ANGLICAN ORDERS

New Zealand Tablet, 3 December 1908, Page 10

ANGLICAN ORDERS

THE QUESTION OF THEIR VALIDITY

By the Rev. W. D. Goggan, S.M., St. Patrick's College,

Wellington

(Concluded from last issue.)

In the last issue of the N.Z. Tablet I pointed out, in reply to Mr. Warren's courteous communication, sundry facts in connection with the papal Bull of 1896, in which Leo XIII., following the constant practice of his predecessors and the common belief of the Eastern Churches, declared that Anglican Orders are not valid in the Catholic sense. In other words, he declared that the clergymen ordained as ' priests ' in the Anglican Church are not priests (that is, sacrificing priests) in the Catholic sense, of the term, and that Anglicans consecrated as bishops are not bishops in the Catholic sense of this term (that is, the sole and only channels through whom the Sacrament of Holy Orders may be received). In this decision, Pope Leo XIII. reaffirmed the constant belief and practice of his predecessors in the See of St. Peter. His decision is, moreover, in full accord with the belief of the Eastern Churches, both Catholic and non-Catholic Nay, it is backed up by the constant official belief of the Anglican Church ever since the Reformation. There is open before the present writer a curiously interesting series of pronouncements upon the papal Bull, written by Anglican clergymen and Anglican Church newspapers (such as The English Churchman) cordially endorsing the decision on Anglican Orders. And within the past few weeks the well-known Anglican clergyman, Canon . Hensley Henson, made, at the Church Congress at Manchester, a declaration showing how utterly the idea of the Mass (which he calls ' idolatrous ') and of a sacrificing priesthood is abhorrent to the traditional Protestant Anglican idea. The idea of a sacrifice in the Catholic sense, and of a sacrificing priesthood was brought into prominence during and since the Oxford Movement by an earnest and zealous section of the Anglican clergy and laity. It was from a part of this section (the High Church) that the request came for the re-examination of the case for Anglican Orders by the Holy See. Two Anglican clergymen (the Rev. Mr. Puller and the Rev. Mr. Lacy) were present in Rome during the sittings of the Commission of Investigation, and, although not present thereat, were enabled to have their views well- and ably placed before that Commission.

I have already pointed out that the papal Bull in question is not a treatise on Anglican Orders ; that it is J ' . ' '

A Judicial Decision delivered upon their validity ; .that it very .properly does not trouble itself with the doubtful' grounds of tneir invalidity, but confines itself to the grounds that are certain— namely, (i) the defect of the form of words" for ordination 'and consecration in Cranmer's Ordinal (otherwise known as the Ordinal of Edward

VI.) from which present-day Anglican Orders are derived (through Parker) ; and (2) the defect of proper intention on the part of the persons ordaining and consecrating. For the reason stated the papal -ißull made no reference to the grave historical doubts as to whether Barlow (who consecrated Parker) was really a bishop at all. These doubts, which I have sufficiently indicated, remain precisely as they were before the issue of the Bull, and any Catholic writing a treatise on Anglican -Orders would necessarily take cognisance of them.

And now as to the defect in the Anglican form of ordination of priests and consecration of bishops. Ther has been a belated attempt to establish a parity between an alleged (but perfectly orthodox) vagueness (improperly so called) in early Christian ordination and consecration forms and the deliberate and culpable vagueness of the form of ordination and consecration drawn up by Cranmer for the express purpose of utterly rooting out of England the Catholic idea of an episcopate and of a sacrifice and a sacrificing priesthood, in all of which he had ceased to believe. Cranmer took and

Mutilated the Old Catholic Ordinal with this deliberate intent. Our High Church friends who contend for a priesthood, etc., in the Catholic sense lose sight of a plain and irresistible fact which I may summarise as follows in another's words : This fact is, ' that the Anglican Ordinal stands a solitary exception to all others — not only in. its character as being formed by intentional mutilation of an orthodox form, but also in its deficiency, seeing that, out of all ordination forms, ancient or mediaeval, Eastern or Western (Canons of Hippolytus included) there is not one in which the essential form (the prayer connected with the laying on of hands) does not contain the specific mention or determination of the Order conferred — the Anglican Ordinal alone excepted. These two chief and fatal haws — heretical mutilation and non-deiermination of the essential form — can never be taken away.'

But this mutilation and this failure to specify the Order conferred were merely part of the general movement of the ' reformers ' in England and in Germany against a sacrifice (in the Catholic sense) and a sacrificing priesthood. Fallowing the example of the new religion ' made in Germany, 1 the English ' reformers ' deliberately tore every reference to Sacrifice, every sacrificial expression, out of the Mass. There were twentyfour references in the Mass to Sacrifice and to the Lord 's Real Presence. They were mercilessly cut out and flung aside. For the old Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass there was substituted a communion service. This was the first and chief work of the Reformation in England. 'The Anti-Sacrificial campaign,' as Gasquet well remarks, ' was much too thorough not to go farther. The Catholic Sacrificium (Sacrifice) was inseparably bound up with tne Catholic Sacerdotium (priesthood), and the English Reformation pursued its enemy, the Sacrificial idea, from the Missal into its source in the Pontifical ' (the book containing rites to be performed by bishops, such as Ordinations) ' which gave to the Church a sacrificing priesthood. Hence Cranmer promptly followed up the introduction of a new Prayer Book by that of a new Ordinal ' (a book containing forms and ceremonies for conferring Orders). While maintaining the distinction of three Orders of bishops, priests, and deacons — in the sense in which he and his fellowrevisers believed them to come down from the Apostles — he removed from the ordination services all that expressed or implied u.e conveyance of sacrificial powers, or the idea that those who were ordained were in any sense sacrificing priests empowered to offer a sacrifice upon the altar. In the ordination service of the Catholic Church there are no less than sixteen different ■parts in which the sacerdotium or sacrificial character is clearly expressed. Of these, not one was suffered to remain in the new Ordinal. Thus, taking the Ordinal with its natural accompaniment, the Communion Service — corresponding to the Missal and the Pontifical which they replaced — there are forty distinct cases of

Deliberate Suppression

of anything that would indicate a Sacrifice of the Mass or a Sacrificial Priesthood empowered to offer it.' Cranmer's own writings (as published by the Parker Society) are filled with expressions of quite extraordinary bitterness and violence against these two ideas — he admits no Sacrifice except one of prayer, praise, etc. ,

We sometimes hear the plea that Cranmer's mutilations of the old Catholic Ordinal were directed, riot so much against the Catholic idea of the Sacrifice of the Mass, as against alleged theological exaggerations or abuses connected with it. _ 'To that,' says .Gasquet, ' it is enough to reply that if the authors

of the Prayer Book and the Ordinal believed in the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacrificing Priesthood, nothing in the world would have been easier for them than to have said so. There was absolutely nothing to prevent their shortening and simplifying and translating the ancient services as much as they wished, and still expressing the sacrificial and sacerdotal idea. A single sentence in each book would have sufficed for the purpose. Moreover, had the reformers been striking at mere abuses or exaggerations, It is a matter of common sense that, in that case, they would have felt bound to have been all the more careful to safeguard the true sense of the sacrificial doctrine, as marked off from the abuse ; and they would have recognised the necessity for such safeguarding as all the more imperative, knowing, as they did, that the whole sacrificial idea was utterly denied and denounced in France and Germany, and by the reforming party in England. So far from making any attempt to safeguard it, they strike it out wherever they find it, and they borrow and make their own the very words which the German and Swiss reformers have used to deny it.'

A sweeping and terrible interpretation was put upon Cranmer's words by the wild fury which soon vented itself in England, not alone upon the Mass, but upon every accessory of the Mass. Everywhere the

Altars were Demolished

and plain, movable wooden tables (of the kitchen jtype) set up. The altar-stone (the consecrated stone of Sacrifice) was made the object of special fury — they were everywhere defaced, broken, or turned to vile or common uses. Vestments, Mass bells, Missals, were destroyed ;every ceremony connected with the sacrificial action of the Mass, or indicating belief in the Real Presence, was abolished ; lighted candles were forbidden ; and the most searching efforts were made, by order of the visitatioji 1 articles of the new style of bishops, to root utterly out of the minds of the English people every trace of the Holy Sacrifice that had been for ages their joy. Parliament and the Crovftn t,che supreme arbiters of the doctrine and discipline of;>^pe ng§| religion) enacted a code of penal laws of unexampled severity — plying rack and rope and knife — against the Mass, and against Massing priests, and against persons attending Mass. In , a word, the Reformed English Church and State spared no effort, left absolutely nothing undone, to destroy utterly in England every trace and memory of the Sacrifice of the Mass! The Reformation in England was a war to the knife against the Mass and the ' Massing priest.' And the London Times of September 3, 1908 (p. 7) quite correctly voiced the British Protestant tradition when it declared that the recent Eucharistic Congress, by its cult of the Mass, was a direct challenge to the Reformation, which (it said) was ' based on the repudiation of the Sacrifice of the altar, and all that it involves, and to the Church of England in particular, which condemns " the Sacrifices of Masses" as "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits."'

All the acts enumerated above were part and parcel of the general movement of the Protestant Reformation in England against -ie idea of a Sacrifice and of a sacrificing priesthood. The reader is now in a position to estimate at its. true value the nature and purpose of the mutilations which were made by Cranmer and accepted by the Protestant Reformed religion in England. Cranmer's Ordinal supplied the form of words to which the clergy of the new English Reformed creed trace their Orders. But that form, as stated, is insufficient to confer Orders and create a sacrificing priesthood on an episcopate in the Catholic sense of these terms. Nay, more — as has been sufficiently seen,' and as will be further seen later on — such an intention was excluded by, and utterly repugnant to, theframers of Cranmer's Ordinal. As has been pointed out, in both the Eastern and Western rites, the imposition oi hands (which is the essential matter of Ordination) has ever been accompanied by a form of words — a prayer- 1 - in which the Order- to be imparted is defined, either by its accepted name, or by equivalent terms — namely, by words expressive of its grace and power. And in the case of the Sacrament of priestly Order, this grace and power is chiefly the power, to offer in Sacrifice the real, Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior under the outward appearances of bread and wine. But (as has been -shown in a previous article) the Edwardine Ordinal, as drawn up by Cranmer and his fellow-revisers, contained in the rite for the consecration of a bishop no words whatever,' in the ' form ' that accompanied the imposition of hands, to indicate or define

What Order was Being' Imparted.

The consecrating bishop said: 'Receive the Holy Ghost.' , But he did not say whether it was for the office of deacon, priest,

or bishop. Such a form might equally apply for Confirmation, or for the appointment' of a parish clerk or a beadle. I have already shown that Mr. Warren's authority, Canon Estcourt, is quite in error in supposing that this form of words has ever been accepted by the Catholic Church as sufficient for imparting either the priesthood or the episcopate.

The words of the ' form ' of the Edwardine Ordinal for conveying the priesthood are likewise defective, and insufficient to convey the Order of a sacrificing priesthood. The ' words of the ' form ' are these : ' Receive the Holy Ghost ; whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, sdnd whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God.' In regard to this 'form,' I may make the following remarks: (1) This form of words does not discriminate between priest and bishop. (2) It professes to impart the power to forgive and retain sins ; but this power, though a most important one, is only a secondary and incidental power of the priesthood, and not its primary and essential power, which is the offering of the Sacrifice of the real Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass. (3) It is urged by Mr. Warren that the headings and the context of the Anglican rites of ordination and consecration sufficiently indicate the Order to be conferred — thus, we ha-ve ' The form of ordering priests,' ' The form of consecrating an archbishop or bishop,' and suchlike words in the prayers, etc. But (as Rev. S. Smith well remarks) ' none of the rites, ancient or modern, which the Holy See has ever recognised, lends any support to this theory of an indeterminate form determined by a remote context.' (b) Besides, the remote context does not determine the words, ' Receive the Holy Ghost,' to signify the bestowal of a true, sacrificial priesthood. On the contrary, as has been sufficiently indicated, they determine the words in the exactly opposite sense. For, as has been shown, all such idea was rooted up and flung to the winds (as far as they could uproot and fling them) by the English as well as the German reformers, (c) It by no means helps out the case for Anglican Orders to remark, as our friend Mr. Warren does in his esteemed communication, that the words ' priest, bishop, archbishop ' appear in the course of the ceremonies. For every idea of the mystical and sacrificial powers of the priesthood was mercilessly torn out of the old Catholic Ordinal by Cranmer and his friends when they set about drawing up their Prayer Book and Ordinal. Of this I have sufficiently spoken. The

Old Names, ' Priest,' etc., were Retained

hy them. But as foremost Anglican ecclesiastical writers declare (such as, for instance, ' the judicious Hooker,' Ecclesiastical Polity, V., lxxviii., 2) they were retained on this plea : ' As for the people, when they hear the name [priest], it draweth no more their mind to any cogitation of sacrifice than the name of a senator or of an alderman causeth them to think of old age, or to imagine that everyone so termed must needs be ancient because years were respected in the nomination of both.' Alt this sufficiently explains what Cranmer and his followers had :n: n their minds when they spoke of ordering ' priests ' to be ' dispensers of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments.' Whatever they meant, it is certain that they did not mean a Sacrifice and a sacrificing priesthood. And that is the only matter that concerns us here. The whole Reformation in England, as already stated, was, in fact, a war to the death — a war of no quarter — against the Sacrifice of the Mass and against the idea of a sacrificial priesthood. The pulling down and desecration of the altars, and the substitution therefor of kitchen tables, took place (as Ridley declared) in order that ' the form of a table shall more move the simple people from the superstitious opinions of the Popish Mass unto the right use of the Lord's Supper.' 'It was not the Prayer Book,' said a Protestant divine, ' that was taken out of the Mass, but the Mass that was cut out of the Prayer Book.' For fuller information on this theme, your readers are referred to the illuminating pages of Gasquet's Edward VI. and the Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer and his fellow-reformers never intended such a thing as a real, sacrificing priesthood or an episcopate as the sole channel of ordination, having ordinary jurisdiction, and standing in unbroken succession to the • Apostles. No Elizabethan bishop ever, even in his writings, lays claim to these things. The following fact will clearly pourtray the mind of the Supreme Head and only source of jurisdiction in the Church of England on that point. The Bishop of Ely objected to the spoliation of his diocese by the Queen's command. Queen Elizabeth replied to him thus: 'Proud prelate, I would s have you know that I, who made you what you are, can unmake you, and if you do

not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by God, I will immediately unfrock you.' (Short History of the Catholic Church in England, vol. iii.) To her the' so-called, priests and bishops were mere servants in a Government Department, and 'to her successors they have ever remained the same. 111. The third point of Mr. Warren's letter deals with the defect of intention on the part of those who conferred Anglican Orders on Parker. And there he states that the intention, then, of the Church of England was to continue in her ordinations the things which have been in Christ's Church from the Apostles' time, with the same character and powers they had from the beginning. The intention of the Church of England at that time was, clearly, to carry on ordinations in accordance with the letter and the spirit of the new Ordinal devised by Cranmer and his associates. And that intention has been sufficiently indicated above — namely, to utterly do away with and destroy the idea of a Sacrifice and a sacrificing priesthood, such as was practically universal in Christendom up to the time of the religious revolution of the sixteenth century. I may here state that, according to Catholic doctrine, it is necessary for the validity of a Sacrament that its minister (that is, the person administering it) should not alone employ a proper form, but should also have

A Proper Intention.

I 'may here usefully quote some apposite remarks that appear in the Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. 1., pp. 495-6), especially as it meets squarely the difficulty that has occurred to Mr. Warren's mind : ' Pole, in his instructions to the Bishop of Norwich (which Leo. XIII. cites in his Bull of condemnation), tells him to treat as not validly consecrated those pretending bishops in whose previous consecration ceremonies " the form and intention of the Church had not been observed," thereby implying- that this double defect was present in the Edwardine consecrations. On thi ; point the defenders of Anglican Orders urge that (1) to admit that the mental intentions of the minister can affect the validity of the Sacrament is to involve in uncertainty all ordinations -whatever . . . and (2) even granting this doctrine of intention, no defect of due intention should be imputed to the Anglican prelates of any generation, since, according to theologians like Bellarmine, even an heretical minister's intention is sufficient so long as it is a general intention to do what Christ does or His true Church does, whatever this may be. But, it is replied, it is impossible not to recognise that the minister's intention is an essential element. Why, for instance, is there a valid consecration at Mass when tHet priest pronounces the words, " This is my Body," but no valid consecration when he pronounces the same words in the presence of bread whilst reading from St. Matthew's Gospel in a community refectory? Still the Church trusts to the Providence of God to watch over all such defective intentions as are not externally manifested, and assumes that the minister's intention is correct in every serious administration of her own rites, even when he is — like Cranmer, for instance — a person of heterodox opinions. Where, however,

A Defective Intention

is manifested externally, she must deal with it, and that is what has happened in respect to the Anglican ordinations. The rite, as has been explained, was altered in Edward VI. 's time to give expression to a heterodox belief concerning the nature of Holy Orders, and was likewise adopted in this sense by the Elizabethan authorities. When, then, they proceeded to administer it, the only reasonable interpretation of their action was that they conformed their intention to their rite, and hence that, from a Catholic point of view, their acts were invalid on a twofold ground : the defect of the form and the defect of the intention.'

Cranmer leaves no more possibility of doubt than does Barlow as to his fierce and utter rejection of the Catholic doctrine of Holy Orders, and of the Sacrifice of the Mass. I might cover entire pages of this paper with quotations, in point, culled from the Parker Society's big volume of Cranmer's Writings and Disputations Relative to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (pp. xxxii, 444, and 100, published at Cambridge in 1844). This article has, however, run into such a length that I cannot at , present reasonably do so. Suffice it, therefore, to 'refer the reader back to what* has been said about Cranmer's mutilation of the old Catholic Ordinal, the manner in which he eliminated therefrom every passage (forty, all told) having reference to a Sacrifice and a sacrificing priesthood, and the studied vagueness which he introduced into his new-fangled Ordinal in regard to the powers of the new reformed clergy. Briefly, he altered the

rite ' with the manifest intention of introducing another rite not approved by the Church, and of rejecting what the Church does, and- what, by the institution of ' Christ, belongs to the nature of a Sacrament.' In these circumstances, it is (in the words of the Papal Bull) ' clear that not only 'is the necessary intention wanting to the Sacrament, but that the intention is adverse to, and destructive of, the Sacrament.' On these chief grounds the Holy See pronounced judgment in 1896 : ' Whereas, strictly adhering to the decrees of the Pontiffs Our Predecessors, and confirming them most fully, and, as it were, renewing them by Our authority, of Our own motion and certain knowledge We pronounce and declare the ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been and are absolutely null and void.'

Much more might be written by me on this question — for instance, in regard to the Anglican Vindication, the Risposta by noted English members of the Commission, and later objections raised by the defenders of Anglican Orders. But this article has already run into too great lengths to permit of this. I may, < however, be permitted to make a brief remark in regard to Monsignor (now Cardinal) Gasparri, who was referred to (on what authority I know not) as favorable to the validity of Anglican Orders. This is partly a question of history, but chiefly of theology. Cardinal Gasparri is noted as a brilliant canonist ; he may possibly have been one of those whose duty it was to urge the side of the question before the papal Commission. Whether he favored the Anglican side or not, does not affect the issue or the merits of the question. He may have done so (assuming, for the sake of argument, that he did) as the result of an imperfect acquaintance with the facts of the case. It is certain that he does not favor their validity now. The same remark applies to Lingard, whose ten-volume history was completed in 1830 — 78 years ago. For the rest, the papal condemnation of Anglican Orders does not represent (as Mr. Warren thinks) the mere view of ' theologians of the Roman Church in Italy.' It represents the matured knowledge of the most eminent English Catliolic historians and theologians, who were members of the Commission ; it restates the constant practice and belief of the Catholic Church since the Reformation ; it reflects the conviction of both East and West ; it is even in accord with tne conviction expressed by The British Parliament in J 554 and 1565, and in 1662 (when the admittedly defective Edwardian Ordinal was ' reformed ') ; and it represents the traditions and feelings of the great bulk of the members of the Protestant Reformed Church of England from Cranmer's day to our own time. In a spirit of courtesy to a courteous and kindly inquirer, and for the benefit of your readers as well, I have set down historical and other data in connection with this subject of the validity (fwthe Catholic sense) of Anglican Orders. If, in doing so, I have in any way helped him or them, I am more than repaid. I would, however, take leave to point out that upon the defender of Anglican Orders rightly falls the duty of fully establishing his claim — which involves proof that the alterations made by Cranmer in the Ordinal and the Prayer Book had really no significance — and that the rules of debate in no way demand that the Catholic *side shall establish the negative of their invalidity. Here, however, I waive this right of debate in favor of such a gentle and evidently earnest inquirer. In conclusion, permit me to wish him, and all such fair-minded investigators, the blessing of the Apostolicae Curae : ' May the God of peace, the God of all consolation, in His infinite tenderness, enrich and fill with all these blessings those who truly yearn for them.'