One
of the Vatican’s top legal minds has opened the way for a revision of
the Catholic position on Anglican orders by stressing they should not be
written off as “invalid.”
In a recently published book,
Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council
for Legislative Texts, calls into question Pope Leo XIII’s 1896 papal
bull that Anglican orders are “absolutely null and utterly void.”
“When someone is ordained in
the Anglican Church and becomes a parish priest in a community, we
cannot say that nothing has happened, that everything is ‘invalid’,” the
cardinal says in volume of papers and discussions that took place in
Rome as part of the “Malines Conversations,” an ecumenical forum.
“This about the life of a person and what he has given …these things are so very relevant!”
For decades Leo XIII’s remarks
have proved to be one of the major stumbling blocks in
Catholic-Anglican unity efforts, as it seemed to offer very little room
for interpretation or revision.
But the cardinal, whose
department is charged with interpreting and revising Church laws, argued
the Church today has a “a very rigid understanding of validity and
invalidity” which could be revised on the Anglican ordination question.
“The question of validity
[regarding the non-recognition of Anglican orders, while the Pope would
give pectoral crosses, rings or chalices to Anglican clergy], however,
is not a matter of law but of doctrine,” he explains in a question and
answer format. “We have had, and we still have a very rigid
understanding of validity and invalidity: this is valid, and that is not
valid. One should be able to say: ‘this is valid in a certain context,
and that is valid another context’.”
Read the rest here.
Ummm... sorry. They are invalid and we (Orthodox) need to cease accepting their baptisms. The CofE and their North American constituencies are simply pagan. That Rome does not seem to grasp this is alarming further evidence of the crisis in their own communion.
Unfortunately, we live in the age of shoddy. Nothing is what it says on the tin. I think it's more likely that I could fit the sun in my back pocket than any church, even the Orthodox, goes back to the old money of fire, brimstone and anathema.
ReplyDeleteQuite agree. There shouldn't be any questions about baptizing Anglicans coming into Orthodoxy. There is the use of Economia and it's abuse. We are seeing too much of the former.
ReplyDeleteHaving left the Episcopal Organization & being upset with a belly-full of Reformed Theology, I am trying to figure out which body of water to swim: the Tiber or the Bosporous? It seems the Roman Church has been giving free reign to criminal enterprises that traffic in the children of their flocks, so Rome is out. So I have been looking at Orthodoxy. While I find the eastern church's view on Redemption more appealing than that of the west, I am very dismayed to learn of all the carping between various patriarchies over who should be in charge. That is the major reason I would not follow ACNA et al. Too many Bishops arguing over turf.
ReplyDeleteNow what?
It is precisely because Orthodoxy is the true faith that the devil is attacking the church. I don't like the human politics and divisions either. But we have no Byzantine Empire to enforce the canons. My spiritual father says that we won't find perfection in this world. It is we who need reforming, not the church.
DeleteThe good Cardinal's "reasoning" is rooted in emotion and feewings.
ReplyDeleteBorisJojicj, Roman Catholics can and do say the same thing. It's not the strongest argument.
ReplyDeleteI like the Orthodox mess. The more time the hierarchs have to spend defending their sovereignty the less time they can devote to lecturing us about immigrants and global warming.
ReplyDelete