I respectfully disagree and here's why.
"Despite the ongoing work of the ecumenical Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), in 1998 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and later Pope Benedict XVI) issued a doctrinal commentary to accompany Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter "Ad Tuendam Fidem", which established penalties in Canon law for failure to accept “definitive teaching.” Ratzinger’s commentary listed Leo XIII’s Apostolicae Curae, declaring Anglican Holy Orders to be “absolutely null and utterly void,” as one of the irreversible teachings to which Catholics must give firm and definitive assent.[1] These teachings are not understood by the Church as revealed doctrines but are rather those which the church’s teaching authority finds to be so closely connected to God's revealed truth that belief in them is required in order to safeguard the divinely revealed truths of the Christian Faith. Those who fail to give firm and definitive assent, according to the letter, “will no longer be in full communion with the Catholic church.”
However, many persons, including Basil Cardinal Hume have suggested that the conclusions of Apostolicae Curae can only relate to the situation in 1896, and that the involvement of Old Catholic bishops in Anglican ordinations during the 20th century has re-established apostolic succession in that Church (along with a change of consecratory prefaces). Other critics argue that apostolic succession had never been broken in the first place, due to ordinations tracing back to Archbishop Laud as well as Archbishop Parker. The latter was alleged to have been a break in the chain of apostolic succession - an unofficial cause of concern to Rome regarding the validity of Anglican orders."
I also think it is helpful to read "On the Nullity of Anglican Orders, Apostolicae Curae."
Dear FJ290,
There is nothing in your post or in Apostolicae Curae that refutes Campion's point. You asserted that folks like the PNCC have no claim to validity since they "can not make that claim of being present in the time of Apostolic history."
I don't see that what you posted from Cardinal Ratzinger addresses that point, nor do I see anything like that in Apostolicae Curae.
As well, it doesn't explain the validity of sacraments and orders in the Russian Orthodox Church.
sitetest
[sigh]
Yes, Anglican orders are invalid. Ott goes into detail on this as well. They are invalid because (a) the ordination ritual was modified in the 1550's in such a way that (in Rome's view) it became invalid as to form (see my post above); and (b) there is doubt about whether the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time, through whom most Anglican orders pass, was validly ordained (invalid minister). Lack of valid minister or lack of valid form renders the sacrament invalid.
The invalidity of Anglican orders does not imply anything about anyone else's orders, most notably those of the Old Catholics or the PNCC.