The Pope, by a Bull bearing date "the Ides of
September," 1896, has given a final decision against the validity of Anglican Orders. They are "utterly void" from defect alike of form and intention. The form is bad because "the power of consecrating and offering the true body and blood of the Lord" is not expressly given, and the intention is bad because the motive of that omission was to introduce another rite not approved by the Church. Moreover, these facts had already been affirmed by previous Popes, not only in Bulls, but in Orders directing the reordination of Anglican priests, which, if their Orders had been valid, would have been "sacrilegious." The Bull is unusually clear and free from verbiage, its meaning is summed up in a short and emphatic judgment, quoted textually elsewhere, and it is, of course, final upon the point at issue. The Bull ends with an appeal to all "who desire and seek with a sincere heart the possession of a hierarchy and Orders" to "return to the one only fold of Christ." There never was any doubt as to what the substance of the decision must be ; but the directness and haughtiness of the rebuff can hardly have been expected by those who unwisely raised the question.
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