Chapter VI: Doubtful, Impugned Ordination

N.B. On account of the indelible character of the sacrament of Order, which perhaps even the minor orders imprint, the Church does not think of taking away the order itself from anyone. Nor does she wish that tonsure itself be invalidated. But she declares doubts, reduces the ordained to the state of laymen, and dispenses from obligations. Thus a cleric, in minor orders, validly and licitly marries; but, in the Latin Church, now, by that very fact, he falls from the clerical state.