The Church of Ireland appointed its first bishopess on 19th September 2013.
And the Church in Wales introduced legal provision for bishopesses on 12th September 2013.
As I have written previously...
The male character of Holy Orders is of divine institution, will and revelation, given by God as a gift to His Church and central to the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ as transmitted in Word and Sacrament. With the legal creation of
bishopesses for these ecclesial bodies, their Apostolic Succession is now cast under an irreversible cloud of doubt and uncertainty. Where
sacraments are uncertain or possibly invalid, orthodox moral theology always
demands that the Church take the safest and surest course, which is the refusal
to recognise such dubious sacraments as valid or efficacious. Otherwise
sacrilege might occur, or yet, the deprivation of sacramental grace for the
faithful. Women who will soon receive the rite of episcopal consecration will be
the fontes sacramentorum,
the fount and origin of the sacramental life, within their future respective
dioceses. Future episcopal consecrations held within these bodies will
likely be conferred with at least the co-consecrating participation of those
whose priestly and episcopal orders the Holy Catholic Church has never
recognised and cannot and will not recognise as sacramentally valid. No Bishop,
no Priesthood, no Eucharist, no Church. The Apostolic Succession of once-Catholic Churches is now in unmistakable jeopardy. The problem is strictly
sacramentological, quite distinct from the personal beliefs and views of those
women yet to be consecrated. They could be perfectly orthodox, biblical, in
their moral and doctrinal teaching; the problem of their orders or lack thereof
still exists. By virtue of these decisions, the bodies in question will slowly
and inescapably introduce over time a plainly suspect sacramental system into
every diocese and province concerned.
Ironically, it appears that Apostolicae Curae of Pope Leo XIII (1896) will apply in these bodies in future, not specifically because of a defect of form or a defect of intention, but because of a clear defect of minister. Pope Leo claimed the Anglican Succession died with Archbishop Matthew Parker in 1559 - that judgement was patently erroneous, from every conceivably objective theological examination. But now, tragically enough, a scenario described by Leo, the termination of Succession, will be set to happen in these ecclesial groups. This is a theological consideration, not a social, cultural or political one. Sacramental assurance, the very assurance of grace and supernatural life for which Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ instituted the sacraments, will evaporate from whole dioceses and provinces, because the chief minister of the sacraments in the local church, the Diocesan Bishop, could be one whose status casts doubt on the validity of subsequent sacramental actions in her diocese. A break in the Succession will occur in years to come once male bishops consecrated by women attempt to pass on their ministerial line and orders to others. Male presbyters and deacons ordained by women do not possess orders recognised by the historic Church. The end result of these innovations will be the cessation of an undoubtedly valid sacramental structure. The Sacrament of Holy Orders as understood by the Church Catholic would then no longer subsist in these bodies. The realities of mutual reciprocity, interchangeability and recognition of ministry, and of communicatio in sacris, were long ago shattered in the Lambeth Communion.
