A Question of Orders
William Morgan
The Conciliar abolition of Minor Orders and the Subdiaconate
In the charge given by the ordaining bishop to those he is about to ordain to the second order of the priesthood (the Presbyterate), in the rite contained in the traditional Roman Pontifical, he makes this concise statement:
“It is by an admirable diversity of function that the Holy Church is clad, adorned and governed, some of her sons being consecrated bishops, and others of lower rank ordained priests, deacons and subdeacons, yet out of these many members of differing degree, one Body of Christ is formed.”
In his putative Motu Proprio of 15th August 1972, “by which the discipline of first tonsure, minor orders and subdiaconate in the Latin Church is reformed”, Paul VI states: “ ... so that the offices of porter, [lector], exorcist, and acolyte were called minor orders in the Latin Church in relation to the subdiaconate, diaconate, and presbyterate, which were called major orders”. In fact, he then goes on to rule that: “It is fitting to preserve and adapt these in such a way, that from this time on there will be two offices: that of reader and acolyte, which will include the functions of the subdiaconate”. In addition he rules: “ ... the above-mentioned ministries should no longer be called minor orders; their conferring will not be called ‘ordination’, but ‘institution’. And in case there should be any doubt on the matter, Paul VI states: “Ministries may be committed to lay Christians...”
By that revoluti6nary docuмent of 1972, the Conciliar Church abolished, in its Latin rite, all the ancient minor orders along with the subdeaconate, thereby bringing its practice into line with that of the sixteenth-century Anglican Reformation.
Four years earlier, in the putative Apostolic Constitution of 18th June 1968, Paul VI had already given his approval to “a new rite for the ordination of deacons, priests and bishops”, some of whose changes —— compared with the traditional rites —— have given rise to the question, among some Catholics, as to whether he did not thereby, like the sixteenth-century Anglicans, introduce intrinsically invalid Episcopal and priestly ordination rites.
The words “priest” and “bishop” in the Anglican Ordinal
In the Bull Apostolicae Curae (1896), Pope Leo XIII “pronounced and declared that ordinations performed according to the Anglican rite have been and are completely null and void.” He did so for a complex of reasons, corresponding to the history of the Anglican ordination rites. However, one of his supporting rulings is of special relevance to the question of the validity of the Conciliar ordination rites. It is this:
“... even though some words in the Anglican Ordinal as it now stands may be ambiguous, it is impossible for them to be given the same sense as they have in the Catholic rite. For, as we have seen, when once a new rite is introduced, denying or corrupting the Sacrament of Order and repudiating any notion of consecration and sacrifice, then the formula ‘Receive the Holy Ghost’ (that is, the Spirit who is infused into the soul with the grace of the Sacrament) is deprived of its force; nor have the words ‘for the office and work of a priest or bishop, etc, any longer their validity, being now mere names, voided of the reality which Christ instituted.”
The importance of that teaching can hardly be overstated. Pope Leo XIII rules that the words “priest” and “bishop” lose their Catholic meanings in the context of rites from which their essential meanings are systematically excluded.
It should be noted that Pope Leo’s judgment applies specifically to the formula “for the office and work of a priest” or “bishop”, which occurs in the Restoration Ordinal (1662) among the very words which “have been generally held by Anglicans to be the proper form”.
To that intrinsic defect of form, Pope Leo judged, there was combined a defect of intention. The Pontiff reminded his readers that:
“…a Sacrament is truly a Sacrament even if it is conferred through the ministry of a heretic or unbaptised person [in the case of Baptism], provided the Catholic rite is used. But if, on the contrary, the rite is changed with the manifest purpose of introducing another rite which is not accepted by the Church, and of repudiating that which the Church does and that which by Christ’s institution belongs to the nature of the Sacrament, then it is obvious, not only that the intention necessary for the Sacrament is absent, but also that an intention is present which is contrary and opposed to it.”
Pope Leo’s judgment that, in the Anglican ordinals, the words “priest” and “bishop” no longer have their validity, “being now mere names, voided of the reality which Christ instituted”, is based on the facts that those rites have denied and corrupted the Sacrament of Order, and repudiated “any notion of consecration and sacrifice”. That they have done so is demonstrated by their systematic elimination or change of such prayers in the traditional rites as express the “grace and power” of the priesthood, “which is pre-eminently the power ‘to consecrate and offer the true Body and Blood of the Lord’ in that sacrifice which is no ‘mere commemoration’ of the sacrifice performed on the cross’“.
The meaning of the word “bishop”, is dependent upon that of “priest”
“The case is the same,” Pope Leo judged, “with Episcopal consecration.” The words “... for the office and work of a bishop”, used in the 1662 rite, “must be understood otherwise than in the Catholic rite”.
Pope Leo stated: “It is quite certain that the episcopate by Christ’s institution belongs most truly to the Sacrament of Order and is the priesthood in the highest degree; it is what the holy Fathers and our own liturgical usage call “the high priesthood, the summit of the sacred ministry.” Therefore, since the Sacrament of Order and the true priesthood of Christ has been totally expunged from the Anglican rite, and since accordingly the priesthood is in no way conferred in the Episcopal consecration of the same rite, it is equally impossible for the episcopate itself to be truly and properly conferred thereby; the more so because one of the chief functions of the episcopate is that of ordaining ministers for the Holy Eucharist and the sacrifice.”
The question concerning the validity of the Conciliar priestly and Episcopal ordination rites, accordingly, is as to whether the words “priest” (“presbyter”) and “bishop” in those rites retain their Catholic meanings, or have they rather, by systematic eliminations and changes in the rites, become “mere names, voided of the reality which Christ instituted.”
A putative sacramental form can be made void by its ritual context
Some may object, against the very posing of the question in that way, that since Pope Pius XII’s Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis (30 Nov 1947), “the sole form is the words which determine the application of this matter, which univocally signify the sacramental effect —— namely the power of Order and the grace of the Holy Spirit —— and which are accepted by the Church as such.”
The theological concepts of sacramental form and matter concern those words and gestures whose inadvertent omission would invalidate the sacramental rite; and which are regarded as the operative words and gestures, so that —— in the context of the Catholic rite —— once they have been uttered and performed the grace of the Sacrament has been conferred.
However, from that it does not follow that the systematic omission or change of all the other prayers and gestures in the developed sacramental rite, which further explicate and define the meanings of the key words and references in the putative form, could not change those meanings so as to void them “of the reality which Christ instituted.”
Pope Pius XII’s 1947 ruling, of course, concerned the future use of the traditional rites. However, for the sake of argument, we could imagine that his choice of form and matter de facto corresponded to what had been the case at the time of the Reformation. Now, supposing that the Anglicans had preserved that form and matter, but had still systematically purged their rites of all references to consecration and sacrifice; surely it would not be claimed that those new ordinals retained the Catholic meanings and were valid rites.
As a matter of fact, of course, the priestly and Episcopal ordination rites of Paul VI do not in any event retain the sacramental forms specified by Pope Pius XII.
The Conciliar rite of Episcopal ordination
In the traditional rite of Episcopal consecration, the essential words of the form of consecration, occurring in the Consecration Preface are: “Fulfill in this priest of thine the perfection of the ministry, and sanctify him —— adorned with the insignia of glorious office —— with the anointing from on high.”
For that traditional sacramental form for the consecration of bishops in the Latin rite, Paul VI substituted the consecratory prayer which is found in the docuмent called the “Apostolic Tradition of Hypolytus of Rome” (cf. the putative Apostolic Constitution of 18 June 1968). He did so, he stated, so that “ … several clear doctrinal statements [of Vatican II] concerning the apostolic succession of bishops and their duties and functions... should be better and more accurately expressed.”
The words substituted for the traditional form for the consecration of bishops are:
“Now pour upon this chosen one that power which flows from you, the perfect Spirit whom you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the Spirit which he gave to the apostles, who established the Church in every place as the sanctuary where your name would always be praised and glorified.”
If one considers those words only, it is not immediately apparent why they should be considered as definitely designating the episcopate, rather than, perhaps, the grace of confirmation.
It is true that the new Prayer of Consecration continues with a petition that the one made a bishop may “exercise the high priesthood without blame”, and there follows the statement that: “God has made you a sharer in Christ’s priesthood.”
Whether or not such expressions — along with the injunction in the optional instruction to: “Make it your business to pray and offer sacrifice for the people...” — have any intrinsic reference to “the power to consecrate and offer the true Body and Blood of the Lord” in that sacrifice which is no mere commemoration of the sacrifice performed on the Cross, needs to be established by a consideration of the meaning of the Conciliar rite for the ordination of a priest.
The Conciliar rite of priestly ordination
At a casual glance, the putative form for priestly ordination in the Paul VI rite is the same as that specified by Pope Pius XII in the traditional rite. A careful reading, however — as has by now been frequently noted — shows there is a change: a change of one word. The Latin word “ut” [“that”] has been omitted.
The traditional form may be translated:
“Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty Father, to these thy servants the dignity of the priesthood [presbyterate]; renew in their hearts the Spirit of holiness, that they may exercise the office of the second rank received from thee, O God, and may, by the example of their lives, inculcate the pattern of holy living.”
The modified putative form in the Conciliar rite (with the “ut” [that”] omitted), has been rendered:
“We ask you, all-powerful Father, give these servants of yours the dignity of the presbyterate. Renew the Spirit of holiness within them. By your divine gift may they attain the second order in the hierarchy and exemplify right conduct in their lives.”
Why that change of a single word was made, or with what, if any, doctrinal significance in itself, is not our immediate concern. What we must note, however, is that the extrinsic authority of Pope Pius XII may not be invoked for this putative form. In the vernacular version, at least, it is significant that the words we have quoted as the putative form are in no way distinguished —— as they are by being put in capitals in the traditional form —— from the rest of the Prayer of Consecration. It should also be noted that that consecration prayer no longer takes the form of a liturgical Preface.
The omissions and changes made in the Anglican rite
To assess the doctrinal significance of omissions and changes made in the Conciliar rite of priestly ordination, as compared with the traditional rite, it is helpful to compare them with the changes and omissions made in the Anglican Ordinal(s) as compared with the (Pre-Reformation) Sarum Pontifical.
It is of special importance to note a Catholic-sounding prayer which occurs near the beginning of the Anglican rite. It reads:
“Almighty God, giver of all good things, which by Thy Holy Spirit hast appointed diverse orders of ministers in Thy Church, mercifully behold these Thy servants, now called to the office of Priesthood, and replenish them so with the truth of Thy doctrine, and innocence of life, that both by word and good example they may faithfully serve Thee in this office, to the glory of Thy name, and profit of the congregation, through the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reignest...”
So Catholic-sounding is that Anglican prayer, that a number of pre-Apostolicae Curae Catholic writers felt obliged to concede that it would have been a valid sacramental form if it had not been located right at the start of the rite, before the introductory formalities, and morally cut off from the putative sacramental matter — the laying on of hands.
However, in Apostolicae Curae, Pope Leo rules that the argument establishing that “the words ‘for the office and work of a priest’ or ‘bishop’, etc, [no longer possess] validity, being now mere names, voided of the reality which Christ instituted, “is fatal also to the suggestion that the prayer, ‘Almighty God, giver of all good things’... can do service as the legitimate form of Order; although conceivably it might be able to suffice in a Catholic rite...”
Paradoxically, the Anglican Reformers managed to omit from their Ordinal the most ancient prayers and gestures found in the Sarum Pontifical, while retaining — in modified form — some of the more recent additions. It was thus that they omitted the first (silent? ) laying on of hands; the one which Pope Pius XII was to designate the sacramental matter in the traditional Roman Pontifical. They also omitted the ancient prayers which preceded the liturgical Preface, and the Preface itself, including the words corresponding to those specified for the future as the sacramental form by the Pope.
The Anglican Reformers also omitted the second part of the Sarum consecratory prayer, with its petition: “May they preserve pure and unspotted the gift of this ministry, and for the service of Thy people change by their immaculate blessing, the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Thy Son.”
For those ancient prayers the Reformers substituted a new composition, giving thanks for the sending out into the world of the “Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Doctors, and Pastors”; and for calling “these thy servants here present to the same office and ministry of salvation of mankind.” Then came the retained laying on of hands (the last in the traditional rite), with the modified formula: “Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven: and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained: and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy Sacraments. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
Those were the words “generally held by Anglicans to be the proper form of priestly ordination.” But, as Pope Leo XIII states, those words “certainly do not signify definitely the order of the priesthood or its grace and power, which is pre-eminently the power ‘to consecrate and offer the true body and blood of the Lord’ in that sacrifice which is no ‘mere commemoration of the sacrifice performed on the Cross’.”
The Anglican rite also discarded the blessing and anointing of the priest’s hands, with the accompanying prayers. The first of those prayers says: “Bless, O Lord, and sanctify these, the hands of Thy priests to consecrate the sacrifices which are offered for the sins and negligences of the people, and to bless all other things necessary for its service.”
The 1550 Anglican “tradition of the instruments”
The tradition of the instruments — the handing to the new priest of the chalice containing wine and water, with a paten and host upon it — along with the formula conveying explicitly the power to offer sacrifice by celebrating Mass, are relatively late additions to the rite. However, their very explicitness had made many Catholic theologians consider them at least part of the sacramental matter and form. The Anglican Reformers at first retained the ceremony, though in a modified form (in the 1550 Ordinal), by simultaneously handing the ordinand a Bible.
Of course, the Catholic significance of the tradition of the instruments was removed by the replacement of the formula: “Receive the power to offer sacrifice to God and to celebrate Masses for the living and the dead, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ”; by: “Take thou authority to preach the word of God, and to minister the holy Sacraments in this congregation.”
The ecuмenical context of the Conciliar reforms
The Conciliar reforms have taken place at a time of vastly greater knowledge of the history of the sacramental rites than was available in the sixteenth century. However, ecuмenical considerations have also led to a convergence in liturgical practice, accompanying great efforts to achieve a doctrinal consensus, by treating as non-substantial those dogmatic matters on which Reformers and Catholics have historically and manifestly disagreed. (cf. “The Eucharist as Sacrifice”: a Lutheran-Roman Catholic Statement,1967; the preparatory Anglican-Roman Catholic “Malta Report”, 1968; the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission’s “Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine” , 1971; ARCIC’s “Agreed Statement on Ministry and Ordination”, 1973; and ARCIC’s two “Elucidations”, on Eucharistic Doctrine and Ministry and Ordination respectively,1979.)
The omission and changes made in the Conciliar rite
In the traditional rite, the bishop’s Charge to the ordinands gives a succinct statement of the duties of a priest: “For it is the priest’s duty to offer sacrifice, to bless, to lead, to preach and to baptize.” It is in the optional Instruction provided in the Conciliar rite for the ordination of priests that statements fully compatible with the Catholic doctrine of the priesthood will be found. However, while not discounting that fact, the contemporary ecuмenical initiatives to present Catholic and Protestant expressions as equivalent cannot simply be ignored either. It is only by an examination of the mandatory prayers and gestures of the rite itself, as compared with those of the traditional rite, that its doctrinal significance can be objectively assessed.
In the traditional rite, the sacramental form occurs in the course of a liturgical Preface. In the Conciliar rite, the equivalent Prayer of Consecration no longer takes the form of a Preface. As we have already mentioned, in the vernacular version at least, the modified sacramental form is not distinguished from the rest of the prayer by being printed in capital letters (as was the form specified by Pope Pius XII). And the continuation of the prayer has been changed.
After the investiture with stole and chasuble, the traditional rite continued with another ancient consecratory prayer. That was the one containing the words: “Theirs be the task to change, with blessing undefiled, for the service of thy people, bread and wine into the body and blood of thy Son.” That explicit prayer is omitted in the Conciliar rite.
Also omitted — at the end of the Mass — is the final imposition of hands, with the injunction: “Receive the Holy Ghost...” We should also note the omission of the blessing: “…that you may be blessed in the Priestly order, and may offer propitiatory sacrifices for the sins and offences of the people...”
Unlike the Anglican Ordinal(s), the Conciliar rite has retained the traditional anointing of the new priest’s hands, though in a simplified form. While performing the act, the bishop traditionally says two prayers. “Be pleased, Lord, to consecrate and sanctify these hands by this anointing and our blessing. … That whatsoever they bless may be blessed, and whatsoever they consecrate may be consecrated and sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the Conciliar rite the prayer for the anointing has been rendered: “The Father anointed Jesus Christ as Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit. May Jesus keep you worthy of offering sacrifice to God and sanctifying the Christian assembly.”
Obviously, the meaning of “priest” in the Conciliar rite of ordination depends upon the meaning given to “offering sacrifice”. If “offering sacrifice” has the same meaning here as in the traditional rite, then so has the word “priest”, and there could be no question of it being a mere name, “voided of the reality which Christ instituted.”
The new “tradition of the instruments” anticipates the New Mass
Is there any other change as between the rites which casts further light on that essential matter? There is. It is the change in the formula for the tradition of the instruments which proves to be the most doctrinally significant.
In the traditional rite, the tradition of the instruments — the handing to the new priest of the chalice containing wine and water, and the paten with a host — is accompanied by the unambiguous words: ‘‘Receive the power to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Mass, both for the living and the dead, in the name of the Lord.”
In the new rite, the tradition of the instruments is significantly styled “Presentation of the Gifts”. The action is now accompanied by the words: “Accept the gifts from the people to be offered to God. Be conscious of what you are doing, be as holy as the actions you perform, and model your life after the mystery of the Lord’s cross.”
Anyone who has studied the doctrinal significance of the change of the Catholic offertory into the un-Catholic presentation of the gifts in the anti-Tridentine New Mass, will be struck by the fact that the new formula precisely anticipates that change of doctrinal significance.
The Anglican Reformers did not introduce their first Ordinal until a year after they had introduced the Supper of the Lord and Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass. Conciliarists, by contrast, introduced the new rite for the ordination of priests a year before the promulgation of the New Mass. However, the change of the formula to accompany the handing of the chalice and paten in the Conciliar rite is as doctrinally significant, in the context of the imminent promulgation of the New Mass, as was that made in the Anglican Ordinal of 1550.
In the traditional rites of Mass, including the (Tridentine) Roman rite, the oblations offered at the Offertory, and in the pre-consecration Canon, are the Body and Blood of Christ as symbolised by the bread and wine — the spotless host and the chalice of salvation of the Tridentine Offertory. However, in the New Mass of Paul VI what are offered at the “preparation of the gifts” — and so in the pre-consecration portion of the Canons (certainly in the three new Canons, and arguably in Canon 1, the ex-Roman Canon) — are simply bread and wine.
Catholic and non-Catholic doctrines of Eucharistic sacrifice
It is not that the New Mass does not express a doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice, but that that doctrine is not the same doctrine as that expressed in the Tridentine (and other developed rites of) Mass.
In their “Responsio” to the Bull, Apostolicae Curae, the Anglican Archbishops of Canterbury and York affirm:
“We truly teach the doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice, and do not believe in a ‘nude commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross,’ an opinion which seems to be attributed to us by the quotation from the Council [of Trent]. But we think it sufficient in the Liturgy which we use in celebrating the Holy Eucharist, while lifting up our hearts to the Lord, and when consecrating the gifts already offered, that they may be to us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, to signify the sacrifice which is offered at that point of the service in such terms as these. We continue a perpetual memory of the precious death of Christ, who is our Advocate with the Father and the propitiation for our sins, according to His precept, until his coming again. For first we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; then next we plead and represent before the Father the Sacrifice of the Cross, and by it we confidently entreat remission of sins and all other benefits of the Lord’s Passion for the whole Church; and, lastly, we offer the sacrifice of ourselves to the Creator of all things which we have already signified by the oblations of his creatures. This whole action, in which the people have necessarily to take part with the priest, we are accustomed to call the Eucharistic sacrifice.”
What could seem a more Catholic statement of the doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice, even including an explicit reference to “the sacrifice which is offered at that point of the service”? Those who are familiar with the various editions of the Anglican Communion Service must allow the Anglican archbishops that they are but summarising what that service does and says.
Yet the Cardinal Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of Westminster respond, in their “Vindication” of the Bull, Apostolicae Curae (1898):
“... we have understood you to be expressing the same views as your standard writers; rejecting by implication the objective Real Presence, the Sacrifice in which the true Body and Blood of Christ is the victim, and the Priesthood which claims to have received a specific spiritual power to offer such a sacrifice; but at the same time affirming and ascribing to your Church a sacrifice in which the thing offered is the congregation with its praise, its service, and its gifts, and claiming for each individual, the laymen as well as the clergyman, a metaphorical priesthood to correspond with this metaphorical sacrifice.”
By 1967, however — the year before the introduction of the Conciliar rite of priestly ordination (itself anticipating the change of doctrinal significance manifested in the “Offertory” of the New Mass) — an American Lutheran-Roman Catholic Statement, “The Eucharist as Sacrifice”, was advancing another, apparently stronger, doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice, but one which still did not conform to the Catholic sacramental renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross.
The Lutherans were happy to affirm with their R.C. counterparts that:
“The members of the body of Christ are united through Christ with God and with one another in such a way that they become participants in his worship, his self-offering, his sacrifice to the Father. Through this union between Christ and Christians, the Eucharistic assembly ‘offers Christ’ by consenting in the power of the Holy Spirit to be offered by him to the Father. Apart from Christ, we have no gifts, no worship, no sacrifice of our own to offer to God. All we can plead is Christ, the sacrificial lamb and victim whom the Father has given us.”
Even the post-consecration sacrificial wording of Canons 3 and 4 of the New Mass appear fully compatible with that Lutheran understanding of how the “Eucharistic assembly ‘offers Christ’...”
Summary: validity turns upon the meaning of “priest” and “Eucharistic sacrifice”
Let us now draw together the various strands of this discussion. We have seen how Pope Leo XIII definitively declared that “ordinations performed according to the Anglican rite have been and are completely null and void.” That judgment was based upon a complex of considerations, corresponding to the history of the Anglican Ordinal(s), which showed that that rite suffered from a defect of form, and consequently — for those who adopted it — a defect of intention in its use.
That fundamental defect of form turned crucially on the change of meaning given to the words “priest” and “bishop”, by the systematic omissions and changes of wording in those prayers in the traditional rite which definitely signified the priesthood’s “grace and power, which is pre-eminently the power ‘to consecrate and offer the body and blood of the Lord’ in that sacrifice which is no ‘mere commemoration of the sacrifice performed on the Cross”‘.
Our examination of the Conciliar rite for the ordination of bishops has shown, on the one hand, that the sacramental form substituted for that in the traditional rite is vaguer and less definite than the one it replaces. On the other hand, it is accompanied by other prayers which contain such expressions as “high priesthood” which one would expect to find in a Catholic rite. We conclude from that that the meaning of such expressions can only be established in relation to the meaning given to the crucial word “priest” in the rite of priestly ordination.
While the Conciliar rite of priestly ordination has been found to have some omissions and changes of wording approximating to the Anglican reforms, it still has a number of references to “offering sacrifice”.
However, in an ecuмenical context, we have seen how, even a hundred years ago, the Anglican archbishops professed to “truly teach the doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice”, on the basis of what they did in their Communion Services, even speaking of “the sacrifice which is offered at this point of the service...” Against that contention by the Anglican archbishops, the Cardinal Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of Westminster countered that their statement rejected “by implication the Sacrifice in which the true Body and Blood of Christ is the victim...”
Similarly, it is our contention - explained in detail elsewhere (of our “The Anti-Tridentine New Mass”) —— that the New Mass of Paul VI lacks doctrinal rectitude. This is most manifestly so because of the change of doctrinal significance of the “offertory”, from the anticipatory offering of the Body and Blood of Christ symbolised by bread and wine, to the offering simply of gifts of bread and wine. That change of doctrinal significance of the “offertory” also changes the theology of sacrifice expressed in the Canons of the New Mass. That new theology of sacrifice, we submit, is entirely compatible with the Lutheran one.
Conclusion: exclusion of the Catholic meaning of “priest” entails invalidity
The relevance of the New Mass’s change of Eucharistic theology to the meanings of the words “sacrifice”, “priest” and “bishop” in the Conciliar ordination rites, is established by the change of doctrinal significance of the formula accompanying the tradition of the instruments. In the traditional rite, that formula explicates the pre-eminent priestly power “to consecrate and offer the true body and blood of the Lord”. “Receive the power to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Mass, both for the living and the dead, in the name of the Lord.”
In the Conciliar rite of priestly ordination, however, the formula which accompanies the tradition of the instruments defines the Conciliar “priest” in terms of offering “the gifts from the people” to God. That is a manifest anticipation of the new doctrinal significance, excluding the traditional one, which is found in the New Mass of Paul VI. That definition of the priesthood, by reference to the new theology of sacrifice expressed in the New Mass, would appear to exclude the traditional Catholic meaning, and so invalidates the Conciliar priestly and Episcopal ordination rites.
Feast of SS Peter and Paul 1999
Bibliography
From the traditional Roman Pontifical, the rites for the consecration of bishops and the ordination of priests: various editions (including Catholic Truth Society of London) with Latin originals and English translations.
The CTS of London was unable to provide the Latin texts for the Conciliar rites for Episcopal or priestly ordination (nor the English for Episcopal ordination). Accordingly, all relevant quotations, both from the docuмents of Paul VI and from the Conciliar ordination rites, are taken from the 1973 American Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy versions.
Apostolicae Curae (1896), Pope Leo XIII: English translation “Anglican Orders Final Decision” (CTS).
The texts of the 1550 and 1552 editions of the Anglican Ordinal: “The Two Liturgies”, Parker Society (1844).
The Restoration (1662) Anglican Ordinal: “The Book of Common Prayer” [1662 version].
Translation of relevant prayers from the Sarum Pontifical: “The Reformation, the Mass and the Priesthood” (Volume 1), E. C. Messenger (1936).
“The Eucharist as Sacrifice: A Lutheran-Roman Catholic Statement” (1967): in “Modern Eucharistic Agreement” (1973).
All the ARCIC docuмents in one volume: “The Final Report” (1982)
“A Vindication of the Bull Apostolicae Curae” (1898), the Cardinal, Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of Westminster.
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Topic: A Question of Orders by William Morgan (Read 1286 times)