Msg Base:  AREA 3  - ASK FATHER (AMDG)
  Msg No: 159.  Tue  1-01-80  1:12  (NO KILL)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Mike Fudge
 Subject: Orders, etc.

MF|Dear Father,
  |When an Episcopalian becomes a Catholic does he have to declare that he
  |was a heretic.  I was told by a monk that this was so under pre-vatican II
  |laws but he was unsure about whether it was true today.
  |.
  |Is an Episcopalian allowed to take communion in a Catholic church.  They
  |believe in the creeds, and the episcopate.  Their priests have been
  |ordained by bishops who have been consecrated by other bishops since the
  |beginning of the Church, they only dispute the Primacy of Rome not the
  |fact that the Pope is the Bishop of Rome.  Is legal therefore, since they
  |believe in the creeds by which the churchdiscloses Truths.
  |.
  |How do "Episcopal" priests become "Roman Catholic" priests. They have both
  |been properly ordained by the descendents of the Apostles before the eyes
  |of God.  It is not theChurch who invests them with Prieslty powers but
  |God.
  |.
  |Thank You.
  |.
  |In Christ,
  |Michael P. Fudge
 
Dear Mike,
 
Whatever the spiritual condition of Henry VIII and the first
Anglicans, today's Episcopalians are not formal heretics.  Therefore,
upon becoming a Catholic, a convert from Anglicanism does not to have
to declare that he was a heretic.
 
An Episcopalian may not receive Communion in a Catholic church,
except in certain circumstances, of which only the local bishop may
be the judge.  On this subject, please download my message #686 of 18
September, 1992 to Scott Spencer.
 
I hope you are a regular reader of THIS ROCK, the magazine published
by Catholic Answers. In the October, 1992 issue on pages 31-32, we
read:
 
        "Although Catholics and many traditional Anglicans are now
   enjoying an era of unprecedented friendliness and increased mutual
   cooperation, there still remains the touchy subject of whether
   Anglican holy orders are valid. The Catholic Church continues to
   regard them as invalid.
 
        In 1986 Pope Leo XIII issued his apostolic letter
   *Apostolicae Curae*, in which he upheld the Church's position that
   Anglican orders are "absolutely null and void."  When the first
   Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, came to power
   under King Henry VIII, he drastically modified the rite of
   ordination, eliminating all references to a sacrificial priestood.
 
        Since to be valid the sacraments must have the proper form
   and matter, grave questions immediately arose as to the validity
   of Anglicanism's new form of holy orders.  Upon further study, the
   Catholic Church determined that, although an ordination might be
   attempted by a valid though heretical Catholic bishop, because the
   Anglican rite of ordination had been so distorted it could no
   longer effect a valid ordination.
 
        Thus, within a generation or two after the inception of
   the Anglican Church there were no validly consecrated Anglican
   bishops (the original Catholic bishops who had gone into heresy
   having since died).  Therefore the Anglican bishops (who
   technically weren't bishops at all nor even priests) couldn't
   validly ordain men to the priesthood.
 
        There is, though, a further complication.  Some candidates for
   Anglican priesthood, recognizing the sterile nature of their
   church's holy orders, have received ordination at he hands of validly
   ordained schismatic bishops (such as the Old Catholics, who broke
   from Rome in the nineteenth century).  Assuming these bishops used
   the proper rite and the necessary intention, those ordinations
   would be valid, though illicit.  The problem is that it's
   extraordinarily difficult to ascertain whether an individual
   Anglican priest's are valid or not.
 
        That's why Anglican priests who wish to become Catholic and
   function as priests must be ordained anew in the Catholic Church.
   They are always ordained "absolutely," not "conditionally" -- that
   is, the working presumption for all of them is that they were not
   validly ordained while in the Anglican Church, no matter who
   their ordaining bishops were."
 
There is no animus here towards "Anglican orders"; this is clear from
the fact that the Church considers ordinations in the several Orthodox
Churches to be valid.  We are seeing here simply a matter of history
and theology.
 
                                Sincerely in Christ,
 
 
                                        Father Mateo
 
 
 * OLX 2.1 TD * Lord you break the power of evil and make all things new!
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