Sub Conditione (2)

The second case involves Anglican Ordinations. These fall juridically under the the still canonically valid condemnation of the bull Apostolicae curae of Leo XIII.

But, since the 1930s, in a situation which was not foreseen or taken into account by Leo XIII, Dutch schismatics with orders accepted as valid by Rome have participated in large numbers of English Anglican episcopal consecrations. And the Anglican bishops so consecrated have themselves participated in further consecrations. There now can be no more than a handful of English Anglican clergy to whom the infection of the Dutch Touch has not spread.

When the former Bishop of London, Graham Leonard, became a Catholic, he sent to the CDF the set of Latin documents and protocols which had been continually in use since the 1930s whenever these Dutch interventions occurred. The CDF called in the vota of a number of consultors on the question of the validity of his ordination to the priesthood. Instructions were subsequently by the authority of the then pope sent to Cardinal Hume that Bishop Leonard should be ordained to the presbyterate conditionally [the CDF had not considered the question of his episcopal consecration; and he was not required to go through any form of diaconal Ordination]. It was publicly explained that this did not imply that his Anglican Orders were 'doubtfully valid', but that in his case their invalidity was doubtful.

There can be little doubt that what was true of Bishop Leonard is true of nearly all English Anglican priests entering the presbyterate of the Catholic Church. If it is still the teaching of the Catholic Church that Ordination cannot be repeated and that, accordingly, attempts to do so are sacrilege, then their 'reordinations' should be sub conditione. The explicit decision of the Sovereign Pontiff S John Paul II is the Magisterial precedent for this.

I advance the hypothesis that this conditionality may not need to be expressed ritually. A formal document stating that this conditionality was in the mind of the Church would, surely, be adequate. Such an undertaking was given verbally to Blessed John Henry Newman, and satisfied his qualms of conscience [LD xi. 151-2, 283; vide Ker p 321].