Apostolicae curae  Apostolicae curae is the title of a papal bull, issued in 1896 by Pope Leo XIII, declaring all Anglican ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void". The archbishops of Canterbury and of York of the Church of England responded to the papal charges with the encyclical "Saepius officio" in 1897. The principal objection to validity of Anglican ordinations, according to Leo XIII, was the alleged deficiency of intention and of form of the Anglican ordination rites. Leo XIII declared that the rites expressed an intention to create a priesthood different from the sacrificing priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church and to reduce ordination to a mere ecclesiastical institution, an appointment or blessing, instead of a sacramental conferral of actual grace by the action itself. What was not and could not be disputed was the actual fact of the unbroken historical succession by the laying on of hands by bishops who had been consecrated with the Roman Pontifical (sometimes referred to as "passing the baton") since two of the four consecrators, William Barlow and John Hodgkins, had valid orders in Rome's view due to their having been consecrated as bishops, in 1536 and 1537 respectively, with the Roman Pontifical in the Latin Rite. All four of Parker's consecrators were consecrated by bishops who themselves had been consecrated with the Roman Pontifical in the Church of England between 1533 and 1547, Cranmer in 1533 before the schism. It was not enough that two of the consecrators of Parker had valid holy orders recognized by Rome, because the ordination rite used was judged to be defective in matter, form and intention and therefore incapable of making a bishop in the apostolic succession. The view of many Anglican bishops and defenders was that the required references to the sacrificial priesthood at the heart of the Roman argument never existed in many ancient Latin-rite ordination liturgies, or in certain Eastern-rite ordination liturgies that the Roman Catholic Church considered to be valid. In the Roman Catholic view, the differences between these rites are a matter of tradition or custom, and indicate no intention to exclude a sacrificing priesthood. Prior to "Apostolicae curae", decisions had already been given by Rome that Anglican orders were invalid. The practices of the Roman Catholic Church had supposed their invalidity. Whenever former Anglican priests desired to be priests in the Roman Catholic Church they were unconditionally ordained.