At the consecration of a bishop of the Episcopal Church, a Catholic bishop performed a “gesture that some commentators have interpreted as active participation in a non-Catholic ordination ceremony,” The Catholic Herald reported.
“Publicly available footage and images circulated online appear to show the Catholic bishop”—Bishop Joseph Brennan of Fresno, California—“standing with Anglican clergy during the laying on of hands portion of the rite,” according to the report.
(The Catholic Church teaches that Anglican orders, unlike orders conferred in the separated Eastern Churches, are invalid. In his 1896 apostolic letter Apostolicae Curae, Pope Leo XIII taught that “ordinations performed according to the Anglican Rite have been and are completely null and void.”)
