Expert: Fr. Michael - 5/29/2009

Question
When a Catholic priest leaves the Catholic church and becomes an Episcopal priest, is the Eucharist perfected when he says a mass under the Episcopal rite?  That is, does the bread and wine over which he says the Eucharistic Prayer at an Episcopal mass become the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ?

Answer
First of all, I suspect that you are speaking not of a Catholic priest, but a New Order presbyter.  Such people are not ordained in the traditional rite "to offer Mass for the living and the dead," but only "installed to preside over the assembly of the people" in the invalid New Order rite of 1968.  Such a person is not a priest and does not offer a valid Mass, but the invalid "New Mass" of 1969, which even the current pope admitted in 1993 was "fabricated, manufactured."

If you are speaking of a traditional Catholic priest, that is, one ordained in the traditional rite, his worship service would still be invalid, since the Episcopalians do not have "Mass," but a worship service that was declared invalid in form and intention by Pope Leo XIII by his Apostolic Letter "Apostolicae Curae."