Question — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Question Three. Concerning the Minister of Order.
461. Concerning the Minister of Valid Ordination. 1. The ordinary minister of valid ordination is any consecrated bishop and only a consecrated bishop, which is established from the definition of the Church.1
a. A bishop elect and confirmed can indeed give permission to his subjects that they be ordained by another bishop, but he himself cannot ordain them unless he has been consecrated. But a consecrated bishop can always validly ordain, even if he has been degraded or has resigned the episcopate.
b. The bishop is the ordinary minister also of the episcopal order, although for conferring this he needs the assistance of at least two other bishops. Yet this assistance is required only for licitly conferring the order, as is clear from the fact that by dispensation of the supreme pontiff either a bishop alone or a bishop assisted only by priests can confer it.2
- The extraordinary minister of valid ordination is a priest who has received from law or from the holy see the power of conferring some orders.3 Furnished with this power are:
a. Cardinals, who can confer first tonsure and minor orders, provided the one to be promoted has dimissorial letters of his own ordinary.4 From the new law, cardinals must have the presbyterate.
b. Vicars and Prefects apostolic, Abbots or Prelates nullius, if they are bishops, as to ordination are equated with a diocesan bishop. If they are not bishops, they can confer first tonsure and minor orders both on their own secular subjects and on others who exhibit dimissorial letters. Otherwise an ordination performed by them is invalid.5
c. Regular abbots who are not bishops and do not have territory can confer first tonsure and minor orders on their subjects by force of at least simple profession. Otherwise an ordination conferred by them, any contrary privilege having been revoked, is invalid.6
A bishop indeed by force of ordination has the power of conferring all orders even on non-subjects. But an abbot by force of blessing has no power of conferring orders, not even first tonsure, but must receive power from the Church. Now the Church had given the power of conferring tonsure and minors on their own regular subjects to all abbots, and further power by special privilege to some; this indeed has now been revoked.
1 Council of Trent, sess. 23, can. 7. Cn. 951.
2 Cn. 954.
3 Cn. 951.
4 Cn. 239, 1, n. 22.
5 Cn. 957.
6 Cn. 964.
462. Concerning the Minister of Licit Ordination. 1. It is licit for no bishop to consecrate anyone as bishop unless it is first established that there is a pontifical mandate; for the consecration of a bishop is reserved to the Roman pontiff.1
- No one can licitly confer orders except the proper bishop or another bishop with the permission of the proper bishop.2
The proper bishop, when not impeded by a just cause, ought himself to ordain his own subjects.3
In order that another bishop can ordain someone, he must bring dimissorial letters from the proper bishop.4
It is licit for no one to promote one ordained by the Roman pontiff to a higher order without the faculty of the Apostolic See.5
1 Cn. 953.
2 Cn. 955.
3 Cn. 955, 2.
4 Cn. 955, 1.
5 Cn. 952.
463. Who Is the Proper Bishop. 1. As regards the ordination of seculars, from a threefold title a bishop can be the proper bishop of the bishop to be ordained:
a. If the ordinand in the diocese has domicile together with origin.
alpha. He who was born by chance in some diocese on the occasion of a journey or another temporary, even lengthy, stay of the father in that place must be ordained by the bishop of the place where the father then had domicile; and if he then had no domicile, where the father was born. Therefore the bishop of the domicile or, this failing, of the origin of the father is the bishop of origin of the son who by chance was born in some diocese, unless afterward the father acquired domicile where the son was born by chance. For in this case the bishop of that place is the proper bishop of the son by reason of origin.
beta. If the ordinand is illegitimate, his domicile is the domicile of the mother; if he is exposed, his domicile is the place where he was found; if he is a baptized infidel, a neophyte, his place of origin or domicile is not, as up to this point, the place of baptism, but the place in which at the time of baptism the father had domicile or quasi-domicile, Cn. 90, 1.
b. If the ordinand in the diocese has domicile without origin and confirms by oath that he has the intention of remaining perpetually in the diocese.
Nothing prevents someone from having two domiciles in different dioceses and therefore being able to be ordained by either bishop; but once an order has been received by one bishop, he cannot more broadly pertain to each diocese. For by ordination received from his proper bishop he is incardinated into that diocese; but it is repugnant that someone be incardinated into two dioceses.1
c. If in the diocese he is incardinated,2 either alpha. by first tonsure,3 or beta. by a residential benefice which he obtained in the diocese.4
Note a. If the ordinand has only a diocese of origin, he ought to be incardinated so that he can be ordained by the bishop of origin.
b. A non-proper bishop can ordain someone who is his subject by reason of domicile, although for the future he is destined for the service of another diocese.
- Religious who have been legitimately dismissed by their superiors to a bishop can licitly be ordained by this bishop.5
Note. Concerning those dismissed from a seminary or from a religious institute. a. A bishop may not admit to his seminary an alien subject unless first by secret letters from the bishop of the petitioner he has learned whether he was dismissed from his own seminary. He is altogether forbidden to admit a dismissed man unless he has found that there is nothing in him which is less fitting to the priestly state.6 But if in good faith he admits him and retains him after having known his condition, he is judged ascribed to this diocese, while nevertheless the canonical rules for his incardination and ordination are preserved.
b. Nor can he admit a man dismissed from some religious institute unless first by secret letters from the superiors of the institute he has inquired and established that there is nothing in the dismissed man which is less fitting to the priestly state.
c. Those dismissed from a seminary, if afterward in another diocese they are enriched with sacred orders, are forbidden to return to the diocese from whose seminary they had been dismissed and to have a stable domicile there. The same must be held if those dismissed from a religious institute are ordained and afterward depart from there.7
1 Cf. Gasparri II, n. 857.
2 Concerning the nature of incardination and the manner of carrying it out, see the canonists.
3 Cn. 111, 2.
4 Cn. 114.
5 Cn. 965, 966.
6 Cn. 1363, 3.
7 S. C. C., December 22, 1905.