What Makes A Church Catholic?

Dear N.,

I am unspeakably delighted that you have come to the personal realisation, through prayer and objective study, that historic Anglicanism is simply the Orthodox Church of the West, with a faith, order, tradition and sacramental system derived directly from the ancient and undivided Church. Anglicanism is indeed Apostolic, and has no need to rely either on Rome or Constantinople to garner any credibility or authenticity, and more, she should not compare herself to the Churches of Rome or the East, for she has her own unbroken continuity in the Apostolic line and has no need to seek approval or approbation from any outside source.

We are Catholics in our own right by virtue of our own inheritance from the Lord, and we do not require the permission of other legitimate Churches to be Catholics. We are legitimate because we have faithfully received and preserved the only necessary legitimacy, the Deposit of Faith, Holy Tradition.

The ancient legends of Britain claim that Our Lord Himself, the Blessed Virgin and Saint Paul all visited and evangelised the Albion Isle. Saint Joseph of Arimathea is reputed to be the founder of the Church at Glastonbury and the first bishop of the British Isles. But beyond these legends we know for certain historically that bishops ordained by the Apostles erected the Church in Britain and constituted dioceses in the second and third centuries. Origen, Tertullian and St Irenaeus of Lyons all testify to the antiquity and apostolicity of the British Church. There were three English dioceses represented at the Council of Arles in AD 314. Saint David of Wales is held to have been consecrated Primate of the Celtic British Church by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Saint Augustine of Canterbury was consecrated by mandate of the Bishop of Rome. Saint Theodore of Canterbury, an Eastern Rite Christian, was consecrated by the Latin Church. There is absolutely no question as to the historic foundation of the Ecclesia Anglicana.

As to Anglican Orders, we can have moral certainty that they are indisputably valid. The Roman Church is the only Catholic Church which has refused to recognise the validity of Anglican Orders, which originate in the pre-reformation Church of Britain. The Eastern Orthodox Churches provisionally recognised the validity of Anglican Orders beginning in 1922; the Old Catholic Churches of the Utrecht Union recognised the validity of Anglican Orders in 1924; the Assyrian Church of the East, in a proposed concordat of intercommunion, recognised Anglican Orders in 1910. In 1896, four of the eight theologians on Pope Leo XIII's commission on Anglican Orders believed they were valid - their inevitable verdict in favour of validity was usurped at the last minute by the Roman Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vaughn, and Cardinal Merry del Val, the papal secretary of state, who believed the imminent decision would be disastrous for the Papal Claims in England. Politics, not theology, determined the outcome and thus Apostolicae Curae was promulgated.

We should remember that Apostolicae Curae only condemns the 1550 Ordinal of Edward VI, not the 1662 Restoration Ordinal with its clarified sacramental forms for the episcopate and priesthood. Today Apostolicae Curae is a practically moot point, for from 1932 in England and from 1946 in the USA, the Old Catholic episcopate has routinely participated in Anglican consecrations, infusing the Old Catholic line, which is recognised by Rome, into the vast majority of episcopal consecrations and priestly ordinations in Anglicanism. Virtually every Anglican bishop and priest alive now possesses Orders which Rome is theoretically obliged to recognise as valid. You need not worry about the Anglican Orders question ever again.

Time does not allow me to address sufficiently the complexity of the Papal Claims, but you are absolutely right. Saint Augustine of Hippo, in common with all the Church Fathers, teaches that the Church is built upon the Faith of St Peter's Confession in Jesus Christ as True God and True Man: it is the Apostolic Creed, the Faith of the Incarnation professed by Peter, on which the Church is built (St Matthew 16). 'The rock' refers to Our Lord Himself, St Peter's person, St Peter's ministry, and St Peter's confession of faith. There are many equally correct interpretations of Christ's words to Peter.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage teaches that the Chair of Peter, the Petrine ministry, is really the Apostolate, the undivided episcopate of the whole Catholic Church: every bishop of the one Church is 'Peter' and shares in the Petrine commission and authority because of episcopal consecration. No one bishop can claim to be the successor of St Peter in an exclusive sense, because it is the episcopate itself, the apostolic college of bishops, which holds the priesthood, authority and consecration of St Peter.

Saint Gregory the Great, a Bishop of Rome, states there is no such thing as a 'supreme bishop' or a 'bishop of bishops' above the episcopal college.

The Bishop of Rome is indeed the Bishop of Rome, no more, no less, the chief representative bishop of the Catholic world. His role is analogous to that exercised by Peter amongst the Twelve. He is a representative voice, a spokesman, a primate, first amongst equals, primus inter pares. He holds the 'primacy of love' proclaimed by St Irenaeus of Lyons, the 'primacy of honour' affirmed by Saint Cyprian. The Pope is the Vicar of Christ, but not in a unique or exclusive sense again, for every bishop, every latter-day Apostle in the episcopal college, is a Vicar of Christ, the sacramental representative of Our Lord in his local particular Church. For his Diocese, every bishop is Peter, every Bishop is the Apostle. And, according to Sacred Tradition, all bishops are equal in sacramental power and jurisdictional canonical authority within their own local Churches. Such has always been the consentient teaching of the orthodox and catholic Church of Christ.

The modern Papal Claims are just that, modern. The dogmas of papal infallibility ex cathedra and the immediate and universal jurisdiction of the Pope were created at the First Vatican Council of 1870. They are neither universally-received nor ancient. They are novelties, innovations added to the Catholic Faith. Rome has the essential Faith of the Catholic Church, but has added to it that which it should not.

As regards the nature of the Church, the Orthodox Eastern Churches have always maintained rightly that orthodoxy and catholicity are not determined by sacramental or canonical communion with any particular See or Diocese, but rather by the possession and expression of the Apostolic Faith. Over time, Churches that possess the Catholic Tradition grow into unity and communion and recognise in a mutual way that catholicity which already inheres and exists in each. This is how it has always been done. It is for this movement that we pray concerning both Rome and the East. May they both come to recognise in us what they themselves possess, the full manifestation of the Faith that comes to us from the Apostles - for we undoubtedly have the Apostolic Faith, and all that obtains with it.

That you have once more discovered and reaffirmed these truths is a work of the Holy Ghost. Grace builds upon nature and when we allow it to do so, it will guide us into all truth. The intellectual search for truth can bear fruit in the spiritual and affective life, and so it has for you, praise God...