"For many, the ordination of women in the Anglican communion rendered the old question of Anglican orders moot." ACNA Bishop William C. Wantland, an authority on canon law, said, "I do not know if a woman can be a priest but I know that only a priest (or bishop) may offer the Eucharist." He concludes, "It would therefore be a great spiritual danger to allow a celebrant of doubtful validity to function..." He also wrote, "We Anglicans believe that the Eucharist, like Baptism, is a Sacrament 'generally necessary for salvation'... We also believe that only a Priest (or Bishop as High Priest) may offer the Eucharistic sacrifice... If (for the sake of argument) a woman cannot, in God's will, be a priest, then she cannot validly offer the Eucharistic sacrifice, nor am I then fed on the Body and Blood of Christ if I partake of her offering. My soul, no longer sacramentally nourished, is in mortal danger." (W. C. Wantland, The Catholic Faith, the Episcopal Church and the Ordination of Women, Diocese of Eau Claire, 1977, pp. 20-21)

Evelyn Underhill said that the chief reason for opposing the ordination of women in the Anglican Communion was her belief that "so complete a break with Catholic tradition cannot be made save by the consent of a united Christendom."

In his address to the 1978 Lambeth Conference (July 31), Canon John Macquarrie pointed out that many in the Anglican Communion "conscientiously believe that a woman cannot validly consecrate the Eucharist." He added, "And who can prove beyond doubt that such persons are mistaken?"

The late Dr. J. I. Packer wrote, "Jesus is the second man, the last Adam, our great high priest and sacrifice, our prophet, priest, and king (not prophetess, priestess, and queen), and he is all this precisely in his maleness. To minimize the maleness shows a degree of failure to grasp the space-time reality and redemptive significance of the incarnation." (J. I. Packer, "Introduction," in Man, Woman and Priesthood, ed. James Tolhurst (Gracewing, 1989), p. 13.

Anglicans claim that their priests belong to the one universal Church and that the Eucharistic sacrifice is offered not only for those immediately present, but also for the whole Church. This cannot be true where the priest is a woman since she is not recognized as a priest by the universal Church. "Since the Church is universal," writes Dr. C. B. Moss (1888-1964), "she requires a ministry which is universally recognized."

The final report of the Anglican-Roman Catholic statement on the ordained ministry states that "every individual act of ordination is therefore an expression of the continuing Apostolicity and Catholicity of the whole Church."