Correspondence about the validity of the Anglican consecrations 1896/1897

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The correspondence on the validity of the Anglican ordinations in the years 1896/1897 consists of the apostolic letter Apostolicae curae of September 13, 1896, with Pope Leo XIII, issued in the form of a papal bull . declared the Anglican ordinations of bishops and priests from the Roman Catholic point of view invalid and ineffective due to a lack of form and lack of intention , and the letter Saepius officio of February 19, 1897 from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York , Frederick Temple and William Dalrymple Maclagan , to the Pope , which contains the official response from the Church of England.

prehistory

The validity of the Anglican consecrations had been contested by the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century only a few decades after the church split. The predominantly ecclesiastical motivated condemnations were with a lack of clarity of certain Eucharistic statements in the of King Edward VI. first introduced ordinals , which contained the rite for ordinations in the Church of England, established. However, the question ultimately remained unanswered and controversial and led to various discussions and controversies. In the 1720s, for example, two anonymous book publications by Pierre François Le Courayer , which the Dominican Michel Le Quien and others contradicted, sparked a heated controversy in Paris without a papal decision being reached. Books that campaigned for the validity of the Anglican ordinations were banned.

In the 1890s a theological commission of inquiry was set up by the Pope to finally clarify the problem of the validity of Anglican ordinations from a Catholic point of view. Their results were in the letter Apostolicae Caritatis et curae formulated the Pope from 13 September 1896 ( Denzinger 3315-3319), the magisterial character. Although the letter claims that the decision had long been made, opinions among theologians were divided beforehand.

The immediate reason for the investigation was the exchange between the French Vincentians and Frühökumeniker Abbé Portal (1855-1926) and Lord Halifax (1839-1934), President of the Anglo-Catholic rights protection association Church Union , who knew each other since 1889th Portal had suggested in 1892 that the recognition of the validity of the Anglican ordinations by the Catholic Church could be a first step towards the reunification of the churches. Halifax thought the idea was unrealistic, but agreed to a campaign because it corresponded to his goals, which he had long pursued together with a circle of Anglican priests close to him within the high-church priestly association Society of the Holy Cross , which followed the example of the Catholic Lazarists from France and campaigned for the ritual recatholization of the Church of England. The English Roman Catholic bishops, as well as the non-ritualist Anglican church representatives, were strictly against the idea, but the supporters of the recognition found support from influential theologians of the papal curia in Rome as well as individual Anglican bishops.

Argumentation in Apostolicae curae

The argument of Leo XIII. According to the Anglican bishops, they lost apostolic succession because episcopal ordination in the Church of England was not consecrated continuously with the intention of the Church. This is particularly evidenced by the formula “receive the Holy Spirit” used in Anglican priestly ordinations, which does not adequately express the intention of the church. This also applies to the later additions such as “for the office and work of the priest” or “for the office and work of the bishop”.

Since the intention is internal, according to the Apostolicae curae it can only be assessed in so far as it appears externally. Since the Anglicans had intentionally changed the ordination rite of the Catholic Church, it can be assumed that they had no intention of "doing what the Church does".

As a result of this argument, the Pope announced to the addressees the final decision of the Church, “that the ordinations that have been donated according to the Anglican Rite are absolutely void and wholly invalid (...). We order that this letter and everything it contains may not be contested or contradicted at any time (...). "

The draft text for Apostolicae curae comes from the then 30-year-old priest and later Cardinal Secretary of State under Pius X , the Spanish priest Rafael Merry del Val , who grew up in England and who acted as secretary of the commission of inquiry.

Argumentation in Saepius officio

The letter from the Archbishops of York and Canterbury asserts that the Traditio Apostolica ascribed to Hippolytus of Rome (2nd / 3rd century) does not contain any explicit reference to the priest's activity as head of the Eucharist , but only to “prayers that he will bring before God day and night, ”as well as his authority to forgive sins. If the argument of Leo XIII. to, the apostolic succession should already have expired at this point in time and thus for the whole of Christianity and not only for Anglicanism. When Leo XIII. referring to the Council of Trent in this matter, according to the Anglicans, he would also have to allow himself to be judged by the judgment of the council. Either the judgment of the council was correct, and then the early Christian ordinations were also invalid, or the judgment of the council should not be used on this question.

The Archbishops of York and Canterbury also criticized Leo XIII. have the intentions in the foreword to the under Edward VI. introduced ordination rites are ignored. They declared that the rites of the Roman Church were not uniform either. The introduction of a new rite is therefore permissible, especially since this belongs to the freedoms of the local churches and does not depend “on the goodwill of Rome”. The supposed "innovations" introduced in England in the sixteenth century revived customs of the early Christian church that had been lost in Roman practice. This, and not a departure from the custom of the Church of Jesus Christ, are the intentions expressed in the Anglican rite of the sixteenth century.

The liturgical-historical argumentation of Saepius officio was developed by the church historian and Anglican priest Frank Edward Brightman .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AAS  29 (1896–97), pp. 193–203 ( Latin online on the Vatican's website, accessed October 2017); Heinrich Denzinger : Compendium of creeds and church teaching decisions. Improved, expanded, translated into German and edited by Peter Hünermann with the assistance of Helmut Hoping . 45th edition, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2017, pp. 837–840 ( table of contents online , pp. XXXI; text of the 44th edition in the Google Book Search, Freiburg im Breisgau 2014).
  2. ^ Nigel Yates: Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830-1910. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1999, pp. 294-303.