Part I. On the Person Receiving Orders

The subject capable of receiving ordination is every baptized male who has not yet received it (canon 968, § 1).

It is said every, even infants and those perpetually without use of reason. "By the concordant judgment of theologians and canonists," says Benedict XIV, "it has been determined that this ordination is to be considered valid but illicit, provided it labors under no substantial defect of matter, form, and intention in the ordaining Bishop; the contrary opinion, which has rare followers and which has never pleased the supreme tribunals and Congregations of the City, not being heeded."¹ It was disputed only to some extent whether the Episcopate can validly be received before the use of reason has been acquired. Today, however, this is commonly admitted (cf. St. Thomas, Supplement, q. 39, a. 2).

Nevertheless, an infant ordained in this way without his own will is bound by no obligations of clerics unless, fully master of his mind after completing the sixteenth year, he has ratified the ordination.²

Nor, in order that someone be capable of receiving a higher Order, is it required that he have received a lower Order. An exception, however, according to the much more common opinion, is the Episcopate, which cannot validly be conferred if the priesthood has not already been received (St. Alphonsus, VI, 793).

¹ Instruction Eo quamvis tempore, § 20, May 4, 1745.

² Benedict XIV, cited Instruction, § 28 sq.; Constitution Anno vertente, § 7 sq., May 19, 1750.