Morals of the Church
Library › Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology › Volume III. On the Sacraments › Book VII. Concerning Order. › Question Five. Concerning Impediments to Ordination. › Article One. Concerning Irregularities in General.

Section — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology

Section 3. Defect of Soul.

485.

485. Who Are Irregular. In the new law, in the third place, chiefly because of defects of soul, these are called irregular: those who are epileptic, or insane, or possessed by a demon.1

  1. The epileptic, as long as they are subject to the disease, cannot be ordained; but if it is established that they have been healed without probable danger of relapse, with the permission of the bishop they can be admitted to orders.

a. Epilepsy which began before puberty is not rarely healed entirely; therefore he is not judged irregular who labored under this disease before puberty but afterward, by judgment of a physician, altogether recovered. But epilepsy which begins after puberty, not from an accidental cause, e.g., from an inflicted wound, but from an inborn disposition, according to the opinion of physicians is scarcely ever healed fully, that is, without danger of relapse.

b. A priest who after ordination has contracted this disease is not prohibited from celebrating privately if the disease rarely returns, that is, once in a month or every fifteen days; but during this interval a fasting priest ought to stand by and assist him, who, if the disease rushes on, can complete the Mass.

  1. The insane. If the insanity is perpetual, the irregularity cannot be removed; if the insanity is temporal and seems now to have ceased, the matter must be defined by the judgment of a physician and the prudent judgment of the bishop. But if by the judgment of a physician it is established that the insanity has ceased, with the bishop consenting, ordination is licit.

  2. Those possessed by a demon. From the practice of the holy see it is established that dispensation was not granted two or three years after recovered health; in recent times it has been granted a decade after liberation from the influence of the evil demon.2

  3. If an irregularity has supervened after orders have been received and it is certainly established that it has now ceased, the ordinary can again permit his subjects the exercise of the orders received.3

1 Cn. 984, 3.

2 S. C. C., April 27, 1916.

3 Cn. 984, 3.

Irregularities from Defect