the circumstances that gave it birth. It was a new Rite in 1550. But if it had come down from Catholic antiquity, from time immemorial, and had ever been used in a church in which the Mass, the Real Presence, and Transubstantiation were fully confessed, then-I speak for myself alone I should have no interest in disputing the validity of the Orders conferred by that Rite in such a case.

(2.) Heresy in the minister of a Sacrament does not invalidate the Sacrament, provided he uses in all respects the traditional rite employed in the Catholic Church at the time. Thus a Calvinist, not believing in baptismal regeneration, nevertheless baptizes validly by pouring water on the head of a child, with the words, "I baptize thee," &c. Cranmer was pretty clearly a heretic in the last years of King Henry; yet no one disputes the validity of the consecrations that he performed according to the Sarum Pontifical. "The faith of the minister is not requisite to the effect of a Sacrament; but an unbeliever can administer a true Sacrament, provided all other conditions of Sacramental efficacy are observed" (St. Thomas, Sum. 3, q. 64, art. 9).

(3) But now comes the nip. If the

minister be not only heretical, but further alter the rite to express his heretical sense, the rite is invalid, and no Sacrament is conferred. Thus St. Thomas

(Sum. 3, q. 60, art. 8): "Concerning all these possible changes in Sacramental forms, two points appear for consideration. The one regards the person who utters the words, as his intention is requisite for the Sacrament; and therefore if he intends by such manner of addition or diminution to bring in another rite not received by the Church, it appears that the Sacrament is not validly administered, because he does not intend to do what the Church does." "He who mutilates the Sacramental words, if he does it on purpose, does not seem to intend to do what the Church does, and therefore the Sacrament does not seem to be validly administered" (ib. art. 7, ad. 3). "Of heretics, some do not observe the form of the Church in the administration of the Sacraments, and such confer neither the Sacrament itself nor the grace of the Sacrament" (ib. q. 64, art. 9, ad. 2). We must observe that there is not here question of the mere internal intention of the minister, but of an intention externated and put into the rite. The principle is

this, that Sacraments are essential signs, and as signs they operate; they "effect what they signify" (efficiunt quod significant). To alter the signification, then, is to mar the effect.

Now this is exactly what Cranmer and 'the framers of the Edwardine Ordinal did. They altered the signification of the rite of conferring Orders. Three things their souls loathed, three points of Catholic faith, namely, Transubstantiation, the Real Objective Presence, and the Sacrifice of the Mass. They invented a new rite for the express purpose of getting rid of those things. And they succeeded. That is in sum the argument of the Apostolicae Curae. The Edwardine Ordinal did not fall, like Numa's ancilia, from the clouds. It is the work of men, and to know any human composition (I quote an axiom heard daily in modern history lecture-rooms) you must put yourself in the place of the men who composed it. You must not take the document in the abstract. Cranmer did what he declared his intention of doing. He extirpated the Mass in England, so far as his Ordinal went. The Ordinal was composed, modified, and re-modified (as Estcourt, Moyes, and other Catholic writers have shown) for that express pur

pose. It wears its anti-sacrificial purpose on its face, when you know its history.

Or can any man say why Cranmer altered the Ordinal at all? Why was he not content under Edward to go on as he had gone on for the twelve years of schism under Henry, consecrating bishops and ordaining priests—sacrilegiously to be sure, but validly—according to to the Sarum Pontifical? Bishop Gore naïvely pleads: "The English Church desired to return to the richer and fuller conception of the function of the priest which had prevailed in primitive times" (p. 201). This is an after-thought. Cranmer was no antiquarian, but a hard-headed, versatile man of the hour. Was it zeal for primitive practice that induced him to elaborate a rite for which there is no parallel in the history of the Church? the Church? Was it not rather that, when the fear of the terribly Eucharist-loving Henry was removed, the Archbishop's heretical hatred of Holy Mass and of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar found free vent under the Boy-King?

§14. A Consummation devoutly to be wished

Our goodwill towards a person is not gauged either by our denial or by our

A CONSUMMATION TO BE WISHED 95

For Thomas

admission of his Orders. Cranmer, validly and lawfully consecrated bishop as he was, the English Catholic cherishes the most profound abhorrence. For my new Lord of Birmingham-although his episcopacy is to us no more than a courtesy title, which we shall never refuse we have every personal sympathy and regard. On some vital points he is opposed to us, and therein, we believe, his opposition does harm, unseen and unintended by him. On other vital points he is with us, and in respect of them we wish him Godspeed in his labours. We can all join in one prayer for the realization in England and throughout the world of the ideal presented in the Shepherd of Hermas: "So also shall be the Church of God, after it has been purified, and the wicked and hypocrites and blasphemers and the double-minded have been cast out: after these have been cast out the Church of God shall be one body, one purpose, one mind, one faith one love" (quoted p. 29).

But how is this possible on earth without one authority?