Super Christians Among us

On February 20, 1878 Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci was made pope. Pope Leo XIII served for 25 years and is remembered for promoting the rosary, embraced the concept of Mary as mediatrix (mediator between God and man), issued a famous encyclical on modernism, and much more. He also published a famous papal bull, "Apostolicae curae" (1896), in which he declared Anglican orders to be "absolutely null and utterly void.” Anglicans and other Protestants understand that “ordination” is the church’s recognition of God’s calling and God’s gifting to preach the gospel and to lead, to preach the word and to preside over the sacraments. It is a Roman Catholic idea, not an Anglican one, that an ordained person is ontologically changed into a priest and that a “priestly character” is imputed to the make an ordinary Christian into a super-Christian and a sacrificing intermediary between God and his people. The ACNA practice of anointing hands in ordination "that whatever you bless may be blessed, and whatever you consecrate may be consecrated" (p. 494 Prayer Book) is a shocking Tractarian interpolation, and not consistent with historic Anglicanism as found in the 1550 Ordinal or Anglican's formularies.