Apostolicae Curae

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Apostolicae Curae is the title of a papal bull issued in 1896 by Pope Leo XIII, declaring all Anglican Holy Orders "absolutely null and void". The main objection, according to Leo XIII, was the deficiency of intention and of form. In the case of deficiency of intention, the pope defined, that the Anglican rites of ordination revealed an intention to create a priesthood different from the “sacrificing” priesthood of the Catholic Church and reduce Holy Orders to a mere ecclesiastical institution, appointment or blessing, instead of a conferral of actual grace by the action itself (Sacrament).

1 Defect of Anglican ordination rites asserted
2 Anglican response
3 Contemporary doubts
4 Eastern Orthodox response
5 Reaffirmation by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
6 Modern complications
7 Footnotes
8 External sources

[edit] Defect of Anglican ordination rites asserted

The pope asserted that the defect in form was the omission from the priestly (presbyteral) ordination formula of references to the sacrificial character of the priesthood, and the distinctive characteristic of the Roman Catholic priesthood, namely to consecrate the holy Eucharist. In the case of the ordination of bishops (episcopal consecration), the pope asserted the defect in form to be the omission of references to "high priesthood", "fullness of ministry" or "fullness of the priesthood". These references, however, were and are missing, at least according to the Anglican view and the Anglican interpretation-translation of those liturgies, in certain Eastern Rite ordination liturgies which the Roman Catholic Church considers to be valid as to form.

The defect in intention was inferred from the omissions. The pope argued that, by omitting to mention what was the distinctive characteristic of the Roman Catholic priesthood, the Ordinal was embracing a different doctrine of Holy Orders from that of the Catholic Church of old, whose Orders had been handed down in unbroken succession from the holy apostles of Jesus Christ. Leo XIII declared that the omission from the Edwardine Ordinal of what he regarded as the distinctive characteristic of the Catholic priesthood gave to the Ordinal a native indoles ac spiritus – an innate nature and spirit – which was of a Protestant theology rather than one that was in continuity with Catholic theology.

[edit] Anglican response

In “Saepius Officio: Answer of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Bull Apostolicae Curae of H. H. Leo XIII”, the Church of England replied. The basis of this Anglican counter-argument was that the Book of Common Prayer as a whole contained a strong sacrificial theology, in particular in the Preface to the 1550, 1552, 1559, and 1662 versions of the Ordinal. These were not discussed in Apostolicae Curae.

[edit] Contemporary doubts

More recently the Rev. John Jay Hughes, amongst other Catholic writers, concluded that there were enough flaws in and ambiguity surrounding the pope’s apostolic letter that the question of the invalidity of Anglican holy orders allegedly merited re-examination.

[edit] Eastern Orthodox response

In the twentieth century there have been a variety of positions taken by the various Eastern Orthodox Churches on the validity of Anglican orders. In 1922 the Patriarch of Constantinople recognized them as valid.[1] However, succeeding judgments have been more conflicting. The Orthodox Churches require a totality of common teaching in order to recognize orders and in this broader view finds ambiguities in Anglican teaching and practice problematic. Accordingly, in practice Anglican clergy who convert to Orthodoxy are treated as if they had not been ordained and must be ordained in the Orthodox Church as would any lay person. [2]

[edit] Reaffirmation by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Despite the ongoing work of the ecumenical Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), in 1998 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and later Pope Benedict XVI) issued a doctrinal commentary to accompany Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter "Ad Tuendam Fidem", which established penalties in Canon law for failure to accept “definitive teaching.” Ratzinger’s commentary listed Leo XIII’s Apostolicae Curae, declaring Anglican Holy Orders to be “absolutely null and utterly void,” as one of the irreversible teachings to which Roman Catholics must give firm and definitive assent.^[1] These teachings are not understood by the Church as revealed doctrines but are rather those which the church’s teaching authority finds to be so closely connected to God's revealed truth that belief in them is required in order to safeguard the divinely revealed truths of the Christian Faith. Those who fail to give firm and definitive assent, according to the letter, “will no longer be in full communion with the Catholic church.”

However, many persons, including Basil Cardinal Hume have suggested that the conclusions of Apostolicae Curae can only relate to the situation in 1896, and that the involvement of Old Catholic bishops in Anglican ordinations during the 20th century has re-established apostolic succession in that Church (along with a change of consecratory prefaces). Other critics argue that apostolic succession had never been broken in the first place, due to ordinations tracing back to Archbishop Laud as well as Archbishop Parker. The latter was alleged to have been a break in the chain of apostolic succession - an unofficial cause of concern to Rome regarding the validity of Anglican orders.

[edit] Modern complications

Regardless of the status of the Anglican orders prior to 1975, Roman Catholicism has again raised its doubts regarding their authenticity. The ordination of women both as priests and as bishops draws into question the validity of Anglican orders in the view of both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Apostolicity is understood traditionally as not only a matter of proper form and matter by competent authority, but also a matter of transmission of apostolic teaching and practice. The ordination of women in the view of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches constitutes a break with apostolic teaching and thus nullifies all ordinations taking place in communion with such heterodox teaching and practice.

Similarly, the decision of some Anglican bodies to extend intercommunion with Churches having no claim to apostolic succession such as various Lutheran Churches is also a matter of breaking with apostolic teaching and practice in the eyes of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. These Lutheran bodies have had no theology of apostolic succession. While the 1999 Concordat between the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America calls for Episcopal bishops to participate in the consecration of ELCA Lutheran bishops, the agreement did not require the re-ordination of all Lutheran bishops and priests. This was done so that ELCA ministers ordained by these ELCA bishops could serve in Episcopal churches.^[2]^[3]