Why Anglican Orders Are Not Valid

The question of the validity of Anglican and Episcopalian Orders is indeed a deep subject. This booklet is offered to help those researching this subject. The writer of this pamphlet has no interest in controversy. It is not controversial. Anyone who thinks to find in it a word which offends against that aspect of charity which we know as courtesy, will misread wholly the purpose of the writer. What follows is an attempt to state as concisely as possible, in a bare outline, the reasons why the Catholic Church considers Anglican orders invalid. It may not be beside the point to say that the writer knows a number of Anglicans whose good faith he respects, and whose honest search for truth he honors. These persons occupy a position which is trying. Their cheerful effort to deal with the insuperable difficulties involved in the "Anglican Position" are ample proof of their entire sincerity. There are persons in the Anglican Church, both clergymen and laymen, who are fully convinced that Anglican clergymen are priests-in the Catholic sense of the word. In other words, they believe that Anglican ministers have power to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, and to give absolution from sin. Moreover, they think that such clergymen speak with the authority promised by Our Lord to His Apostles and their successors.