It should come as no surprise that Roman Catholics, by and large, do not accept the validity of Anglican orders, as to do so would severely undermine their own claim to be the One True Church. Ever since the Church of England became independent, then, Romanists have lodged a number of arguments against those orders. Some have been historical in nature, contending that the chain of apostolic succession was broken during the English Reformation. A particularly infamous example of such an “argument” is the so-called Nag’s Head Fable, in which it was claimed that Matthew Parker, rather than receiving proper archiepiscopal consecration, instead underwent a frivolous and invalid ordination ceremony at a pub. This and other such allegations have long been discredited, to the point that Apostolicae Curae, the papal bull declaring Anglican orders to be “absolutely null and utterly void,”[1] does not even mention them.[2] Browne does not deign to acknowledge them either, presumably for the same reason.
This leaves various arguments as to the form of the Ordinal itself. It does not (we are told) “give the power of sacrificing,” and the words of consecration found in the Ordinal of Edward VI—used for many years before it was revised into its present form—do not specify that the candidate is being consecrated as a bishop. Such arguments, if granted, would prove too much, for as Browne points out, “the words in the Roman Pontifical, ‘Receive thou power to offer sacrifices to God, and to celebrate the mass for the quick and the dead,’ were not in any ancient form of consecration.” More broadly, we cannot reasonably lend credence to any contemporary insistence on specific words as being essential to the rite of ordination:
The forms added in the Roman Pontifical are new, and cannot be held to be necessary, since the church had subsisted for many ages before those were thought on. So that either our ordinations without those additions are good: or the church of God was for many ages without true orders.[3]
Browne published his commentary on the Articles decades before Apostolicae Curae was issued, but he did not, in consequence, miss an opportunity to engage with any novel claims or charges, for the apostolic letter was simply a formal statement of the same arguments Rome had already been levying informally for centuries.[4] It did go further by insisting that even if the English Ordinal, in its present form, explicitly refers to “the office and work of a bishop” as that for which the candidate is being consecrated, it matters not, because these words “must be understood in a sense different to that which they bear in the Catholic rite.”[5] For that matter, “Any words in the Anglican Ordinal, as it now is, which lend themselves to ambiguity, cannot be taken in the same sense as they possess in the Catholic rite.”[6] Thus it appears that the Church of Rome’s true objection to the Ordinal is that it is not identical to their own form:
The Roman arguments rest upon two great assumptions. First, that Rome is at all times infallible, and therefore her teaching at any time about the meaning of priesthood must be accepted without question. Secondly, that Rome has a divine right to implicit and universal obedience, and therefore any change in the form of service without her consent shows a contumacious spirit. Neither of these assumptions can be granted, and without them the whole argument collapses.[7]
At bottom, “Our ministry is intended to be something quite different from the idea of ministry which obtains in the Church of Rome.”[8] Any wistful talk of Rome reversing itself on Anglican orders is therefore chimerical.
Notes
- Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, 15 September 1896, § 36, https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13ac.htm. ↑
- See Gibson, Articles, 752; Tait, Articles, 224; Bicknell, Articles, 424; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. VIII, 379n2. ↑
- Burnet, Articles, 494. See also Forbes, Articles, 715–16; Baker, Articles, 196; Maclear and Williams, Articles, 402–403; Gibson, Articles, 754; Kidd, Articles, 259; Green, Articles, 296; Bicknell, Articles, 425; Thomas, Articles, 455; and Hall, Anglican Dogmatics, vol. 2, Bk. IX, 527n1. ↑
- Archbishops Frederick Temple and William Maclagan say as much in their reply to the papal bull. See Answer of the Archbishops of England to the Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897), § IV, 10. ↑
- Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, § 28, https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13ac.htm. ↑
- Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, § 31, https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13ac.htm. ↑
- Bicknell, Articles, 429. ↑
- Thomas, Articles, 457. See also Bicknell, Articles, 429. ↑
