My Lord, I have two questions: (1) What are the reasons for which a trained seminarian or a deacon can be denied or refused ordination into the priesthood? (2) What are the reasons for which an ordained priest can be dismissed from the priesthood of Catholic Church? –
Question by Joshua Elikplim:
Answer by Bishop Joseph Osei-Bonsu:
With regard to Question 1, let me begin by saying that no-one has “the right to be ordained a priest”. Canon 1025.1 tells us that, among other things, a candidate for ordination must be considered by his bishop to be beneficial to the ministry of the Church. If the bishop is of the conviction that the candidate is for some reason unfit, the seminarian cannot insist that he should be ordained. Indeed, the seminarian can pass all his academic examinations, but that does not entitle him to be ordained a priest. Neither will be enough for him to claim that he is convinced that God is calling him to the priesthood.
Canon 241.1 lays out for us the qualities which a man should have if he is to be accepted into the seminary: his human, moral, spiritual and intellectual gifts, his physical and psychological health, and his right intention should show that he is capable of dedicating himself to sacred ministry for the rest of his life. It is for this reason that some young men who express the desire to become priests are rejected at the very beginning of the process: they might be too sickly, or demonstrate a low intellectual ability, or show signs of a personality disorder or other emotional issues. Their current conduct or past life might give indications of sexual problems, or might even suggest that they are just looking for job security for life, and do not really have a vocation at all. There are many red flags that may point to the fact that a man is not suitable for the priesthood.
We should also bear in mind that it is possible that an entirely well balanced, intelligent and healthy man can be refused admission to the seminary, if for whatever reason(s) he just does not seem to be the right material for the priestly life, and his vocation appears to lie elsewhere. In short, a man could conceivably seek to become a priest for any number of the wrong reasons – and if the bishop can detect them right away, his request will simply be denied upfront. This will save both the applicant and the diocese a lot of time and money, and prevent a lot of headaches.
Canon 241.1 specifies that this is the bishop’s decision. The diocesan bishop may not do all this work himself; instead, he may rely heavily on other priests to assist him. Many dioceses have a vocations director, whose job it is to screen potential candidates on the bishop’s behalf, and seminary rectors and formators could be involved in this preliminary process as well. But ultimately, the decision to admit (or not admit) a man to the seminary is the bishop’s; and if he wishes, he can overrule his vocations director or anyone else who has been asked to take part in the process of assessing the candidate.
Once a man enters the seminary, the formators have the opportunity to see whether he is well suited to the priesthood or not. As canon 250 asserts, the philosophical and theological training of seminarians is to take “at least six full years”. It is often the case that a prospective seminarian may have initially seemed like a promising candidate, but as the months and years go by, it can become increasingly clear that for whatever reason(s), a particular seminarian is not the type of person needed for the priesthood. At the same time, the seminarians are doing a lot of discerning of their own, and often conclude after spending some time in the seminary that this is not what they are meant to do with their lives after all.
This process of discernment can often last several years and any uncertainty is supposed to be cleared up before the seminarian is ordained to the diaconate. This is because deacons are clerics (cf. c. 1009). Once a man has validly been ordained a cleric, his ordination cannot be undone (c. 290) and he thereby acquires for the rest of his life certain rights which the diocesan bishop cannot disregard, even if the man is later found for some reason to be unsuitable for priestly ministry.
Canon 1029 tells us that only those men are to be promoted to holy orders whom the bishop determines to have sound faith, be moved by the right intention, have the required knowledge, possess a good reputation, be endowed with sound morals and proven virtues, and have all the other physical and mental qualities appropriate for a priest. We should note that once again, when it comes to diocesan seminarians, the final determination as to their ordination is made by the bishop himself, although naturally the formators will make their own recommendations, based on their direct contact with the candidates during their years of study and formation. In the case of the religious, the final determination will be done by their Superiors. Normally, the bishop does not have extensive day-to-day dealings with his seminarians; in contrast, the formators have, so their opinions naturally carry weight, and the bishop will do well to take their recommendations seriously! But at the end of the day, the bishop can choose to overrule them, if he himself reaches a conclusion different from theirs. The bishop should be able to tell the candidate in concrete terms what the problem(s) is/are, enabling both sides to determine whether they can be remedied or not.
As far as Question 2 is concerned, we note that the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the sacrament of Holy Orders confers an “indelible spiritual character” on the man who receives it (CCC 1582). Like the sacrament of Baptism, it can never be erased – a baptized Christian can cease to practise his faith, and even publicly deny Christ, but he can never undo his baptism. Priestly ordination works in exactly the same way. Similarly, canon 290 of the Code of Canon Law states bluntly that once a man validly receives sacred ordination, the sacrament never becomes invalid. This is because once a priest, always a priest. A cleric can never become a layman again.
At the same time, however, it is possible for a cleric, for example, a priest, to be released from the duties and responsibilities that are connected to the clerical state (CCC 1583). Practically speaking, this would mean that such a priest will no longer function outwardly as a priest. He will no longer engage in ministry within his diocese or religious institute, no longer celebrate Mass or confer the sacraments. He will no longer be called “Father” or wear clerical clothing, and will no longer be supported financially by the Church. To the world he would appear to be a layman, working at an ordinary job and living the normal life of the laity. Canon law refers to this change as the “loss of the clerical state” (cf. cc. 290-293). Common parlance calls it “laicization”.
Why would a cleric lose the clerical state? Canon 290 lists three ways in which loss of the clerical state can come about:
(1) One may lose the clerical state by having his orders declared invalid.
The requisites for valid ordination are (a) the minister ordaining the priest must be a bishop and must have the intention to ordain; (b) the candidate must be a baptized male (c. 1024) and, if an adult, must have the intention to receive the sacrament; (c) the ordination must consist in an imposition of hands together with the prescribed prayer (c. 1009, §2).
For all practical purposes, any challenge to the validity of the ordination will focus on the intention of the candidate. The procedure for establishing the nullity of ordination is laid down in canons 1708-1712.
(2) A second way the clerical state may be lost is through the penalty of dismissal for the following crimes:
(a) protracted contumacy (i.e., stubborn refusal to obey or comply with authority), or grave scandal in connection with apostasy (i.e., a public denial of a previously held religious belief and a distancing from the community that holds to it, in this case the Catholic faith), heresy (i.e., adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church teaching) or schism (i.e., formal separation from a church or religious body; see canon1364, §2);
(b) sacrilegious treatment of the consecrated species (c 1367);
(c) the use of physical force against the Roman Pontiff or the Pope (c. 1370, 31);
(d) continuance in civil marriage after warnings (1394, §1);
(e) solicitation in connection with confession (c. 1387);
(f) concubinage or other state of external sexual sin (c. 1395, §1)
(g) sexual sin with force or threats or publicly or with someone under sixteen years of age (canon 1395, §2).
(3) A third way the clerical state may be lost is through a rescript of laicization granted by the Apostolic See for grave reasons. In this context, a rescript is a written answer of the Holy See to a petition about the laicization of a priest.