The Pillar Catholic portal reports on the installation of Dame Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, framing it within a narrative of Anglican-Catholic “ecumenism” that fundamentally rejects the immutable doctrine of the Catholic Church and celebrates the very apostasy condemned by pre-1958 pontiffs.
Factual Level: The Protestantization of Anglicanism and the Illusion of Dialogue
The article presents the ordination of women to the episcopate in the Church of England as a mere “traumatic” development within an already ambiguous “Anglican tradition.” This is a profound distortion. From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, the ordination of women to holy orders is not a development but a repudiation of the Catholic priesthood, which by divine law requires a male minister (*Clericalis disciplina*). The Church of England, by this act, has definitively embraced Protestantism in its most radical form, rejecting not only the Catholic sacramental hierarchy but the very nature of holy orders as established by Christ. The article correctly notes Cardinal Kasper’s 2008 warning that this decision “effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders,” yet it fails to grasp the full implications: Anglican orders have always been invalid due to the defect of intention and form introduced at the Reformation, a point dogmatically defined in *Apostolicae Curae* (1896). The ordination of women does not merely “block” recognition; it confirms the absolute nullity of Anglican sacramental claims. The article’s portrayal of this as a shift “closer to the side of the Protestant churches of the 16th century” is an understatement; it is a full embrace of the heresy that the ministerial priesthood is a human construct, not a divine institution.
Linguistic Level: The Language of Apostasy Masked as Pastoral Sensitivity
The article’s tone is one of cautious, bureaucratic lament, not doctrinal condemnation. Phrases like “altered the quality of the relationship,” “traumatic in modern Anglicanism,” and “abandoned by their own church” reveal a naturalistic, sociological concern rather than a supernatural horror at the loss of sacramental communion and the propagation of heresy. The use of “ecumenical dialogue,” “reunion,” and “full communion” are modernist buzzwords that presuppose a false parity between the Catholic Church and heretical sects. The silence on the supernatural consequences—the loss of sanctifying grace, the danger of eternal damnation for those persisting in Anglican errors—is deafening. This linguistic sanitization is the hallmark of the conciliar revolution, which replaced the Church’s salvific mandate with a humanistic project of “harmony” and “understanding.” The article’s very premise—that there is a meaningful “ecumenical conversation” to have after such a definitive break—is a lie.
Theological Level: Confrontation with Unchanging Catholic Doctrine
1. The Invalidity of Anglican Orders and the Sin of Schism: The article treats Anglican orders as a debatable quantity (“possible recognition”) and the Anglican Communion as a “Christian community” in need of “reunion.” This is a direct contradiction of *Apostolicae Curae* and the constant teaching of the Church. Anglican ordinations are absolutely null because the Anglican rite does not intend to do what the Catholic Church does: offer the sacrifice of the Mass and confect the sacrament of Holy Orders with the power to consecrate, offer, and absolve. The Church of England is not a “church” in the Catholic sense but a schismatic sect, its leaders—including Dame Sarah Mullally—being illicit ministers of invalid sacraments. To treat their “archbishop” as a legitimate partner is to commit the sin of religious indifferentism, condemned by Pope Pius IX in the *Syllabus of Errors* (Propositions 15-18).
2. The Heresy of Women’s Ordination: The article accepts as a given the Church of England’s “decision” on women bishops. This is a denial of *Ordinatio Sacerdotalis* (1994), which, while post-conciliar, reaffirmed the constant and universal practice of the Church, rooted in divine law. More fundamentally, it contradicts the entire patristic and medieval tradition, which saw the male priesthood as a participation in the male Christ. The ordination of women is not a “development” but a heresy, as it denies a revealed truth about the nature of the priesthood and the Church. The article’s failure to condemn this as a mortal sin against faith and the sacraments is itself a mark of apostasy.
3. The Error of “Patrimony” and the Pseudo-Ordinariates: The article praises the personal ordinariates (*Anglicanorum coetibus*) as a solution. This is a diabolical innovation. The ordinariates are not a return to Catholic unity but a creation of the post-conciliar “conciliar sect,” allowing former Anglicans to retain elements of their Protestant “patrimony” (liturgical rites, devotional practices) while submitting to the modernist “Rome.” This is a syncretistic compromise, not Catholic reunion. The *Decree on Ecumenism* (*Unitatis Redintegratio*) from Vatican II, which the article implicitly celebrates, opened the door to this error by recognizing “elements of sanctification and truth” in heretical sects, thereby relativizing the exclusive claim of the Catholic Church. The *Syllabus of Errors* (Prop. 16) anathematizes the notion that “man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.” The ordinariates, by permitting a hybrid identity, teach precisely this error.
4. The Rejection of Christ’s Social Kingship: The article’s entire framework is one of humanistic dialogue, devoid of the Catholic doctrine of the social reign of Christ the King. Pope Pius XI in *Quas Primas* taught that Christ’s kingdom is “not of this world” in the political sense, yet it demands the submission of all human societies to its laws. The article’s call for “generosity and welcome” and “befriending” Anglicans, without first demanding their conversion and submission to the full Catholic faith, is a denial of this kingship. It reduces the Church to a mere participant in a religious marketplace, contrary to the *Syllabus* (Prop. 77) which condemns the idea that “it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State.”
Symptomatic Level: The Conciliar Revolution in Action
The article is a perfect symptom of the post-1958 apostasy. It operates entirely within the paradigm of Vatican II’s *Nostra Aetate* and *Unitatis Redintegratio*, which replaced the Church’s missionary mandate (*extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*) with a dialogue of “mutual enrichment.” The author, “Fr.” James Bradley, is a cleric of the pseudo-ordinariate, a structure erected by “Pope” Benedict XVI, one of the line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII. His very title is illegitimate, as the modern episcopal consecrations, performed according to the revised rite and often by bishops in schism or heresy, are suspect and likely invalid. His academic position at a “Catholic” university that accepts the conciliar magisterium further demonstrates the depth of the penetration.
The article’s historical narrative—from Kasper’s warnings to Benedict’s *Anglicanorum coetibus* to the current “dialogue”—traces the evolution of Modernism: from initial ambiguity (Kasper’s “tension”) to formal schism (women bishops) to a new, synthetic “unity” (ordinariates) that preserves the heresy while creating a façade of continuity. This is precisely the “hermeneutics of continuity” condemned by the pre-1958 magisterium as a “synthesis of all errors” (*Lamentabili sane exitu*, Prop. 65). The article’s conclusion, invoking Newman’s “shivering at our gates,” inverts the missionary spirit. It is not the Catholic faith that is “shivering” but the compromised “Church” of the New Advent, which has lost the courage to proclaim the unique, exclusive, and absolute truth of Catholicism.
Conclusion: The Only Catholic Response
The installation of a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury is not a moment for “ecumenical dialogue” but for unambiguous condemnation. The Catholic response must be that of Pius IX in the *Syllabus*: a total rejection of the errors of liberalism, indifferentism, and the separation of Church and State. There is no “dialogue” with schismatics and heretics except the dialogue of fraternal correction leading to their return to the one true Fold. The personal ordinariates are a snare, a modernist invention that preserves Anglican “patrimony” (i.e., Protestant errors) under a Catholic veneer. The only legitimate path for an Anglican is to abjure all Anglican errors, receive valid baptism (if necessary), and submit unconditionally to the Roman Pontiff and the whole Catholic faith as defined before the death of Pius XII. The article’s call for “generosity” is the generosity of apostasy, offering a placebo to souls in danger of hell. The true Catholic response is the cry of *Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus* and the demand for the public and social reign of Christ the King, as taught in *Quas Primas*, over every nation and every aspect of life, including the religious life of England, which must return to the unity of the Catholic Church, not to a syncretistic compromise with its apostate daughter.
Source:
What’s next? Anglican-Catholic ecumenism, past and future (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 27.03.2026