Title XLIII: On an Unbaptized Priest

Latin source headnote: If one not baptized is ordained, he does not receive the character of order.

From the Council at Compiègne.

If anyone ordained a priest discovers that he has not been baptized, let him be baptized and ordained again.

Latin source headnote: Omission of baptism does not harm one who probably believes himself to have been baptized.

Innocent III, to the Bishop of Cremona.

You resolved to consult the Apostolic See, our venerable brother, as you ought. (And below:) Whence we respond to your inquiry in this manner: we assert without hesitation, from the authority of the holy Fathers Augustine and Ambrose, that the priest whom you signified by your letters to have closed his last day without the water of baptism, because he persevered in the faith of holy Mother Church and in confession of the name of Christ, was freed from original sin and attained the joy of the heavenly homeland. Read, brother, in the eighth book of Augustine’s City of God, where among other things it is read: “Baptism is ministered invisibly to him whom not contempt of religion but the limit of necessity excludes.” Examine also the book of Blessed Ambrose on the death of Valentinian, asserting the same. Therefore, with the questions put to rest, hold the opinions of the learned Fathers, and command continual prayers and sacrifices to be offered to God in your church for the aforesaid priest.

Latin source headnote: One not baptized cannot be ordained, and, if in fact he is ordained, he does not receive the character of order, although he was believed to have been baptized.

The same, to the Bishop of Ferrara.

Coming to the Apostolic See, the beloved son I., bearer of the present letters, explained to us that, after he had ascended through each order as far as the grade of priesthood, he finally discovered for certain that he had not been baptized according to the form of the Gospel; whence we caused him to be duly baptized by our venerable brother N., Bishop of Tusculum. And when there had been a rather lengthy disputation before us concerning the orders, certain persons inclined to this opinion: that, since baptism is the foundation of all the sacraments, another sacrament is not received before the reception of baptism, because, where there is no foundation, nothing can be built upon it.

But on the contrary it could seem otherwise. For since someone is made beyond doubt a member of Christ not only through the sacrament of faith but also through faith in the sacrament, and he who has Christ through faith, even if he does not have baptism, certainly has the foundation other than which no other can be laid, which is Christ Jesus, he appears able to build upon it both saving works and any ecclesiastical sacraments. For it is not generally true, either of the new or of the old sacraments, that baptism is their foundation, because both the sacrament of marriage and also the sacrament of the Eucharist can be received by the unbaptized. Furthermore, the sacrament of order, not only pontifical but also priestly and Levitical, by its institution preceded baptism, from which it perhaps appears that before baptism orders of this kind could duly be conferred, especially upon those who are believed to be baptized.

For what if perhaps he who is believed to have been baptized, and has not been, has at least in fact been consecrated a bishop? Will all who were ordained by him have to be reordained? And since concerning many bishops it is not known whether they were reborn by the water of baptism, because neither they themselves remember this nor do others, is it therefore doubted whether such men were truly consecrated as bishops? Whence it is better to be silent than to say how many and how great things follow that are not only incongruous but absurd.

But because in the Council at Compiègne it is read to have been established that, if anyone ordained a priest discovers that he has not been baptized, he is to be baptized and ordained again, we, following in this doubtful case what is safer concerning the bearer of the present letters, command your fraternity by apostolic writings that you take care to promote him through each order as far as the priesthood, and permit him to minister in the priesthood, because that is not understood to be repeated which it is uncertain was done. Nor is there a bad judgment concerning the sacrament when not contempt of religion but the point of necessity excludes it. And certainly, concerning one who, born of Christian parents, has lived faithfully among Christians, it is so forcibly presumed that he was baptized that this presumption is to be held as certainty until perhaps the contrary is proved by the most evident arguments. [Given at Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on the Ides of April, in the ninth year. 1206.]