Chapter I. The Nature of Orders

THE priesthood of the New Law is not a mere office and bare ministry of preaching the Gospel: Our Lord instituted it and gave it the power of offering the sacrifice of his Body and Blood and of forgiving sins.¹1 This power is conferred on priests by the sacrament of Orders, which also gives the grace to those who are rightly ordained to perform their sacred functions worthily. Those functions are various, and partly by divine institution, partly by ecclesiastical, they have been divided and assigned to separate grades of a spiritual hierarchy. The perfection of the priesthood and the whole of its powers reside in the episcopate; some portion of what bishops possess is communicated to the inferior ranks of the clergy by a special rite for each grade. Thus Orders is one sacrament, but the different ranks of the clergy participate in it in different degrees, or in other words, there are several Orders. There are three major or sacred Orders, to which by ecclesiastical law is annexed a solemn vow of chastity, and there are four minor Orders. The sacred Orders are the priesthood, the diaconate, and the subdiaconate; by the minor Orders are ordained acolytes, exorcists, lectors, and door-keepers.

It is a moot point among theologians whether all these Orders are sacraments or not; more probably only the episcopate, priesthood, and diaconate are sacraments and of immediate divine institution, the rest being of ecclesiastical institution. Those Orders which are sacraments impress a character on the soul.

The first tonsure, by which a lay person is made a cleric, is certainly of ecclesiastical institution and is not a sacrament.

¹ Trent, sess. xxili, c. I.

The matter of the minor Orders is the handing to the cleric the symbols of the office to which he is ordained, and the words which accompany this act constitute the form. There is a controversy whether the handing to the subdeacon of an empty chalice with the paten alone, or also the giving to him of the book of epistles, is the matter of the subdiaconate, and similarly with regard to the form. It is also a matter of controversy whether the imposition of hands alone is the matter of the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate, or the handing to the ordinand the symbols of his office, or whether both together constitute the matter. There is the same difference of opinion with regard to the form, but these questions belong to dogmatic theology.

In practice, the rite prescribed for ordination in the Pontifical must be observed, and if anything be omitted which even probably belongs to the essence of the sacrament, the whole must be repeated again, at least conditionally. Thus, if in the ordination of a priest the chalice with wine and the paten were not handed to the ordinand to touch while the bishop pronounced the appropriate form of words, the whole ordination would have to be repeated before one thus ordained could be allowed to say Mass. Similarly, if the imposition of hands is omitted which precedes and accompanies the prayer and preface which are said by the bishop and which contain the form, the whole rite must be repeated. On the contrary, if the third imposition of hands which accompanies the prayer, “ Receive the Holy Ghost, etc.,” is omitted, this portion of the rite alone need be supplied afterward, as it is certain that it only belongs to the integrity of the sacrament, not to its essence.

Although previous reception of the priesthood is more probably necessary for the valid ordination of a bishop, the inferior Orders do not seem necessary for the valid ordination to the priesthood.

Whether three co-consecrators are necessary for the validity of an episcopal consecration is disputed, but at least the Pope can give faculties to have only one consecrating bishop.

The functions of those who are in minor Orders, with the exception of exorcists, may, according to modern discipline, be exercised by laymen,