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Pope Leo XIII declares Anglican Church orders invalid – Sept. 13, 1896

This week marks the anniversary of when Pope Leo XIII issued an apostolic letter in which he declared the holy orders and ordination of the Anglican Church to be invalid.

The Anglican Church traced its origins to the 16th century when English King Henry VIII severed it from the Catholic Church in order to divorce his wife to marry another woman.

Known as the Apostolicae Curae and issued on the “Ides of September” (which, contrary to popular belief, falls on the 13th day in September, not the 15th), the letter argued that “ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void.”

“In vain has help been recently sought for the plea of the validity of Anglican Orders from the other prayers of the same Ordinal. For, to put aside other reasons which show this to be insufficient for the purpose in the Anglican rite, let this argument suffice for all,” stated the pope.

“From them has been deliberately removed whatever sets forth the dignity and office of the priesthood in the Catholic rite. That ‘form’ consequently cannot be considered apt or sufficient for the Sacrament which omits what it ought essentially to signify.”

In more recent times, however, efforts have been made to officially overturn Leo XIII’s declaration, with a group of Anglican and Catholic theologians issuing a statement in December 2021 saying the 1896 letter “does not accord with the reality into which the Spirit has led us now.”