Anglican Orders.
I know Pope Leo XIII definitively declared Anglican orders were invalid in the late 1800's. In other words, Anglican "priests" and "bishops" are mere laymen.
Given this reality, how can one explain...especially to more "conservative", "traditional" Catholics...Pope John Paul's audience with the Anglican "archbishop" of Canterbury, where he presented the "archbishop" with a gift of a pectoral cross and kissed his ring?
I mean, basically the Anglican fellow is just playing dress-up. He's not a real bishop, let alone priest...in fact, he's a schismatic and a heretic (the current Anglican leader has no problem ordaining gays and women, which has caused some of his own churches to bar him from officiating in their liturgies).
I know the pope can be wrong. How can we possibly explain kissing a fake bishop's ring and presenting him with a pectoral cross?
I mean, what did the English Recusant Martyrs die for, anyway?
QUESTION from John on May 26, 2004
ANSWER by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM on June 1, 2004
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Dear John: I can see that you have posted your "question" under false pretenses. Your question is not about Anglican Orders but about committing the grave sin of rash judgment against the Holy Father. To begin with the Anglican Bishop is NOT a schismatic or heretic. To be a formal schismatic or formal heretic one must first be a Catholic. Non-Catholics cannot, by definition of Canon Law, be formal schismatics or heretics. Such people may be in "material" heresy or schism, but such terms as schismatic and heresy cannot be applied to people in "material" error. Only those who are in formal error can be called schismatic or heretic. Secondly what I would say to those "conservative" Catholics about the Pope kissing the ring of the Anglican bishop or kissing the Qu'ran or any of these other gestures that means nothing more in much of the European culture as a hand-shake is in American culture, is to GROW UP and return to the Church. There is only ONE kind of Catholic -- a loyal and obedient Catholic and does not stir up dissension, and who practices his faith according to the Catholic worldview. These liberals, and that is what the ultra-traditionalists and conservatives really are -- liberals, need to resign their egos from being the manager of the universe and submit their egos to the Church. The Pope is not doing anything wrong with these gestures just because immature Americans, who are religiously jingoistic and xenophobic, think so and thus stir up discord about it. [a religious Liberal is a person who thinks his opinion out-ranks the Pope] They need to beware that the seven sins that cry out to God includes those "who sows discord among brothers" (Prov 6:16-19) We have one of the holiest Popes in history in our beloved John Paul II.
God Bless, |