As a postscript to my last article, I thought that I would add one clarification regarding what are legitimate aspirations for "corporate" reunion (as opposed to the demands of some leaders of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada).
Certainly it is not at all unreasonable — all things being equal — for an existing Anglican jurisdiction to desire that discussions with the Catholic Church engage the appointed leaders of that ecclesial group (were these officials rightfully able to conduct them). After all, the Apostolic Constitution is called "Groups of Anglicans."
It has been suggested by some partisans that Archbishop Collins has shown himself reluctant to communicate directly with the TAC group in Canada. I do not know this to be true (at least in the sense that some have claimed). Again, all things being equal, this would likely be an error on his part — and contrary to the spirit (if not the letter) of Anglicanorum Coetibus. However I can full well understand the Archbishop's reluctance to deal with the leadership of the ACCC given their party line (as I described in my last post). "Our way or the highway" is not conducive to productive dialogue.
To request that the Church hold joint discussions with the leadership of those communities contemplating full communion with the Holy See is perfectly reasonable. So too is it justifiable that an existing fellowship of Anglicans petition for some group identity once they have come into the Catholic Church.
But the hardline position of certain ACCC leaders that their group simply become the Canadian Personal Ordinariate is rightfully unacceptable to the Catholic Church.
* * *
Thank you, also, to the several Canadian lay members of the ACCC who have already emailed me personally to share their concurrence with my earlier evaluation of the situation. My prayers are with you all!
Some have noted their reluctance to speak publicly for fear of recrimination from their leadership. This should be a wake-up call to all. The time for petty politics and posturing is over. People are hurting and no one and no thing should now presume or be allowed to stand in the way of Christian Unity.
May God bless Bishop Wilkinson and those good people of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada who are willing and ready to make a go at forming a faithful personal ordinariate in the country! May all of the leadership and people recognize that to follow the call of Christ the King may require some discomfort, privation, and sacrifice. This has and will continue to be the case for all of the Anglican groups who have committed themselves to respond to the Holy Father's most generous offer.
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!
Thanks for this follow-up, Christian. I had intended a comment after reading the original post posing the same thoughts regarding the corporate element of these proceedings. Indeed, just by the title of the AC it is undeniable that the corporate element is an integral aspect of the provision. However, as was spoken recently by an American politician in a different context, "Corporations are people". This proposition also applies to the various Anglican groups. Consequently, if the group deems to enter the Church it will be necessary for ALL of its constituent parts (people) to have the same desire, believe all that the Church teaches, and exhibit obedience to the pronouncements of the Church, to include the Church's various plans of implementation, and (as much as it pains the impatient [me]) the Church's timing in the matter. Because to do these things is to BE Catholic, and this is above all else our hearts desire, individually and corporately.
Mr. Campbell,
Would you be so kind to explain to us further why the ACCC's interpretation of AC is faulty? Where in the documents does it say that all previous Anglican canonical structures beyond the parochial level "must die so that the Ordinariate may live"? Why should the canonical structure of the ACCC not be allowed to become the basis of the future Ordinariate, provided that all of its lay members profess the Catholic faith whole and entire as contained in the Catechism? As someone who has attended an ACCC parish for almost a year, I can assure you that if the ACCC were received en masse, those members (both clergy and lay) opposed to union would simply go to church elsewhere. And as someone who has also gone through thirteen years of Roman Catholic parochial school, I can assure you further that all the laity of the ACCC that I've encountered hold and confess the Catholic faith much more integrally than the vast majority of my old classmates.
Part of the difficulty here, I suppose, is what we mean by a "coetus." Archbishop Collins thinks that "coetus" refers to Anglicans who have privately converted to Roman Catholicism coming together as Catholics and petitioning for a new parish in the Ordinariate that preserves the Anglican heritage. I do not think, however, that this interpretation of "coetus" can withstand the test of the magisterial documents in play. In the context of AC and its accompanying norms, "coetus" clearly means a canonically organized group of Anglicans (e.g. a parish or a diocese) wishing to come into full communion with the Holy Father while keeping their previous organization intact. That was my impression upon first reading AC and the norms and is still my impression now whenever I re-read them.
So why not give the ACCC what it wants, provided that all the laity assent in writing to everything contained in the Catechism?
Respectfully Yours,
MH
The short answer, Mr, Hanlon, appears to be, because Rome has seemingly, in practice at least, decided otherwise; and there appear to be some good reasons for this.
There is nothing to prevent, as you write, "a canonically organized group of Anglicans (e.g. a parish or a diocese) wishing to come into full communion with the Holy Father while keeping their previous organization intact," but in fact the only time that Rome has allowed such a procedure has been in the case of those bodies which have consisted of "true local churches," that is, those possessing valid Orders. This is not the case with any coetus Anglicanorum, "Canterburian" or "Continuing," and so (absent any contrary actions or indications from Rome), seems unlikely to happen in this case.
It may well give Rome further pause to be made aware (as Christian Campbell revealed on his previous posting):
http://www.theanglocatholic.com/2011/08/a-prayer-for-canada/
(In San Antonio, Bishop Botterill told me plainly that, as his people were not prepared to be "re-confirmed," that some "intellectual dishonesty" was appropriate in shepherding (duping) them into the Church. He also insisted that the future ordinariate should "subsist in" in ACCC which would simply transform into the new Catholic jurisdiction.")
that one ACCC bishop has practiced a certain disingenuousness concerning Rome's requirements, and his attitude seems to imply something along the lines of "we know that our Orders and sacraments are valid whatever Rome says, or whatever Rome makes us say." It takes a lot of gall to contend that Rome should pay no attention to such tergiversation, and at the same time give those practicing it what they seem to have persuaded themselves, if nobody else, is "their right."
…"we know that our Orders and sacraments are valid whatever Rome says, or whatever Rome makes us say."
Here you (possibly unhelpfully) throw into relief something about which people generally keep silent: the irreducible contradiction, or at least inconsistency, in the matter of the (re-?) chrismations and ordinations. The same contradiction probably caused the failure of the Anglican-Methodist scheme in England. Some of those who were happy enough to see that fail are now in the very position that the Methodists were in then.
LBS,
Back in 2003 a mutual friend of ours (the person, I believe, who invented the phrase "the Dutch Touch") and I had a long correspondence about Anglican Orders. He believed then, and for all I know still believes, in their validity (where we disagreed is concerning my inclination to believe that once a church, arguably possessing "valid Orders," begins to "ordain" women, it can no longer confer "valid Orders" on men as well as women), but at one point he wrote:
"However, as you know, I believe that we owe a judicial submission to Apostolicae Curae; that the C of E acting ecclesially via the Dutch Touch in effect attempted just that; and that we must do the same in the years ahead, leaving Apostolicae Curae as irrelevant; and this time we must get it right …"
I maintain that if one is going to enter the communion of the Pope of Rome, one must do it on the Pope's terms, not one's own, not with one's fingers crossed behind one's back, not with "mental reservations" (in the sense of affirming something to be true [or false] which one knows or believes to be false [or true]) — but with the "judicial submission" (along the lines of "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief) which that dear friend of mine mentioned in his letter in October 2003.
Eighty years ago Dom Gregory Dix published one of his witty and devastating book reviews, "The Revealing Church," in the Anglican Benedictine quarterly *Laudate* (Vol. VIII, No. 29, March 1930, pp. 24-46): its target was a work of Anglican "Liberal Catholic" polemic by E. Milner-White and Wilfrid Knox. Towards its end Dix writes that there are certain authoritative doctrines which rest solely on the dogmatic magisterium of the Church, and after giving examples he goes on to state that the private judgment of the "Liberal Catholic" may baulk at one or more of them; and he continues:
"Is he then to abandon it? In that case how does the new liberal Catholic who accepts the Church's authority differ from the old Protestant who rejected it? If he says 'I do not understand, but that is not required; I believe, help thou mine unbelief," how does the authority of the Church differ from an infallible authority? If he says that he must submit his voice, but not his mind, how does the authority of the Church differ from a tyranny?" And who in his right mind would submit to a Church which he believes to be tyrannnical?
The Church of England seems about to foreclose the possibility — if it has not already done so — of "getting it right," but that does not make the decision of how to respond in the current circumstances any less vexing, or even excruciating. To confess as true, however, what one believes to be false, seems hardly a salubrious manner of proceeding.
The example for us is perhaps St Chad. Presumably he had no doubt that he was already a Catholic bishop, but he humbly agreed to be consecrated as it were for the first time. It is safe to say that (almost all) the Ordinariate clergy already believed themselves to be Catholic priests or bishops; therefore they must believe their second ordination to be partial or conditional, since ordination cannot be conferred twice. The receiving body does not press the point, and we all end up thinking our private thoughts.
A fine reply (and I saw this without sarcasm or archness), and one that I wish I had myself thought of, since the example of St. Chad is a perfect example of that "judicial submission" of which our mutual friend wrote.
I wish, though, that those who would emulate St. Chad would also emulate his refraining from moaning, groaning and grumbling about that "judicial submission."
As an individual, I have no problem with undisguised submission to Rome and requiring ordinariate candidates to receive the sacraments required for membership or ministry.
But I don't see that a very diplomatic fudge at the beginning of the enterprise would do any real harm. Whole nations in the middle ages were baptized in rivers and went on to become functional parts of Christendom. Nobody looked to closely at motivation or compulsion, and the new system sorted itself out. Plenty of African converts are still syncretic in their religious observances, and the clergy overlook it and hope for better with their children.
When the Antiochians receive parishes from Anglicanism, they just chrismate everyone and have done with it. I think something similarly corporate, unthreatening, and welcoming should happen with the ACCC. By the second or third generation, nobody would know the difference and a great deal of unpleasantness would be avoided. In fact, I think this is the pastoral kind of method that would best fulfill the intent of Anglicanorum coetibus.
"…corporate, unthreatening, and welcoming…"
Excellent! Put that man in charge.
Mr. Tighe,
Thanks for this. I will wait to see what Rome's response is after the Curia has returned from their summer holiday in September. The ACCC has filed a legal brief with Cardinal Burke to present its case to the Holy See, and so we shall see if Archbishop Collins becomes a bit more welcoming to his brethren in the ACCC come fall.
As regards your interpretation of AC, it seems to me that the plain intent of the Holy Father is to welcome Anglican juridical structures intact into full communion with himself, the validity of their orders (or lack thereof) not withstanding, which is to say, the Holy See intends to make similar concessions to these groups of Anglicans as it once did to some of the churches of the east. Again, I see no basis in the magisterial documents themselves to suggest, as Mr. Campbell does, that the ACCC "must die so that the Ordinariate may live."
On the issue of orders, all three bishops of the ACCC c. 1988 received consecration from a bishop of the Polish National Church, who had indisputably valid orders and used an indisputably valid form. They did this for the sole purpose of trying to draw closer to Rome and to obey what those in the Curia had asked them to do, namely to regularize their orders in case any were invalid. (Even then they were actively dialoguing with Rome about what they had to do to be received into full communion.) As far as I know, some informed Roman Catholic bishops now do recognize these orders. When bishop Botterill (whom you've just mentioned) was ministering in Denver, CO, a few years ago, Archbishop Chaput assured him that his orders were valid, but still canonically irregular.
In light of these facts, I deem the ACCC to be "a true local church" whose clergy should submit only to conditional re-ordination. While it is true that many of the laity in the ACCC are reticent to submit to re-confirmation (as many are probably validly confirmed already), they would be willing to submit to chrismation, for the bishops of the ACCC did not all use chrism at confirmations in accordance with the rubrics of the BCP. (It is now the case that all the bishops of the ACCC always use chrism when they confirm.)
But provided all the ACCC's members submit unconditionally to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (as all the bishops of the ACCC have already), why not let them in as easily and quickly as possible? (Acts 15:28)
In Christ,
MH
Mr. Hanlon:
My apologies! This comment got lost in the moderation shuffle and I just now (6:55 PM EDT Tuesday) found it as "Pending" and approved it. I just wanted you to know that its being held-up was simply an oversight and not a reservation on the part of our Contributors/Staff over its content.
Mr. Hanlon:
What is your source for the assertion that Archbishop Chaput assured Bishop Botterill that his episcopal orders were valid?
Also, would you kindly shed more light on this request of the Roman Curia that Anglican bishops attempt — on their own — to "regularize" their episcopal orders? I have heard it told that officials of the Roman Curia offered several suggestions to the bishops of the TAC before any official relations aimed at communion could be attempted (e.g build relationships with local Catholics, grow their churches, [and according to Fr. Hepworth] "do not needlessly expand your episcopate"), but it seems very strange that any official authority would commend the collection of schismatic orders in an attempt to make Anglican bishops sacramentally acceptable to Rome.
Dear Mr. Hanlon,
You wrote:
"On the issue of orders, all three bishops of the ACCC c. 1988 received consecration from a bishop of the Polish National Church, who had indisputably valid orders and used an indisputably valid form. They did this for the sole purpose of trying to draw closer to Rome and to obey what those in the Curia had asked them to do, namely to regularize their orders in case any were invalid. "
I respond:
1. Your claim that the ACCC bishops received consecration from a bishop of the PNCC is news to me, but, then, I don't claim omniscience. Still, I would like to see this claim documented and to learn, if it happened, what rite was used for the purpose.
2. As you may know, the way in which Dutch and other European Old Catholic bishops participated in the consecrations of English (and other British Anglican bishops) between 1932 and 1959 (at least) differed significantly from the manner in which PNCC bishops participated in the consecrations of American Episcopalian and Canadian Anglican bishops' consecrations. In the former cases, the Old Catholic bishops pronounced aloud the words from the Roman Pontifical (which the Dutch used exclusively for episcopal consecrations until well into the 1960s) "Accipe Spiritum sanctum …" etc. (which they, and some Catholic scholars, deemed to be the "operative part" of the rite, at least, in the case of the Catholic scholars, until Rome declared in the Decretum pro Armenis (1439) that it was the porrectio instrumentorum, until in 1447 Pius XII abrogated that decree and declared that it was a prayer early on in the rite) while the Anglican bishops were reciting "Receive the Holy Ghost …" etc., while in the case of the PNCC their participating bishops (as the last surviving PNCC bishop who participated in such consecrations told me in a conversation in 1999) either laid-on their hands in silence, or simply used the formulas contained in the American Episcopalian or Canadian Anglican rites. Rome has not addressed the effect of validly-consecrated bishops participating in either one (or both) of these ways, and it has certainly not (yet) accepted the validity of any Orders so purportedy conferred; and therefore it strikes me as just as totally ultra vires for you to write (as you do) "I deem the ACCC to be "a true local church" whose clergy should submit only to conditional re-ordination" as it would be for me to deny it, even bearing in mind the adage "quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur." But I crave leave to state that, in the absence of the documentary evidence I requested in my #1 response above, I doubt it. Nor do I have the sublime confidence which you seem to possess in discerning the Holy Father's "plain intent;" and in any case, if he perceives that his "plain intent" is being ignored, he can easily remedy that situation.
There is also the curious case of the participation (full participation, including laying-on of his hands and pronouncing the [Episcopalian] rite's prayers) by the then Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, James Peter Davis (archbishop from 1964 to 1974) at the consecration of Richard Trelease in 1971 as Episcopalian bishop of New Mexico, on which see:
http://holywhapping.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
POSTSCRIPT
I meant to add:
1. despite the participation of Archbishop Davis in bishop Trelease's consecration in 1971 (and Trelease was one of the Episcopalian bishops who consecrated Clarence Pope as Bishop of Fort Worth in 1983 and Jeffrey Steenson as Bishop of the Rio Grande [formerly New Mexico] in 2005) Rome has not accepted the validity of the Anglican Orders of either of these men, and when Jeffrey Steenson was ordained to the Catholic priesthood he was ordained unconditionally.
2. further information on the particulars of the Old Catholic bishops' participation in English Anglican episcopal consecrations can be found in the second of the three essays contained in *Accipe Spiritum Sanctum: Historical Essays on the Agreements of Bonn and Meissen* by Bryan Taylor, printed privately by the St. Thomas Trust in Guildford, England, in 1995.
I may have misunderstood part of the debate, but here in England there has been no transfer of undertakings wholesale. The clergy have had to become lay members of the Church first and then they could be ordained as deacons and priests. No property was involved and very few of the new Ordinariate pastors were able to take as much as a vestment with them. The ACCC obviously has real estate to consider and is in a different situation. The closest similarity in England are the TAC parishes which may join the second wave. However the same style of operation will occur. There is thus a possibility that a group could form, be received as catholics, and then for whatever reason the 'pastor' member be found unsuitable for ordination (even though he met the initial requirements of the CDF).
Have you seen the ACCC real estate? It's not much better than the Plymouth Brethren. They should heed the NT story of the rich young man, and leave all for Jesus Christ. Or are they using this a way to avoid the fact that many of their clergy will not make the grade for Catholic ordination? However I find that harsh because the training that is received in the Church of England (sometimes as little as 2 years) is hardly adequate either.
Bishop Botterill is himself the source of my information. I know the man very well and quite personally. He told me this piece of information when he took me out for lunch in June.
I know it may sound strange, but bishops associated with the CDF did tell the TAC in the 1980s to obtain indubitably valid orders as a practical means to pursuing unity. One of these bishops was Cardinal Law, for example. And the fact that the ACCC did obey Rome in this regard even then just shows how determined it was and is for corporate union with the See of Peter. Sometimes the TAC also invites bishops from other communions with orders recognized as valid by Rome to do its priestly and diaconal ordinations. A bishop of the Polish National Church, for example, ordained a TAC priest I know who once served at St. Mary's of the Angels Church, Hollywood, CA, but who now resides in India.
John-of-hayling: Your comment just goes to show how different North American Anglicanism can be from what prevails in England.
Mr Wiliams: Funny you should mention the Plymouth Brethren. Bishop Botterill's congregation bought its current building from the Plymouth Brethren who moved down the street to a bigger building. St. Aidan's is a beautiful little church and has a very committed congregation. The ACCC does have considerable assets that it would be a shame to lose. One fund dedicated to theological education, for example, includes over seven million dollars. The ACCC also has other funds to support the works of the clergy and to take care of retired priests. And everyone who is familiar with the TAC knows that such funds would be hugely helpful in getting the Canadian Ordinariate started.
As someone who spent two years in a Roman Catholic seminary, I can assure you that seminary education in most places is not that good. It serves mainly to weed out candidates who would rock the boat. There's no need for it to be so long, at least for those over the age of thirty. All the priests of the TAC I've encountered are fantastic ministers of the Gospel. They celebrate the liturgy as reverently as they know how, preach coherent sermons which reinforce traditional Christian doctrine and morality, and are truly the spiritual fathers of their people. I can't imagine why a year of classes and a few practica for celebrating the liturgy and administering the other sacraments should not be enough to prepare them to minister as priests in the Ordinariate.
Mr Scott: You have it exactly right! Pray that your attitude prevails in the minds of the clergy.
I suppose the difficulty in all of this is that Archbishop Collins is simply unaware of the true spiritual reality at work in the ACCC, and his natural tendency as an Irishman to hold in contempt all things Anglican does not help him. Because he has consistently refused to accede to any of the requests of the ACCC, he has literally decimated the numbers of Canadian Anglicans who would otherwise enter the Barque of Peter. Pray that he have a change of heart in accordance with Acts 15:28. That his policy remains unchanged despite the fact that the ACCC has tried to inform him about the validity of its orders multiple times should cause everyone involved grave concern.
It does seem, however, that Bishop Botterill's appeals to Rome have caused the higher-ups to look closely at how Archbishop Collins is conducting himself as Apostolic Delegate. Keep in mind that Botterill is a Crown Prosecutor and Queen's Counsellor during the day. He knows how lawyers work and knows Canon Law pretty well.
And the delay may all be for the best. By the time the Canadian Ordinariate is up and running, the Anglican liturgy may have already been approved. And maybe I'll serve God in it as a priest someday.
So Archbishop Collins has "decimated" (and I assume that you mean that colloquially) the potential for a Canadian ordinariate? Could you share with us some of the "requests" of the ACCC that the Archbishop has, in your opinion, dismissed out-of-hand?
Also, what a coincidence! My source for information on Bishop Botterrill is Bishop Botterrill too! Weird.
Mr Campbell, I used the word "decimated" in its etymologically primary sense of "to reduce something to one-tenth its original size." If Archbishop Collins would just accept the ACCC en masse, the numbers would return to what they were previously. And I think it's fairly clear what the ACCC's requests are: Reunion but not absorption with the See of Rome, with its assets and as many of its canonical structures intact as possible.
Mr Tighe, I must say that you know more about these matters than I do. Nevertheless, when Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican Orders null and void, he specifically left open the possibility that the form in the Anglican Ordinal revised in 1662 may be valid. In that case, if a bishop with true apostolic succession uses the classical Anglican Ordinal with the right intention, the ordinations would be valid. And out of charity, we ought to hope that the ACCC's orders are valid, so that those who frequent ACCC churches may receive a valid Eucharist.
And on rare occasions Anglicans who become Roman Catholic priests are ordained only conditionally. So surely there must be some doubt some of the time. If conditional ordination enables greater church unity, why not make use of it whenever possible?
In short, I don't see the two of you speaking with the sort of generosity for which Pope Benedict is so famous. If the ACCC fully recants all of its previous errors, why put up any more barriers than are necessary? Doesn't charity and the quest for visible church unity require us to do otherwise?
PS. Dr Tighe, I do not know the exact ritual that was used for the ACCC's bishops, but I do know that the priest I mentioned who served at Our Lady of the Angels in Hollywood was ordained with the Anglican Ordinal supplemented with so many things from the Tridentine Ordinal, including the tradition of the instruments, that any objective observer would say that the rite was thoroughly Catholic.
PPS. At the consecration of the ACCC's bishops, one consecrator was from the Polish National Church, the second from the Philippine Independent Church, and the third was the Archbishop of Utrecht's representative in North America.
Such silliness, though, isn't it? So-and-so received orders from the PNCC and this-or-that group of schismatics (with "valid" orders, don't you know!).
"I believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."
"Canonical structures intact"? These structures are not ordained of the Catholic Church. Why should the Church be compelled to retain them? Of what purpose would they serve the (now unlikely) Canadian Ordinariate? What exactly are these structures? A synod composed of laymen who can ultimately decide questions of doctrine? Or simply the men in purple shirts? Please, the preservation of what proprietary right or "canonical structure," exactly, should be a bar to submission to the unity of Holy Church?
Parishes and their priests are ready to be accepted into the Catholic Church. No doubt that the bishops would be given appropriate pastoral roles (perhaps as regional "deans"). What else does the ACCC (or any TAC jurisdiction) require? This all seems like a distraction from the deeper issues that are preventing the conversion of certain Anglicans.
Without documentary evidence and specific names of the bishops, I will not believe this; and, furthermore, I have never heard of any such chimerical creature as "The Archbishop of Utrecht's representative in North America," and in episcopal orders, no less.
"he specifically left open the possibility that the form in the Anglican Ordinal revised in 1662 may be valid. In that case, if a bishop with true apostolic succession uses the classical Anglican Ordinal with the right intention, the ordinations would be valid"
A hypothetical possibility, which must mean "possibly yes, possibly no;" and given the facts I have related, the seeming refusal of conditional ordination to Bishop Pope and the unconditional ordination of Fr Steenson, the Vatican seems to be inclining to "no."
"And on rare occasions Anglicans who become Roman Catholic priests are ordained only conditionally"
"Rare occasions" = twice: Graham Leonard in 1994 and Fr. John Jay Hughes in 1968. And every other Anglican convert bishop, the Englishmen Rutt, Meyer, and Klyberg in the 90s, and Broadhurst, Burnham, and Newton more recently, as well as the American convert Episcopalian bishops Lipscomb and Steenson, have been ordained unconditionally (and that despite the "Old Catholic pedigree" the Englishmen could show, and the Davis-Trelease-Steenson link). Mr. Hanlon, you are grasping at straws. This seems to me to be at least as strong an indication of the views of the Holy See on the matter as your own personal excogitations on the matter of His Holiness' "plain intentions."
You know it's strange. I was at the consecrations for Carl Reid and Craig Botterill (and Wilkinson too), and there certainly was no PNCC Bishop there. (Consecrating Bishops were Mercer, Hepworth and Wilkinson) A simple search of about a half dozen blogs with pictures of the event will confirm that fact. Also there is most certainly not $7 million in the Theological Education Fund. I am not sure where you are getting your information, but it certainly is not accurate.
With some notable exceptions, many of the clergy in the ACCC have NO formal theological training (including Bishop Reid), and would certainly not pass the scrutiny of Rome. If you dig a little deeper, you will actually find that there are clergy in the ACCC that have been ordained that have only a high school education.
Bishop Wilkinson is the real deal for sure, and would no doubt make a great candidate for an Ordinary in Canada, however the numbers in the ACCC are dropping drastically as more of the reality of AC is accurately reported to the laity. The "strength in numbers" approach died when large numbers of ACCC laity and clergy left, desiring not to "swim the Tiber." The leadership of the ACCC were not upfront about the need to be re-confirmed — or re-ordained for that matter. They always assumed that ACCC would become the ordinariate, and their orders moved right over with it.
This IS the reality in the ACCC right now. The ACCC is full of wonderful laity and clergy that have always longed for a re-unification of the church, but as Anglicans! The "Via Media", the church that accepts the faith of our fathers, handed down without Roman additions or Protestant diminutions. That's what "Father Carl" (now Bishop Reid) always taught us.
Archbishop Collins did not tear down the ACCC: they did it to them selves. This is fact — and no revisionist history can change that.
Ah, Old Friend, your post was eminently sensible. However, prepare yourself to be flamed by those who find the truth unpalatable.
"You know it's strange. I was at the consecrations for Carl Reid and Craig Botterill (and Wilkinson too), and there certainly was no PNCC Bishop there. (Consecrating Bishops were Mercer, Hepworth and Wilkinson) A simple search of about a half dozen blogs with pictures of the event will confirm that fact."
If so, and I have no reason to doubt it, so much for Mr. Hanlon's "all three bishops of the ACCC c. 1988 received consecration from a bishop of the Polish National Church, who had indisputably valid orders and used an indisputably valid form. They did this for the sole purpose of trying to draw closer to Rome and to obey what those in the Curia had asked them to do, namely to regularize their orders in case any were invalid." Or will we be told next that these were "secret supplemental consecrations," in the good old style of so many episcopi vagantes? What we need to know if we are to credit what appears increasingly to be a "tall tale" is answers to the questions when, where, by whom (names) and with what rites.
One of the posters here, a Michael Trolly, posted on his blog about the very consecration Max Hanlon was so certain about. It even has a photograph of the event.
http://michaeltrolly.blogspot.com/2007/01/this-past-saturday-january-27-two-new.html
As you can see, there was no Dutch, Philippine, Polish or other imaginary but supposedly valid touch Max can think of.
I don't how they did it but they managed to brainwash Max and P.K.T.P. so thoroughly that the ACCC is the good and great guy and everyone else is out to get them and hold them back. Lord help us.
Regarding the subject of the validity of Orders, this entire thread is demonstrative of the absolute necessity of Catholic Ordination for all deacons and priests entering an Ordinariate. For the reason that such Ordination will render the discussion irrelevant.
Thank you, Doc, for the only comment that is sensible in this whole discussion!