CAN PRIESTS ORDAIN PRIESTS AND BISHOPS ?
In CATHOLICISM (Richard P McBrien, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994) the
Catholic doctrine that the power to ordain was passed on by the apostles only to
their successors the bishops and so on down to the present day is shown to be
bereft of evidence and also no declaration was given until 1208 during the reign
of Pope Innocent III that only priests could celebrate Mass (page 867).
Roman Catholicism teaches that only validly ordained bishops can ordain priests
or bishops. The bishop is believed to have the full sacrament of holy orders.
The priest receives all of the sacrament barring the power to ordain. The Church
teaches that if a priest was invalidly ordained and a ceremony takes place to
make him a bishop the ceremony won’t work. Only a priest can be validly ordained
a bishop. The Eastern Orthodox Church believes the same as the Catholic Church.
Pope Benedict IX who is considered to be a true pope by the Church was only
eleven when he became pope in 1032 AD. This youngster was infamous for his
irreligious ways and his promiscuity. He didn’t know what he was doing not just
because of his age but also because of his spiritual immaturity when he became
priest, bishop and pope. He cannot be considered to be a real bishop. Yet the
Church says he was. If he was then there is only one conclusion that can be
drawn. It is that the boy pope though incapable of having any legal validity and
incapable of being validly ordained still had the powers a pope should have
which are to maintain the Church by sacraments and that a pope becomes bishop by
virtue of being elected even if his consecration as bishop was invalid.
The council of Chalcedon decreed that priests must be ordained only for
particular Churches and be called by the people as a priest (page 869,
Catholicism). It was believed that priests who were not called were not validly
ordained and received no pay for his priestly work from the Emperor (page 869).
Despite this rule, the Church later ignored it meaning that it produced invalid
priests and bishops. Bishops today who have inherited their powers from such
bishops are not bishops at all.
Interestingly there were priests ordained under papal permission in the past who
were not ordained by bishops but by priests. The Catholic Church has never made
it infallible dogma that only bishops have the power to ordain priests. The
ecumenical therefore infallible Council of Florence decreed not that the bishop
alone had this power but only that the bishop was the ordinary minister of
ordination or holy orders (page 1136, 1138, Encyclopedia of Theology, A Concise
Sacramentum Mundi, Edited by Fr Karl Rahner, Burns & Oates, London, 1975).
This is interesting because saying somebody is an ordinary minister implies
that there can be an extraordinary minister. And this is what the Church
teaches. For example, the ordinary minister of baptism is a priest but a
layperson can baptise when there is no priest in an emergency. So saying the
priest is ordinary minister implies there can be extraordinary or un ordinary
ministers. The bishop is the ordinary minister of confirmation but this does not
mean the priest cannot confirm. Priests occasionally perform confirmations.
Tertullian decades after the Church began was the first to say the bishop had
the full priesthood (page 1129). This came more than a bit late. The biblical
evidence as the Presbyterian Church can tell you is that originally bishops and
presbyters (known as priests in the Catholic system who are sometimes called
presbyters) were one and the same which is why all ministers have the same rank
in Presbyterianism. One minister might belong to a higher assembly or level but
all ministers are equal as ministers. John Wesley used evidence like this to
argue that he had the right and authority as an Anglican priest to ordain
bishops for Methodism. The most authoritative source of tradition and doctrine
the Bible supports the idea that priests can ordain bishops and priests assuming
it supposes that it matters who ordains.
“The bishop has remained the ordinary minister of confirmation (in the West),
and also of orders. But there are traces in history of exceptions to this rule,
which was accepted in principle by the theologians and canonists of the Middle
Ages since Huguccio, with no reserves except for papal permission” (page 1136).
“We have already mentioned the customs of the Church of Alexandria (possibly
also followed by Lyons) as late as the 3rd century, when the bishop was
consecrated by the college of presbyters. Cassian admits that he was he was
ordained by the priest Paphnutius in Egypt (Conferences, IV, I)” (page 1136).
The emperor Charlemagne “ordered the priests Willehad (d. 799) and Ludger (d.
785) to ordain other priests in the missionary territories of Frisia and Saxony”
(page 1136). Pope “Boniface I, in Sacrae Religionis (1 February 1400), gave
permission to the Abbot of S. Osith in Essex to confer all orders up to and
including the priesthood. This was revoked by the bull Apostolicae Sedis (6
February 1403), at the insistence of the Bishop of London, who felt that his
jurisdiction had been interfered with by the abbot. The revocation was not
therefore on dogmatic grounds. See DS 1145f. Martin V, in Gerentes ad vos (16
November 1427), also gave permission for orders up to the priesthood (DS 1290)
and Innocent VIII, in Exposcit (9 April 1489), up to the deaconate” (page 1136).
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ott is another book that can verify that Roman
Catholicism didn’t always think that priests couldn’t ordain priests. This is a
popular book of catholic doctrine. However there is no proof that Roman
Catholicism officially accepted that bishops might be ordained by priests.
The book “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” by Dr. Ludwig Ott was translated from
German. It has an imprimatur date of 7th October 1954 and the following comes
from pages 458-459. The book says: “In regard to the sacramental Order grades of
diaconate and presbyterate, most theologians, with St. Thomas, hold the opinion
that a simple priest cannot validly administer these, even with plenary power
from the Pope. But there are grave historical difficulties with regard to this
opinion: Pope Boniface IX, in agreement with the teachings of numerous medieval
canonists (for example, Huguccio d. 1210), by the Bull “Sacrae religionis” on
the 1st of February 1400, conferred on the Abbot of the Augustine Monastery of
St. Osytha at Essex (Diocese of London) and his successors, the privilege of
administering to those subject to them both the Minor Orders and those of the
subdiaconate, diaconate and priesthood. The privilege was withdrawn on 6th
February, 1403, on the instance of the Bishop of London. But the Orders
conferred on the ground of the privilege were not declared invalid. Pope Martin
V, by the Bull “Gerentes ad vos” of 16th November, 1427, conferred the privilege
on the Abbot of the Cistercian Monastery of Altzelle (Diocese of Meissen) of
promoting all his monks and others subject to him for the term of five years, to
the higher Orders also (Sub-diaconate, Diaconate, and Presbyterate). Pope
Innocent VIII, by the Bull “Exposcit tuae devotions” of 9th April,
1489,conferred on the four Proto-Abbots of the Cistercian Order and their
successors the privilege of ordaining their subordinates to the Sub-diaconate
and the Diaconate. The Cistercian Abbots were still using this privilege in the
17th century without hindrance. Unless one wishes to assume that the Popes in
question were victims of the erroneous theological opinions of their times (this
does not touch the Papal infallibility, because an ex cathedra decision was not
given), one must take it that a simple priest is an extraordinary dispenser of
the Orders of Diaconate and Presbyterate, just as he is an extraordinary
dispenser of Confirmation. In this latter view, the requisite power of
consecration is contained in the priestly power of consecration as “potestas
ligata.” For the valid exercise of it a special exercise of the Papal power is,
by Divine or Church ordinance, necessary.”
Rome teaches that if the pope or Church authorised invalid ordination ceremonies
for priests and bishops it would mean that Christ’s vow that the gates of Hell
would never win where the Church was concerned would have been proven false. So
the Church says it cannot happen. But history proves it has happened. So the
Church is definitely not infallible and protected against such error though it
says it is. It is just another arrogant human organisation that thinks it can
make rules as if it were God.
The National Catholic Reporter, February 25th, 2000 reported that Czech priests
who were ordained by priests in secret under special permission by Pius XII were
ordered by the Vatican to have their ordinations repeated by bishops. So Pius
XII didn’t believe that only bishops could ordain priests. This goes against the
current Vatican fashion.
The current Roman Catholic doctrine that only bishops can ordain priests for
priests don’t have the power from God to ordain means that many of its current
bishops cannot be true bishops for somewhere along the line it was priests that
did the ordination of their predecessors as priests or bishops. To be in
communion with a false bishop is to be in schism so this is very serious and
shows that Catholic unity isn’t real, it just looks real. Also to reject bishops
or priests ordained by priests is to cause schism for it is unfair. Schism can
be the attitude that some part of the Church is not part of your Church even if
this isn’t made public by you. You are divided from them in your heart even if
you pretend to be in communion with them and it appears to the world that you
are all one. Understandably Protestants deny that the true Church is visible –
they say it is an invisible communion made by God. It’s not an organisation but
a spiritual closeness. The Roman Church has rejected many bishops ordained
outside Roman Catholicism as having doubtful or non-existent holy orders though
the bishops were ordained properly to all appearances. If priests can ordain
bishops then we can be very sure they are really ordained and that the Church
shouldn’t be giving the rejects the cold shoulder