Hello, Rita —

The short answer to your question would have to be, No — until or unless this Christian body is officially reconciled to the Catholic Church.

Receiving Communion signifies full union, not only with Christ, but with each other.

That would not be the case here, hence it is unlawful for a Catholic to receive communion there.

Paul

Hi, Rita —

Just to add to Paul's answer. Not only are these groups not in full communion, but they don't have a valid priesthood. Therefore their "communion" is a spiritual communion; valid in their community.

It is not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord, sacramentally present as in our Church. When these communities come into full communion with the Church, their ministers, only the males, will have to be ordained priests, if they wish to continue their ministry in the Catholic Church.

John

Dear Reverend,

When someone disagrees with one of our answers, I always ensure that the people who answered the original question, in this case, John and Paul, are given the opportunity to reply.

You may also hear from my other colleagues as well; I'd be interested in what Eric and Mary Ann think about the Reverend's concern.

Thanks for e-mailing us; we welcome constructive criticism on any of our answers.

Mike
AskACatholic.com Web Administrator

Reverend Bakken is wrong.

• Can he please state the canon under which this is possible?

Anglican orders are not valid. Anglicanism denies that Holy Orders is a sacrament right in the 49 articles and, of course, Luther also denied that Orders is a sacrament.

Both the Lutherans and the Anglicans adopted this heresy. They altered the nature of Orders, therefore Apostolic Succession was interrupted and their orders are not valid.

Catholics may not receive communion from them under any circumstances, without committing an act of schism. If they do so knowingly, they face an undeclared interdict of excommunication.

John

Reverend Bakken,

• What is the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church?

If it is a small schismatic body that is neither the Anglican nor Lutheran church, then it may be true that your Orders are valid.

As for Communions, Catholics may receive the Eucharist from Orthodox priests if there is no Catholic Mass or priest available.

Protestants may receive in danger of death if they express the Catholic faith in the Eucharist.

Mary Ann

Dear Reverend,

According to no. 132 of the "Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism", 1993:

"On the basis of the Catholic doctrine concerning the sacraments and their validity, a Catholic who finds himself or herself in the circumstances mentioned above (nn. 130 and 131 [danger of death, unable to ask his own minister, asks of his own initiative, and is properly disposed]) may ask for these sacraments only from a minister in whose Church these sacraments are valid or from one who is known to be validly ordained according to the Catholic teaching on ordination."

Valid ordination would probably need to be officially established by Rome, and the only Western church I know that has been ruled as having valid ordination is the Polish National Catholic Church, sometimes known as the National Catholic Church.

As my colleagues pointed out, neither Anglicanism nor Lutheranism historically manifests Catholic faith on the Eucharist and aren't validly ordained. It is possible, if this is a particularly "Catholic" community, that they might hold the Catholic view of the Eucharist and might be validly ordained, but without an explicit ruling from Rome, that this community has valid orders, I wouldn't trust it.

Eric

Reverend —

It's not a question of "getting over it", it's a question of doing all things in good order in union with the Roman Pontiff. We rejoice in anyone who comes into communion with the Roman Pontiff. If Rome has recognized your orders, thanks be to God, we accept that joyfully.

We are elated that you are forming an Ordinariate. It's just that we haven't heard of your group and we have to be careful about who we say has valid orders. (It's better to say they are invalid and be wrong, than to say they are valid and be wrong.) As you know, Rome is exceedingly conservative about this matter. Even Anglicans who have pedigrees of Orthodox bishops are being unconditionally ordained. We can't keep up with every group that receives recognition so I regret if we made an error in this regard.

I agree that the original answer deserves some nuancing, although let's be clear that intercommunion for Catholics is only allowed in danger of death without access to a Catholic minister, which is a very restrictive requirement. The original question was:

• Can I received Holy Communion at the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church?

and the answer was "The short answer to your question would have to be, No", which is certainly true — the long answer, as I said, is it would be permitted in danger of death without access to a Catholic minister, assuming your orders are recognized as valid.

If you can provide some sort of documentation or specific reference for the acceptance of your orders we'd be more than happy to modify the original answer to reflect this. I searched the Vatican web site and found nothing.

We are looking forward to the forming your Ordinariate.

Eric

Dear Reverend Bakken,

I am glad to know of this group via the web site address you sent us. I do hope that your reunion can be realized. I will say that there is one quibble I have with the definition of the handing on of orders.

The validity does not solely rely on the ceremony. It relies on two other things:

• the valid ordination of the bishop performing the laying on of hands, and
• the intention to do what the Catholic Church does, to mean what the Church means by ordination.
  

Any denial of the Mass or the Sacrament, as the Church understands it, would deny the priesthood as the Church understands it.

Mary Ann