Section 7. Abuse of Order.

497. Because of Abuse of Order these are irregular: those who place an act of order reserved to clerics constituted in sacred order, either while lacking that order or while prohibited from its exercise by a canonical penalty, whether personal, medicinal or vindicative, or local.¹ Therefore this irregularity can arise from a twofold head: from usurpation of order and from violation of censure.

1. Through usurpation of order he becomes irregular who exercises an order which he does not have. It must be noted:

a. Not only clerics but also laymen contract irregularity if they exercise a sacred order, e.g., celebrate Mass, act as deacon or subdeacon in solemn Mass.

A seminarian, although not yet a cleric, who acts as subdeacon in solemn Mass does not become irregular, because this exercise of sacred order is not prohibited to clerics constituted in minor orders, at least those marked with tonsure, in a case of necessity and without maniple.²

b. It is required that they exercise a sacred order; therefore those who exercise a minor order which they do not have, e.g., bless fruits and breads or perform the office of exorcist, although they can sin gravely by doing this, do not contract irregularity.

c. It is required that they exercise the order solemnly with the ceremonies and ornaments proper to that order. "Solemnly," says Laurentius, "is understood as that exercise which either from the nature of the thing supposes a certain order, as the consecration of the Eucharist, absolution, or sacramental anointing, or if the act according to its substance can be validly done by laymen, is done with a certain apparatus." Therefore a deacon singing the Gospel in Mass with a dalmatic indeed, but without stole, or a subdeacon singing the epistle with a tunicle but without maniple, does not exercise a solemn or proper act of the order.

Therefore a priest becomes irregular who solemnly exercises a pontifical function, e.g., consecrates a church or chalice, confers minor orders or tonsure; a deacon who sacramentally absolves; a subdeacon who solemnly baptizes, solemnly sings the Gospel with stole, supplies the ceremonies of baptism, acts as hebdomadary in choir by saying the prayer with The Lord be with you; a cleric who solemnly sings the epistle with maniple, because all these solemnly exercise an order which they do not have. But a simple priest is not irregular who sacramentally absolves, nor a deacon who solemnly baptizes without commission or distributes holy communion; nor a subdeacon who sings the Gospel without stole; nor a cleric who sings the epistle without maniple, because they either do not exercise an order which they lack, or at least do not solemnly exercise it.

2. Through violation of censure he becomes irregular who, bound by censure, exercises an order whose exercise the censure prohibits, whether the censure is excommunication, or suspension from order, or a personal or local interdict, as by celebrating in an interdicted place.

a. Only through the exercise of sacred order does one censured become irregular.

b. Since grave fault is required for contracting irregularity, neither the man ignorant of censure nor the censured man who exercises order to avoid grave inconvenience becomes irregular.

c. It is required that the censured man place an act of sacred order, not of jurisdiction.

Therefore a censured bishop who approves confessors or dispenses in vows, or a parish priest who while under censure assists at matrimony without nuptial blessing, is not made irregular, because these are not acts of order but of jurisdiction or simple power, whose exercise the censure does not violate.

¹ Cn. 985, 7.

² S. C. R., July 17, 1894, n. 3832.