Viewpoint Examining validy of Anglican orders
By BILL BRODERICK
Until about a year ago, my interest
in the validity of Anglican orders -- meaning whether or not the Catholic
church considers priests ordained by the Anglican church valid
priests -- was pretty low, down there with whether St. Patrick was born in
Scotland or Brittany.
But on June 29, 1998, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger changed all that.
On that date, he issued a doctrinal commentary to accompany Pope
John Paul IIs apostolic letter Ad Tuendam Fidem, which established
penalties in canon law for failure to accept definitive teaching.
Ratzingers commentary listed Leo XIIIs apostolic letter
Apostolicae Curae, declaring Anglican orders to be absolutely null
and utterly void, as one of the irreversible teachings to which Roman
Catholics must give firm and definitive assent.
These teachings are not understood by the church as revealed
doctrines but are those which the churchs teaching authority finds to be
so closely connected to Gods revealed truth that belief in them is
required in order to safeguard those revealed truths. Those who fail to give
firm and definitive assent, according to the cardinal, will
no longer be in full communion with the Catholic church. Whew!
Before assenting too firmly, I decided it would be prudent to
learn more. I began by reading Fr. John Jay Hughes 1968 book
Absolutely Null and Utterly Void, a detailed and scholarly account of
the events leading up to and resulting in the Leo XIII letter. Hughes followed
this in 1970 with Stewards of the Lord on the same subject (both are now
out of print). His conclusion, which I found quite persuasive, was that there
were enough flaws in and ambiguity surrounding the popes finding that the
question of the invalidity of Anglican orders merits re-examination.
Not wanting to rely on only one scholars viewpoint, however,
I located a 1990 work by Fr. George H. Tavard titled A Review of Anglican
orders: The Problem and the Solution. Tavard, an internationally recognized
theologian, traces the history of the controversy from the time of Pope Julius
III (1550-1555) onward. He concluded, I am personally convinced that Leo
XIIIs reasoning was flawed by several historical mistakes and by
theological presuppositions that were inadequate yet hardly avoidable in the
neo-scholasticism of the late 19th century.
This obviously wasnt doing much to firm up my assent, so I
looked further. In 1996, the centenary of Apostolicae Curae, a book of
essays titled Anglican Orders was published in England and the United
States. It contains five essays by Catholic scholars and six by Anglicans (or
their American cousins, Episcopalians). Nearly all the authors have been
involved in the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission or its
American equivalent, the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation.
Although the essays vary in perspective and approach, the comment
of one Catholic participant reflects the view of all the participants: Is
it not now time after a century to press the Vatican respectfully but
insistently to reopen the issue of Anglican orders? ... To reopen the question
is not to prejudge the answer.
With respect to the force of his own commentary, Ratzinger
recently acknowledged that it was not given a binding force; that
it was simply an aid for the understanding of the texts; and that
no one need feel an authoritarian imposition or restriction by these
texts.
All of the above leads me to withhold my firm and definitive
assent until I can learn why Ratzinger failed to address the arguments made by
the scholars noted above and whether other curial officials with relevant
jurisdiction -- such as Australian Cardinal Edward Cassidy, head of the
Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity -- share his
judgment.
Like the vast majority of lay Catholics, I am not a theologian, a
church historian or a canon lawyer. That fact does not prevent me from
recognizing what looks like intellectual dishonesty, from whatever source.
Bill Broderick writes from Arlington, Va.
National Catholic Reporter, August 13,
1999
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