Every person has a moral obligation to seek the truth of God’s revelation.
The history of the Episcopal Church, also called the Anglican Church, began with the complicated love story of an indecent, lustful, ruthless, and brutal king, Henry VIII of England.
The Church of England, as a separate church, dates back to the year 1534. A chasm of over 1,500 yawns between the origin of the true Church and the scandalous establishment of the Episcopal Church.
The Church, which Jesus founded, has existed for nearly 2,000 years, and the Episcopal Church is less the 500 years old. It is not the true Church, nor by any means a branch of the same. History proves that its origin is only true human.
Although some Episcopalians love to use the name Catholic and have many doctrines and practices in common with the Catholic Church, it is no way a legitimate branch of the same. It was a live branch as long as it adhered to the tree of life. But it separated itself entirely from the tree, from the head and body of the Catholic Church, and is now, in all reality, a slave of the civil power.
“From 1588 until the death of Queen Elizabeth, a period on fourteen years, Catholics were cruelly persecuted; the best of them were consigned to the scaffold for no other reason than their fidelity to the Catholic Church. They were simply butchered and their homes and property confiscated. Priest were hunted down and when caught were tortured and put to death. During the years 1577 and 1603, “Good Queen Bess” had put to death 183 of her Catholic subjects. Of these, 123 were priests; one was a friar not yet ordained and 59 were lay folk, three of them women Ordinary Catholics had their possessions confiscated and lost their citizenship because that attended Mass or professed loyalty to the Catholic Church. “Some had their ears bored with a hot iron; others were publicly whipped” (Lingard’s History of England, Vol. 5, p. 515).
Many Episcopalians have copied most of the doctrines and liturgical practices of the Catholic Church without admitting the primacy of the Pope and thus without entering the Catholic Church imitate it as closely as possible. They are known as ritualists and many lean towards union with the Holy See, and it is these that furnish most of the converts to the Church.
In the name of an ideology of radical exclusivity (practices such as ordaining women and homosexuals), the Episcopal Church has moved significantly away from the apostolic and catholic faith of Jesus Christ and as a result, many Episcopal clergy have entered the Catholic Church in recent years.
These converts have one advantage, they know of the existence of the seven Sacraments and many practices of the Church before they enter, for their devotions are very similar to those of the Catholic Church.
Many of the clergy of the Anglican Church receive a good solid education. Many of them lead a life of voluntary celibacy. Let us hope that the better members of the Anglican establishment, who pray for the unity of the Church, may soon enter the true fold and find rest of soul. A prayer for the conversion of England is strictly in accordance with the wish of the Holy See. Many members of the Anglican Church venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary and recite the rosary daily. We have reasons to hope that the ever-increasing influx into the Catholic Church from this denomination may continue.
After a thorough inquiry into the validity of Anglican Orders, Pope Leo XIII, in 1896 came to the “settled and irrevocable” conclusion that they are “utterly null and void.”
All Anglicans who sincerely wish a reunion of all the Episcopal with the Catholic Church must return unconditionally to the Church, from which their ancestors were forced to separate themselves by a brutal king, and then again by a wicked queen and an unscrupulous Parliament.