A Strange Visit

“A woman crosses the courtyard of St. Damasus in the Vatican, dressed in a purple cassock, a sash, a Roman collar, a pectoral cross, and an episcopal ring. Cardinals greet her, open doors for her, and escort her to the Pope’s office. She will pose alongside Leo XIV. She will receive the honors due to a primate. She will bless them, according to the custom of bishops. The image will be on the front pages, will open the evening news, and will be printed in ecumenical history textbooks. And the image will say this, without words but with profound eloquence: before this person and before the successor of Peter, the sacramental symbols are interchangeable.” 

This visual equivalence is false. And it is false in a way that matters, because sacred signs are not protocol ornaments. They are what St. Augustine called verba visibilia , visible words: they communicate a theological reality. […] They signify that the one who wears them has received, through the laying on of hands in unbroken apostolic succession, the power of Holy Orders, the sacramental character. […] This power is, in the Catholic faith, the sole reason why the bishop dresses as he dresses and blesses as he blesses. When the sign is separated from its content, it does not remain neutral: it becomes active in the opposite direction. It communicates that the content never truly mattered . [1]

“This type of gesture does not correspond to an ecumenism based on doctrinal clarity, but dilutes the limits that the Church itself has precisely defined.” [2]

This is how the website "Infovaticana," a conservative site founded by the Spanish journalist Gabriel Ariza [3] expresses itself. Everyone—at least among those who still hold to the Catholic Faith and sound reason—will agree that it would be difficult to disagree with him. And what more can be said?

The Deep Origins of Anglicanism

The woman who walked the halls of the Vatican in late April 2026 was none other than Sarah Mullaly, the Primate of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury. She was indeed received by Pope Leo XIV on the morning of Monday, April 27, 2026. But even today, she remains at the head of a pseudo-church, which is in reality a break from the true Church, a double break of schism and heresy.

The Anglican Communion indeed stemmed from the schism provoked in 1534 by King Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) with the Act of Supremacy, which was the very principle of the rejection of the Pope's jurisdiction over the Church of England. Worse still, under Henry VIII's successor, the young King Edward VI (1547-1553), at the instigation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Crammer, the Kingdom of England embraced Protestantism. In 1549, Crammer abolished the old liturgy and composed the Book of Common Prayer, or Prayer Book , the equivalent of the Catholic missal and breviary for Protestants in England. In parallel, in 1550, the new Anglican Ordinal  appeared, with the rites of ordination to sacred orders: this rite is the one whose invalidity Leo XIII would define in 1896. Finally, in 1552, Crammer published a Confession of Faith in 42 articles, essentially Calvinist with points of Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Catholic doctrine.

After a brief return to Catholicism under Mary Tudor (1553-1558), the Kingdom of England definitively reverted to schism and heresy under Elizabeth I (1558-1603). In 1559, the Queen deposed the fifteen bishops of the kingdom who had refused to swear the oath to uphold the Act of Supremacy. All the bishoprics in the kingdom became vacant. A new hierarchy had to be created. On August 1, 1559, Matthew Parker was elected Archbishop of Canterbury by the chapter; his consecration took place on December 17, 1559. A great anti-Catholic persecution ensued, during which many Catholics died as martyrs (among them the Jesuit St. Edmund Campion).

Invalid Ordinations and Pseudo-Bishops

The consecration of Matthew Parker is the source of the entire Anglican hierarchy and it was declared invalid by Pope Leo XIII in 1896.

The Popes had already consistently declared this invalidity, well before the declaration of Leo XIII, for example Julius III in 1554, and Paul IV in 1555. And until the nineteenth century, the Church always required that one be re-ordained unconditionally and as if the ordinand had never received anything, the ministers having received orders in the Anglican communion, according to the rite of Edward VI.

The solemn and infallible act that definitively establishes the principled invalidity of Anglican ordinations is the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae curae of September 18, 1896. [4] Pope Leo XIII explains in it that the very rite of ordination developed and used by Anglicans is not the true rite of the Church. Ordinations conferred according to this rite are therefore invalid for three reasons: first, for lack of form; second, for lack of intention, because the minister who uses this rite cannot have the required intention, which is to do what the Church does, that is, to use its rite; third, for lack of a minister, since, since the consecration of Matthew Parker, no minister of the Anglican Communion is truly either a priest or a bishop. Even though some pseudo-Anglican bishops have been able, over the last two centuries, to request and obtain a valid ordination from orthodox schismatic bishops, the fact remains that the ordinations conferred by these Anglican ministers have always been invalid for the first two reasons indicated above.

Leo XIV Has Accumulated Scandals

After the Ecumenical Jubilee, after the trip to Turkey and the recitation of the Creed with the Filioque omitted so as not to offend the Orthodox, Pope Leo XIV is now venturing into the surreal. This visit by Sarah Mullaly goes far beyond the scope of a simple diplomatic visit. We are clearly dealing here with the visit of a religious leader, received as such by another religious leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Rome, two heads of Churches who consider themselves sisters. Already in the Message he addressed to her on the occasion of her enthronement on March 20th, the Pope expressed official recognition of Lady Sarah's mission, invoking the Holy Spirit for her on several occasions, and asking for the Spirit of Wisdom. In doing so, Leo XIV gives the impression of considering the pseudo-Anglican Church as an instrument of salvation, insofar as he encourages Madame Mullaly - who is no more a bishop than St. Joan of Arc - in her mission.

By also authorizing this whole protocol, which is not just a simple protocol, as the website "Infovaticana" reminds us, Pope Leo XIV puts himself in open contradiction with his two predecessors, Leo XIII who declared the invalidity of Anglican ordinations and also John Paul II who, by the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis of May 22, 1994, condemned the possibility of ordaining women to the sacred functions of the priesthood. [6]

The State of Necessity

Any lingering scruples that might still cause some consciences to hesitate, since the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X announced new episcopal consecrations for July 1st  should find little cause for concern here. Undoubtedly, yes, the operation envisaged by the Society presents a somewhat paradoxical aspect, since it involves consecrating bishops against the Pope's will. But isn't the most outrageous paradox here, on the part of Pope Leo XIV, this attitude that pushes ecumenical complacency beyond its limits? What credibility could the Sovereign Pontiff possibly find, after this, in excommunicating those who wish to remain faithful to the teaching of Leo XIII, who declared Anglican ordinations invalid? Or even to that of John Paul II, who declared it impossible to ordain women bishops?

Will the consecrations of July 1st prompt Leo XIV to display a rigor and severity previously unseen in him? Some are already prophesying it . If he were to do so, he would bring upon the holy Church of God, already deeply afflicted by the incessant and ever-worsening consequences of the Second Vatican Council, the unspeakable scandal of a most glaring injustice. Having thus far remained deaf to the requests made by Don Davide Pagliarani for a simple audience, the Pope receives with all the honors due to an archbishop the official representative of the Anglican schism, who encourages the LGBT lobby, who declares herself open to the possibility of abortion, who received an invalid ordination, perpetrated in defiance of divine law.

(Source : FSSPX Actualités)
Photo : Vatican Media