Leo XIII deemed Anglican ordinations invalid because he found the Anglican ordination rites deficient in intention and form. He 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 instead of a sacramental conferral of actual grace by the action itself. He raised similar objection to the Anglican rite for the consecration of bishops, thus dismissing the entire subject of the apostolic succession of Anglican priests and bishops from validly ordained 16th-century bishops.