Thursday, January 14, 2010
Apostolicae Curae: an observation
Are you a Roman Catholic who accepts the teaching of Apostolicae Curae? If so, you should contact your local Anglican or Episcopal church about reception into the Anglican Communion. According to Leo XIII, an explicit conferral of sacrificial ministry is essential to valid priestly ordination. Therefore all Roman Catholic ministers "ordained" since 1969 except by indult lack the grace to confect the Sacrament, and the bread and wine you receive from them lacks the effect of transubstantiation. But fear not, for Anglicans have picked up the slack and incorporated such a formula, so there is still a place of refuge for the conscientious Catholic. So get on it, separated brethren! Catholic obedience obligates you to submit to Canterbury!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
"Anglicans have picked up the slack and incorporated such a formula"
Really? Where?
Well, certainly in our Book of Alternative Services the bishop petitions God to "Set him/her among your people to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable in your sight." I can't imagine this developed in isolation: in the Cranmerian tradition, everything in the BAS was borrowed from somewhere.
I can be reached at rosemaniple AT hotmail DOT co DOT uk.
Cool - I just checked our BCP and we don't seem to have the equivalent.
The Church of England's Common Worship ordinal has a similar phrase, both in the bishop's declaration of what a priest is and in the ordination prayer itself.
er - sorry dude but you're being wilfully obtuse - Anglican orders DO NOT EXIST ! They have no ontological validity whatsoever ; irrespective of form or reallignment with apostolic succession - you cannot be ordained into that which does not exist.
nice try though...
Geoff, your server keeps bouncing my mail back to me. Maybe it knows I'm harming our aggregate cause for peace and justice issues.
OTSOTA:
I'm not at all being obtuse. I am trying (after a tongue-in-cheek fashion) to demonstrate that one cannot on the basis of Apostolicae Curae logically accept the validity of Roman Catholic orders but not Anglican ones. Do you have a counterargument, or just more assertion?
I certainly don't, for instance, think the Holy Father would agree that the invalidity of Anglican orders has nothing to do with apostolic succession. Indeed, I rather suspect that's precisely what he sees as the problem. So if we've got that sorted, and you lot have mucked it up, then...?
I thought of this post today at the priesting of our curate -- after the prayer of ordination the bishop anointed the new priest's hands along with a prayer about the power and authority to bless, and presented him with a chalice and paten, saying, "Take thou the authority to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate the Eucharist both for the living and for the dead. In the Name of the Lord."
Neither the anointing nor the giving of the chalice and paten are in our BCP. I suppose there's a chance that someone might think that the actions effected the desired results, which of course are the result of the prayer of consecration and laying on of hands itself - I mean, a priest whose ordination lacked those additional ceremonies is still authorized to bless and celebrate the Eucharist - but I thought that they were a meaningful acting out of something that was already there. (Does that make sense?)
Interesting. The giving of Bible and (for priestly ordinations) chalice and paten are at least an option in the rubrics of the BAS. Anointing and even prostration have been known to happen here (including, formerly but not at present, in the Diocese of Toronto).
Oh, I forgot to mention: he prostrated himself, too, while the congregation prayed the Litany of the Saints.
Post a Comment