1550, known as the Edwardine Ordinal, the validity of ordinations in the Anglican Church became a topic of discussion. Two groups were distinguished: those ordained before or after the secession of Henry VIII and those ordained according to the Edwardine Ordinal.
The Catholic Church has long considered ordinations according to the Edwardine Ordinal as null. Hence, since 1554, there has existed the practice of re-ordaining Anglican clergy ordained according to this Ordinal.
However, as debates continued back and front over the years, Pope Leo XIII issued an apostolic letter, Apostolicae Curae, “On the Nullity of Anglican Orders” in 1896, clarifying and reiterating that “ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void” (n. 36). Hence, there is no need even to repeat the ordination conditionally. This conclusion is premised on two reasons: defect of form and defect of intention.
The matter for the sacrament of holy orders is the imposition of hands, while the form is the words which determine the application of this matter. Defect of form means that there is a challenge with the words used at ordination. Based on the study of the Edwardine Ordinal, Pope Leo argued that the words “do not in the least definitely express the sacred order of priesthood or its grace and power, which is chiefly the ‘power of consecrating and of offering the true Body and Blood of the Lord’” (n. 25).
Although the Ordinal was later updated after a century with the words “for the office and work of a priest”, Pope Leo argues that “this shows that the Anglicans themselves perceived that the first form was defective and inadequate” (n.25). Nevertheless, even if one considers this addition, it was introduced too late, signifying they had no power to ordain because the hierarchy (ordained according to the Catholic Rite) had become extinct (n.25).
Therefore, the pope maintained that “in the whole Ordinal not only is there no clear mention of the sacrifice, of consecration, of the priesthood (sacerdotium), and of the power of consecrating and offering sacrifice but, as we have just stated, every trace of these things which had been in such prayers of the Catholic rite as they had not entirely rejected, was deliberately removed and struck out” (n.30). In other words, if the Ordinal is “vitiated in its origin, it was wholly insufficient to confer Orders, it was impossible that, in the course of time, it would become sufficient, since no change had taken place” (n.31).
The second reason for the nullity is the defect of intention. One is presumed to confer a sacrament validly when one correctly uses the requisite matter and form to celebrate the sacrament as the Church stipulates. Hence, a heretic or an unbaptised can validly confer a sacrament (for instance, baptism) through the ministry of the Church, provided that the Catholic rite is employed and the intention is present. On the other hand, if a rite is changed with the manifest intention to reject how the Church celebrates the sacrament, something intrinsic to each sacrament, then the intention is not only lacking but “adverse to and destructive of the sacrament” (n.33).
In 1897, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (the principal sees of the Church of England) issued the document Saepius Officio in response to Apostolicae Curae. The document challenged the Catholic interpretation of sacramental form and intention, emphasised the Anglican continuity with the early Church practices, and insisted that the Anglican rite of ordination retains the essential elements.
This document did not change the Catholic Church’s stand. As the Church of England continued to be influenced by British socio-political liberal ideology, many began converting to the Catholic Church or breaking away from the worldwide Anglican communion. For instance, in 2005, the Church of Nigeria, Anglican communion, took a significant step towards breaking away from the global Anglican communion due to disagreements over the ordination of openly gay clergy and same-sex relationships. In 2022, the Anglican Churches in Nigeria, Uganda, and Rwanda abstained from the Lambeth Conference (a gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world every ten years to discuss Church and world affairs, as well as the global mission of the Anglican Communion), effectively separating from the Anglican Communion.
Moreover, in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI, through the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, established personal ordinariates “for those Anglican faithful who desire to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church in a corporate manner”. “The Ordinariate is composed of lay faithful, clerics and members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, originally belonging to the Anglican Communion and now in full communion with the Catholic Church, or those who receive the Sacraments of Initiation within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate” (I, §4).
The establishment of the Ordinariate reiterated the Church’s stand regarding the validity of ordinations in the Anglican Church. The Complementary Norms for Anglicanorum Coetibus states that “those who have been previously ordained in the Catholic Church and subsequently have become Anglicans, may not exercise sacred ministry in the Ordinariate. Anglican clergy who are in irregular marriage situations may not be accepted for Holy Orders in the Ordinariate” (art 6. §2). This highlights a distinction between orders received in the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, indicating that Anglican clergy require a new ordination when they join the Catholic Church.
The 2011 Decree of the Erection of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham (England) is even more unequivocal in rejecting the validity of Anglican ordinations. The decree reads: “For candidates for ordination, who previously were ministers in the Anglican Communion, there is to be a specific programme of theological formation, as well as spiritual and pastoral preparation, prior to ordination in the Catholic Church” (n.4). “A cleric, having come originally from the Anglican Communion, who has already been ordained in the Catholic Church and incardinated in a Diocese, is able to be incardinated in the Ordinariate in accord with the norm of can. 267 CIC” (n.7).
May God continue to help us🙏🏾
K’ọdị🙋🏾♂️
