Distinction LV

GRATIAN. Part I. Those impaired in body are likewise prohibited from sacred offices. Hence Pope Gelasius writes [to the Bishops established throughout Lucania and Bruttium, epistle I, cc. 2 and 3], saying:

Therefore, with the ancient institutes remaining in force because of the reverence due them—which, where no straitness of affairs or times presses, it is fitting to observe according to rule—since churches have been deprived of all or of sufficient ministries to such an extent that they are unable to supply divine services to the congregations belonging to them, we grant that, if anyone instructed in monastic disciplines approaches a clerical function, his prior life be investigated, even if he is from the laity: §1. that he not be infected by some crime, or illiterate, or a bigamist, or one who has taken a wife from adolescence, or impaired in body, or of servile or bound-tenant condition, or entangled in the obligations of the curia or of public affairs, or marked by public penance, or examined with no observance of a fitting interval of time.

Likewise from the Fourth Council of Arles [c. 3]. Let no one dare to ordain a penitent, a bigamist, or a husband of widows in the aforesaid honors. And although the institutes of nearly all the canons already contain these things, nevertheless, lest the importunity or wicked suggestion of petitioners, as we have already said, steal upon any of the priests, it was necessary that the Lord’s priests now will to impose a stricter rule upon themselves. And therefore, whoever from this day presumes to ordain a cleric contrary to the things comprehended above shall not presume to celebrate Masses for a whole year from the day when this can be proved against him. If anyone is unwilling to observe this matter and, acting contrary to the enactment, presumes to celebrate Masses, let him be deprived of the communion of the Church and know himself alien from the communion of all the brethren, because it is worthy that one who despises observing the things salubriously established by the holy Fathers should feel the severity of ecclesiastical discipline.

Likewise Pope Hilary [from the Roman Council held by him, c. 3]. Let penitents, those unskilled in letters, or those who have suffered some injuries to their members not dare to aspire to sacred orders. But whoever has been the consecrator of such persons shall himself undo his deed. GRATIAN. Those impaired in body, however, are understood as those cut not by accident but by their own will. Hence in the Canons of the Apostles [cc. 22 and 23] it is read:

If anyone has cut himself—that is, if anyone has amputated his own genitals—let him not become a cleric, because he is his own murderer and an enemy of God’s creation. §1. If anyone, when he was a cleric, has cut himself, let him be condemned altogether, because he is his own murderer.

Likewise from the Second Council of Arles [c. 7]. Those who, not knowing how to resist carnal vice, cut themselves cannot attain the clergy. Likewise Innocent writes to Felix, Bishop of Nocera [epistle IV, c. 1]:

The canons do not admit to the clergy one who intentionally cut off part of any finger from himself. But those to whom it happened by some accident, while either applying care to rural work or doing something and striking themselves involuntarily, the canons command both to become clerics and, if they are found in the clergy, not to be cast out. For in the former the will that dared to apply the blade to itself is judged; but in the latter the accident merited pardon. GRATIAN. It is to be understood similarly concerning those who because of sickness are cut by physicians, are mutilated by barbarians, or are castrated by their masters. Hence in the Council of Nicaea [c. 1] it is read:

If anyone was cut by physicians because of sickness or mutilated by barbarians, let him remain in the clergy. But if anyone, while healthy, cut himself, it will be fitting that one established in the clergy abstain, and that henceforth none of such persons ought to be promoted. Just as it is clear that this was said concerning those who deliberately seek this thing and dare to cut themselves, so the Church receives into the clergy those whom either barbarians or masters castrated, if they are found otherwise most worthy.

Likewise from a Canon of the Apostles [c. 21]. If a eunuch was made so through the plots of men, or if his genitals were amputated in persecution, or if he was born thus, and he is worthy, let him become a bishop.

Likewise from the Council of Pope Martin. If anyone because of illness had his natural parts cut by physicians, likewise those who were castrated by barbarians or their masters and are found worthy in morals, the canon admits these to be promoted to the clergy. But if anyone healthy thinks that carnal concupiscences can be cut away from himself not through the discipline of religion and abstinence but through the cutting of the body fashioned by God, and has therefore castrated himself, we decree that he not be admitted to any clerical office. But if he had already been promoted to the clergy before, let him be prohibited from his ministry and deposed.

Likewise from the Council of Lérida. If any cleric placed in sickness is made lame by a physician’s incision, we do not deny that he may be promoted to sacred orders.

Likewise Stephen to Robert, Bishop of Metz. The bearer of these presents, namely the cleric Flavinus, coming to the holy Apostolic See, brought us an epistle directed by you, in which you took care to report that, very recently captured by the Normans, he had a finger of his left hand cut off, and you ask whether on this account he can be promoted to ecclesiastical order or not. And since we have found that your diligence, especially solicitous concerning this matter, demands to be instructed by the Apostolic See, we who desire always to follow the norm of justice deservedly praise the zeal of your Holiness, wishing your Reverence to know that, if it is so that the finger itself was cut off by the Normans, this will harm him nothing for being promoted, if he is otherwise worthy, because we do not believe it escapes your Charity what the sacred canons decree concerning those who involuntarily suffer such a thing from masters, physicians, or pagans.

Likewise Pope Gelasius to Bishop Palladius. Just as the precepts of the canons by which ecclesiastical discipline is governed do not permit those weak in body to come to the priesthood, so, if anyone was established in it in actuality and was then wounded, he cannot lose what he received in the time of his soundness. §1. Indeed the priest Stephen, in a petition offered to us that is contained below, lamented that the dignity of the priesthood was conferred upon him long ago and many years before, which he truly had received when his body was judged unblemished; but recently, because of the devastation of the province—which the uncertainty of minds and barbarians following diverse sects brought upon Tuscany above all—while he strove to escape threatening swords by the protection of flight, in leaping over fences that met him, he impaled the lower parts of his body upon sharp stakes, which scarcely could be healed after treatment had been applied for two years. And therefore, dearest brother, restore to the aforesaid man his place and dignity, so that he may exercise the sacrosanct mysteries as he was accustomed. For it is not fitting on this account to take away the order received before, in which he is proved afterward to have fallen into bodily invalidity by an accident. Part II. GRATIAN. This, however, is not to be understood concerning all members. For one who has lost an eye by accident, although will is absent, nevertheless cannot obtain the priesthood. Hence Pelagius writes to Bishop Rufinus:

If the evangelical admonition does not permit anger raging even as far as a word to leap forth, lest, if anyone has said “Raca” to his brother, he be liable to the fire of Gehenna, by what punishment do we think one is to be struck who not only impiously struck with his fist a man serving in the ministry of Levitical office, but, as if his hands did not suffice for the beating, was so carried away into anger at the devil’s instigation that with a staff he not only struck but even tore out his brother’s eye? And although an excess of this kind was to be struck by a graver penalty, your fraternity nevertheless did well to remove him from the office of the priesthood. Yet let this belong to your solicitude: establish also a place of penance and thrust him into some monastery, with only lay communion granted to him. In his place, moreover, it is necessary for you to ordain another priest, for according to the canons the rights of the priesthood cannot be granted to the one whose eye was torn out. Nor does it profit him that he lost his eye involuntarily, since no one is to be believed to have wished to lose an eye, and we do not find that the most sacred canons excepted in their rules any accident in the loss of an eye that would not impede one seeking to obtain the priesthood; rather, we see that they made this solely as a prohibition, so that one who lacks an eye cannot obtain priestly office. But neither can sacred order be granted in any way, as though in compensation for the injury, to the one who was able to provoke his own priest to so great an anger that the latter lost the office in which he was and the former lost the possibility of his own advancement.