With regard to the crucial question of the nature of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the Cranmer ordination rite clearly not only did not intend to do, but intended not to do, what the Catholic Church did. The Real Presence was not simply glossed over, it was explicitly rejected. The ministers of the Church of England were intended to be ministers of the Word, by speech in preaching, and by act in symbolic sacraments, and not priests of the true, substantive Body and Blood of Christ.

Historical and theological arguments to the contrary are present in both Anglican and Catholic discourse, but they have failed to carry the day in both communions. There are many theological convictions for which a minority opinion may be the correct one, but on this point, that cannot be the case. Ordination is not a matter of private devotion or opinion, but a public act of the Church. Those Catholics and Anglicans who wish to affirm the Catholic validity of Anglican orders are thus caught in a kind of double bind. Their thinking, no matter how convincing it may be, has not won the agreement of their churches, which, after all, are the ones implementing the ordinations in question. This sociological vise squeezes all who hold such opinions in the two communions, but none more tightly than those Anglicans who hold the most Catholic convictions.

Anglo-Catholic disappointment over the Catholic annulment of their orders is especially ironic since it involves the elevation of subjective opinion and experience above the teachings of both churches involved. The implication that the sincerity or personal faith of the ordinand affects the validity of his ordination embodies the very error which Leo XIII contended against on a larger scale. Condemned by Leo’s successor only a decade after Apostolicae Curae as “immanentism,” this view—a central tenet of the errors of Protestantism and modernism—held that “the truth of Christian dogma does not reside in their authoritative formulation, but in the believers’ inner spiritual experience.” Anglo-Catholics have consistently affirmed the broader principle of the objectivity of the sacraments that is expressed in this proscription, commonly with an explicit recognition that a subjective lack of faith does not invalidate a sacrament (though it may impair its effects).

It is only with a certain inconsistency, therefore, that an Anglo-Catholic can appeal to his personal experience of grace, or depth of conviction, or power in ministry, to counter the negative papal judgment on the validity of his ordination. If an objectively sufficient sacrament is valid, even in the face of deficient faith, then an objectively deficient sacrament is still invalid, even in the face of a sufficiency of faith on the part of the recipient. No matter what I may believe about my orders, if the one ordaining (which is the church, not an individual) disagrees, it is the ordainer’s belief that is dispositive, not mine.

Moreover, as the sacrament it affects, the purpose of the ritual of ordination is not to serve the one being ordained, but the community of believers he is being set aside to serve. The objective character imposed on a man by ordination does not become his personal possession which he can carry and use at will. In this respect, Anglican priests who wish to be conditionally ordained, or even only recognized upon becoming Catholic, are similar to Catholic priests who have defected to marry, but still want to function as priests.

Objections to re-ordination by an Anglican priest converting to the Catholic Ordinariate compound this inconsistency even further. It is certainly the case that, in ordaining a priest, the Episcopal Church (for example) has never thought that it was making him or her a Roman Catholic priest. Indeed, most priest converts are inhibited by their bishop for abandoning the communion of ECUSA. Since ordination is by definition not a private, personal affair, but an action of the church, why would anyone expect the Roman Catholic Church, in receiving a convert priest, to confer a status on their Anglican ordination that the Episcopal Church did not intend in the first place?

It is hard to see by what convolution of reason one could feel the necessity for Catholic ordination while simultaneously agreeing with the Episcopal Church, rather than the Catholic Church, about the status of Episcopalian ordination. Surely, someone who recognizes the deficiencies of Anglicanism enough to be led to come into full communion with the Roman Church cannot expect that Church to recognize Anglican orders as a rule. Can anyone blame the Curia for having reservations about the judgment of the Episcopalian bishops in such a matter? Would one advocate that Rome must accede to the validity of the Episcopalian ordination of female priests, or openly gay bishops? By what kind of contradiction can someone privately reject those ordinations, and then turn around and ask the Roman Catholic Church to accept his own ordination established under the exact same ritual and authority?

Perhaps, as an Anglican, one was blessed to be ordained by a Catholic bishop in apostolic succession, who spoke the Catholic words with Catholic intent; but again, perhaps not. How is the Roman Church to decide, in each instance, which Anglican ordinations may be valid (or, technically, licit) and which are not? The Catholic Church has wisely and reasonably chosen to decline to be in the untenable position of making fine distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable ordination practices in the polity and ritual of another church, on grounds that the other church does not itself recognize.

There is another, personal, often unacknowledged, benefit of absolute ordination (and confirmation) for Anglican clergy converts: it makes it utterly clear that the ordinand is converting to the Catholic faith. As the name implies, Anglo-Catholics of a certain disposition believe that they are already Catholic. These emphasize the word “Roman” in “Roman Catholic,” to distinguish themselves as Anglican Catholic, separated from the Roman Church by geography and history, but not by doctrine or liturgy. Priests of this thinking who become Catholic often protest that they did not change; rather, it was ECUSA who defected from the faith and left them. The move to Catholic orders is a mere correction of jurisdiction.

To an Anglican Catholic’s self-image, for such a change to be considered conversion carries a certain degree of offense, implying that they were wrong in believing that they were Catholic. While the Anglo-Catholic claim to catholicity is generally respected as the belief of the holder by Catholic authorities, Apostolicae Curae makes clear that the Catholic Church does not agree with their belief. Despite claims to Catholic identity, including a recognition of papal supremacy on the part of Anglo-Catholics, there is, among many, manifestly an incomplete submission to the judgment of the Roman pontiff on this point. It is, in fact, nothing less than stark self-contradiction to disagree with the Holy Father on the grounds that one has already submitted to him. Those who hold back from becoming Catholic in protest that they are already Catholic demonstrate that they are, in fact, still Protestant.

Despite the many affinities between the two, it is not possible to journey from the Anglican to the Catholic priesthood without conversion. Even—perhaps especially—if the convert priest already agrees propositionally with Catholic teaching, rather than Anglican, where the two are distinct, to become Catholic necessarily involves a new disposition to Church authority. For to be Catholic within Anglican orders involves a certain opposition to the teaching and ethos of one’s own church; to leave that church ineluctably involves a rejection of its authority. The authority may be mild and generously imposed; its rejection may be reluctant, regretful, and enacted with deep respect; yet the authority is imposed and it is rejected. Examining and opposing the precepts of one’s own faith may have been a conscientious strategy of survival; one’s very soul may have been at stake. But to enter the harbor of Peter means just precisely to lay aside all such opposition from now on. To become Catholic, as a priest, means to submit one’s private insight and judgment to the collective wisdom of the Church. We must accept the Church as our mother, not our handmaid. Leaving one’s own faith for cause is an essentially Protestant act. But just as leaving Anglicanism may be their last Protestant act, so joining Rome must be the first Catholic one.

Authority and Efficacy