Last week’s post examined the attempt and simulation of sacraments, especially the Eucharist and penance. Today’s post focuses on the more grave delict of attempted sacred ordination of a woman reserved to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith. Canon 1379 §3 states: “Both a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished by dismissal from the clerical state.”
This delict goes back to the 2008 Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith decree, which followed certain attempts to promote ordination and actually ordain women in the United States of America. As a recap, capacity concerns validity, meaning the person can ontologically do something. Ability concerns liceity, which means that one capable of doing something has been given the faculty to act or that there are no restrictions.
Canon 1024 provides that “only a baptised man can validly receive sacred ordination.” This means that apart from a validly ordained ordaining bishop, valid ordination requires only two conditions: the masculine gender and valid baptism. The first means that only a man can be ordained. The masculine gender here must be the masculine gender assigned at birth. This means that a transgender man is disqualified because she was a woman at birth. A valid baptism is required because baptism is “the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit and the door which gives access to the other sacraments” (CCC, 1213). Moreover, one is incorporated into the Church through baptism (Can. 849). Hence, it is inappropriate for one not a member of the Church to be a cleric, dispensing graces for what he does not believe and partake.
Therefore, one who confers a sacred order on a woman merely attempts the act. On the other hand, an act was merely attempted on the woman. The reason is that the woman lacks the capacity to receive the order. This delict also includes an attempt to ordain women deacons. Hence, although a theme in the current synodal process, one who ordains a woman as a deacon merely attempts to do so.
Pope John Paul’s apostolic letter on reserving priestly ordination to men alone, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, issued in 1994, explains the restriction of ordination to men. These reasons include: “the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God’s plan for his Church” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 1).
Exclusion of women from the priesthood is Christ’s decision, and only Christ knows why he willed it that way. Hence, Pope John Paul II rightly affirmed: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4). In 1995, the then Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith made public the dubium on whether the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith. Their response was affirmative:
“This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.”
Critics argue that we cannot talk about equality, participation, and emancipation if women are not allowed to be clerics. They emphasise that the arguments that baptism guarantees fundamental equality of all the faithful and that synodality enables participation and guarantees emancipation seem insufficient because the Church does not just exclude women’s ordination; it punishes anyone who attempts to do so. You can read my defence on post 37: “Ordination of women as equality and inclusiveness”, published on 14 March 2022
Completing the sacred rites corresponding to ordination is necessary to verify the delict. The penalty is latae sententiae excommunication for both the ordaining person and the woman. Canon 1040 affirms: “Those bound by an impediment are to be barred from the reception of orders. An impediment may be simple; or it may be perpetual, in which case it is called an irregularity.”
Unlike the impediments to validly contracting marriage, the impediments and irregularities to the reception of orders (Cann. 1041 & 1042) do not affect the validity of the ordination but the liceity. The reason the Church does not attach validity to these impediments is because the condition could be occult, leading to an invalid ordination. An invalid ordination means that all the sacraments (except baptism) that the ‘priest’ celebrates are invalid because he merely attempts them. Attempting the celebration of sacraments for the people prevents them from receiving the graces derived from them, thereby undermining their holistic salvation.
The Church created a new concept to manage this situation: ‘irregular for the exercise of orders already received’. One ordained with an impediment is simply impeded for the exercise of the order received, and one who, while bound by an irregularity for the reception of orders, unlawfully receives orders is irregular for the exercise of the orders already received (Can. 1044). One who is irregular or impeded for the exercise of orders celebrates the sacraments validly but illicitly.
On the other hand, some relevant canons regarding delicts against holy orders include Canon 1387: “Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.” If the case is in the external forum, the Dicastery for Evangelisation (for mission territories) is competent to remit (free one from) the penalty. However, if the case is occult, the Apostolic Penitentiary is competent.
Canon 1388: “§1 A Bishop who, contrary to the provision of can. 1015, ordained someone else’s subject without the lawful dimissorial letters, is prohibited from conferring orders for one year. The person who received the order is ipso facto suspended from the order received. §2 A person who comes forward for sacred orders bound by some censure or irregularity which he voluntarily conceals is ipso facto suspended.”
May God continue to help us🙏🏾
K’ọdị🙋🏾♂️
