Can they be assigned to parishes like regular Catholic priests? What about Episcopalian bishops and deacons?
Pope Leo XIII commissioned a study on this in 1895. The majority of its members concluded that ordinations in the Anglican Church are null and void. The following year the pope wrote Apostolicae Curae, an apostolic letter confirming that position. Even so, some Catholics consider this an open question. In 1966, Pope Paul VI gave a bishops ring to Archbishop Michael Ramsey of Canterbury, an Anglican. Last October, Pope John Paul II gave a pectoral cross to Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury. Several of Anglicanisms 39 Articles, drafted in the 16th century, were carefully phrased to emphasize the differences in belief between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church (for example, about transubstantiation). Some Episcopalian priests have become Roman Catholics and later have been ordained as Roman Catholic priests. Cardinal John Henry Newman (died 1890) and Cardinal Henry Edward Manning (died 1892) did that. Manning was a widower when he became a Roman Catholic. Eventually
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