Catholic bishop of Fresno appears to ‘co-consecrate’ Episcopalian ‘bishop’

[Stone]

Catholic bishop of Fresno appears to ‘co-consecrate’ Episcopalian ‘bishop’ in violation of canon law
The 1983 Code of Canon Law makes clear that an attempt to administer an invalid ‘sacrament’ of a heretical church is illicit.



Signage of the Episcopal Church
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Apr 23, 2026
FRESNO, California (LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Fresno recently participated in the “ordination” of an Episcopalian “bishop” in California in violation of canon law.

Bishop Joseph Vincent Brennan of Fresno was seen extending his hands and joining in an Anglican consecration prayer along with Anglican-Episcopal “clerics,” including women, in a ceremony intended to ordain a bishop at St. James Episcopal Cathedral in Fresno, California, on April 18.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law makes clear that such an attempt to administer a “sacrament,” which in the case of Episcopal Holy Orders is recognized as invalid by the Catholic Church, is illicit.

“Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone,” the newer code states (Canon 844 §1).

The 1917 Code of Canon Law, founded on perennial Catholic teaching as expressed in the Councils of the Church, states that “It is not licit for the faithful by any manner to assist actively or to have a part in the sacred (rites) of non-Catholics” (Canon 1258 §1).

Such an action is seen by the Church as an endorsement of heresy, itself a grave danger to souls, which is why the Council of Laodicea declared that “No one shall pray in common with heretics and schismatics,” and the Council of Carthage stated that one who prays or sings psalms with heretics will be excommunicated.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law further explains that whoever “willingly and knowingly helps in the promulgation of heresy … is suspected of heresy” (Canon 2316).

While the Anglican Church of its origin is already heretical, the U.S. Episcopal Church has become wildly heretical even in comparison to its English roots. The church supports a so-called “right” to legal abortion; it accepts homosexuality, and, in 2015, its bishops gave the green light for clergy to conduct homosexual “weddings”; and, in 2022, the church issued a blanket endorsement of so-called “gender-affirming care” at any age.

The apparent endorsement of a false, heretical religion such as the Episcopal or Anglican Church is not an isolated incident confined to the Diocese of Fresno but a phenomenon demonstrated even at the highest level of the Catholic Church.

For example, last month, Pope Leo XIV issued a congratulatory letter to Sarah Mullally – the first woman ever appointed “archbishop of Canterbury” and a vocal supporter of abortion and the LGBT agenda. In the letter, Leo praises Mullally’s “weighty” responsibilities and explicitly invokes the Blessed Virgin Mary as a source of “inspiration” for her new role.

The March 20 message, published on the Vatican website, made no reference whatsoever to the Catholic Church’s perennial teaching that Anglican orders are “absolutely null and utterly void” (Apostolicae Curae, 1896), that the ordination of women is impossible and contrary to the will of Christ, or to Mullally’s own public record of promoting grave moral evils of abortion and homosexual acts.