Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/408



402 ANGLICAN ORDERS.

Christ most truly belongs to the Sacrament of Orders and constitutes the sacerdotium in the highest degree, namely, that which by the teaching of the holy Fathers and our liturgical customs is called the "summum sacer- dotium, sacri minisierii surnma." So it comes to pass that, as the Sacrament of Orders and the true sacerdotium of Christ were utterly eliminated from the Anglican rite, and hence the sacerdotium is in no wise conferred truly and validly in the Episcopal consecration of the same rite, for the like reason, therefore, the Episcopate can in no wise be truly and vahdly conferred by it; and this the more so because among the first duties of the Episco- pate is that of ordaining ministers for the Holy Eucharist and sacrifice.

For the full and accurate understanding of the Anglican Ordinal, besides what we have noted as to some of its parts, there is nothing more pertinent than to consider carefully the circumstances under which it was com- posed and publicly authorized. It would be tedious to enter into details, nor is it necessary to do so, as the history of that time is sufficiently eloquent as to the animus of the authors of the Ordinal against the Catholic Church, as to the abettors whom they associated with themselves from the heterodox sects, and as to the end they had in view. Being fully cognizant of the necessary- connection between faith and worship, between "the law of believing and the law of -praying," under a pretext of returning to the primitive form, they corrupted the litur- gical order in many ways to suit the errors of the re- formers. For this reason in the whole Ordinal not only is there no clear mention of the sacrifice, of consecration, of the sacerdotium, and of the power of consecrating and offering sacrifice, but, as we have just stated, every trace of these things, which had been in such prayers of the Catholic rite as they had not entirely rejected, was deliberately removed and struck out. In this way the native character â€” or spirit as it is called â€” of the Ordinal