Saint Gregory the Great: On the Pastoral Rule

[Originally written for a class. In light of all the recent scandals among the episcopacy, I thought posting the following would be relevant.]

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“So exalted is the view of the episcopal calling taken by the Regula Pastoralis, that it has been said that it made the bishops who made the modern nations.”[1]

Saint Gregory the Great’s On the Pastoral Rule (Liber Regulae Pastoralis) immediately established itself as a classic of pastoral theology and spirituality.[2] Written in response to a criticism that St. Gregory had attempted to flee from his responsibilities upon election to the papacy,[3] the Pastoral Rule was circulated in Spain, translated into Greek and distributed among the Eastern Churches by order of the Emperor Maurice, and spread throughout Ireland and England by SS. Columban and Augustine.[4] Nor did its influence wane, for by the 9th century, Alfred the Great, desiring to reform the clergy of England, translated the work into Old English and commanded each bishop in his kingdom to read it.[5] In France around the same time, each newly consecrated bishop received a copy of the Canons along with the Pastoral Rule.[6] By the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas relied on it as the principal basis for his exposition on the episcopacy in the Summa Theologiae.[7] Finally, in the 20th century, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, commended it as contributing to a proper notion of priestly perfection.[8] The Pastoral Rule not only sets high standards but hands on the practical wisdom of a great contemplative saint who did not shirk from laboring in the world. Its enduring impact on the spirituality of the priest and bishop combined with its sheer abundance of excellent advice in navigating the delicate balance between the contemplative and active lives make the work incontestably important for the seminarian and priest. In reading the work, two points struck me most powerfully: first, the focus on balance that St. Gregory brings in explaining the work of the pastor, and second, the necessity of great sanctity in order for the pastor to conduct an effective apostolate. I will explain these points and their relevance for growth in the spiritual life.

The Pastoral Rule eminently (while not consciously) embodies the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion that virtue lies in the golden mean between excess and defect.[9] St. Gregory makes use of the balance between contrasting elements in order to explain the virtues and knowledge necessary for the pastor. For example, a man may rightfully flee from the office of pastor out of humility, yet if God calls him to this duty, to deny it would reveal prideful obstinacy.[10] The pastor must exercise prudence in keeping silence but be forthright and profitable in speech, avoiding the defect of an excessive silence that would imply approval of the sinful behavior of those deserving correction and, on the other hand, the excess of careless and immoderate rebuke.[11] Similarly, the pastor must balance gentleness and rigor, gently correcting sins of weakness or ignorance, reprimanding more sternly sins of malice, yet without excessive harshness, for “when reproof blazes forth immoderately, the hearts of the sinners fall into dejection and despair.”[12] St. Gregory elaborates on the careful balance required between the contemplative and active aspects of pastoral life. The pastor’s contemplation must be exalted above all others, yet like St. Paul, who made provision for married life to faithful under his care out of concern for the concupiscence of the flesh, he must accommodate himself to the needs of the weak.[13] Like the example of our Lord, Who ascended the mountain to pray to His Father and descended to minister to sinners during the day, so “good rulers, who, though they strive after the highest things by contemplation, should nevertheless by their compassion share in the needs of the weak.”[14] St. Gregory explains beautifully that “charity rises to sublime heights, when in pity it is drawn by the lowly […] and the more kindly it stoops to infirmity, the mightier is its reach to the highest.”[15] Ultimately, St. Gregory establishes that contemplation takes priority since the faithful must receive from the spiritual abundance of the pastor, like water overflowing from an interior cistern,[16] but his contemplation must not be so prolonged that the pastor neglects his responsibilities to his flock.[17]

The other type of balance on which St. Gregory expounds regards the pastor’s knowledge so that he may adapt his manner of teaching to each class of individual, temperament, and character. Here St. Gregory reveals a profound understanding of psychology combined with the most developed prudence and breadth of experience. The saint compares the pastor’s work to the playing of a harp, where each listener is a different string, to which the harpist must apply a different stroke suited to each in order to produce a skillful and harmonious melody.[18] Gregory goes on to elucidate around 40 different classes of people, of various temperaments, characters, virtues, vices, and experiences, and how the preacher is effectively to teach them all. His discussion of encouraging the overly taciturn provides an example of the saint’s penetrating insight into the human heart that depreciates the supposed genius of Freud’s “talking cure”:

Often when the taciturn suffer injustice, they come to feel keener grief from not speaking about what they are suffering. […] Wounds that are closed are the more painful. […] People, therefore, who are more silent than is expedient, should realise [sic] that they but aggravate the vehemence of their grief in withholding speech [….][19]

Clearly, to achieve this remarkable balance and depth requires profound sanctity and docility to the movements of the Holy Ghost as for example when St. Gregory states: “Humility is to be preached to the proud in a way not to increase fear in the timorous, and confidence [to the timorous] as not to encourage the unbridled impetuosity in the proud. […] The highest good is to be so praised, that the good in little things is not discarded.”[20] Gregory’s insistence on striking that balance and reaching that summit of virtue for an effective pastoral ministry brings me to my second point of interest.

One of St. Gregory’s principal points in his Pastoral Rule is the sanctity requisite for the great responsibility of pastoral ministry. As St. Thomas succinctly puts it, in a manner with which St. Gregory would undoubtedly have agreed, the bishop is the perfector of others.[21] The pastor must be holy by reason of the dignity of his office as the life of the shepherd is so far above the life of the sheep.[22] St. Gregory warns, “No one ventures to teach any art unless he has learned it after deep thought,” and that the government of souls is “the art of arts.”[23] The saint compares the pastor to a physician who would be rash to attempt to heal others without having first mastered the art of medicine himself, and further than the physician, in order for the pastor to heal souls, he himself must first be healed of sinfulness and even attachment to sin: “If, then, in [the physician’s] practice ailments still thrive in him, with what presumption does he hasten to heal the afflicted while he carries a sore on his own face?”[24] St. Gregory makes the vivid comparison between the sinful pastor and an untrustworthy mediator sent to intercede for a party: “For we all know full well that when a person is out of favour [sic] and sent to intercede, the mind of the incensed person is moved to greater anger,”[25] so too a pastor stuck in the mire of sin will not only fail to draw down the graces of God for his flock but will also lead to his own ruin and that of those under his care. Pastors who are still beginners in the spiritual life are like fledgling birds attempting “to fly upwards before their wings are fully developed” and therefore “fall down from where they tried to soar.”[26] With many other different analogies, St. Gregory argues that the pastor must teach what he has learned through personal experience more than abstract study,[27] must lead by the example of his own virtuous conduct,[28] must please men by the goodness of his character so as to draw men to a love of truth and holiness,[29] and in short, must

make himself heard rather by deeds than by words, and that by his righteous way of life should imprint footsteps for men to tread in [….] Let [pastors] first rouse themselves up by lofty deeds, and then make others solicitous to live good lives. […] Then, and only then, let them set in order the lives of others by their words.[30]

On the other hand, St. Gregory’s overwhelming emphasis on the pastor’s personal holiness may perhaps confuse some readers: why does St. Gregory not also focus on the pastor’s sacramental ministry? With the Pastoral Rule St. Gregory intends to guide bishops in their pastoral ministry rather than priests in their sacramental ministry, and one should keep in mind that Gregory’s vision of the pastor as spiritual physician and exemplar implies that the effectiveness of the pastor’s ministry corresponds with the degree of his holiness. This difference of focus reveals why he spends so much time focusing on the personal qualifications of the pastor as well as the prudential knowledge needed to guide properly the various classes of individuals under his care. Despite this difference, the necessity of holiness applies also to priests as Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, OP, notes forcefully, for while it is true that the sacramental aspect of priestly ministry possesses an intrinsic efficacy derived ex opere operato,

one cannot entertain the slightest doubt that in all those other activities the efficacy of which depend on the proper dispositions of the instrument, i.e. ex opere operantis (and these are all those activities of the priest except those we referred to in the valid administration of the sacraments), the supernatural efficacy of his apostolate will be in direct and immediate proportion to the degree of sanctity and perfection of the minister of God, and a poor curate in Ars, ignorant and scorned yet aflame with divine love, will convert more sinners and bring more souls to God than all the professors of the Sorbonne in Paris combined.[31]

The importance of both points discussed should be clear for the seminarian and priest. The success of his extra-sacramental ministry hinges on the degree to which he is docile to the Holy Ghost and acts in persona Christi not only in an official manner but also a personal manner, and St. Gregory provides us with an eminently trustworthy guide to develop those virtues specific to pastoral ministry.

St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule is truly a sobering read. After enumerating the degree of exalted virtues and the vastness of necessary wisdom to pastor souls effectively, the saint closes his work with a chapter on the importance of remaining humble. He writes, “It is necessary that […] the eye of the soul should turn its gaze on its infirmities […] and as [pastors] are not able to overcome the very little [faults], they should not presume to pride themselves on the great things they accomplish.”[32] This book provides us an opportunity to reflect seriously on the maturity and the balance required for priestly ministry as well as the heavy burden of responsibility that accompanies it. It also emphasizes in another manner the fact that God is the author of all good things, that any good we possess is from Him (Jas. 1:17); as St. Paul asks, “What has thou that thou hast not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7). And reminiscent of our Lord’s parable of the talents, St. Gregory reminds us that those who have been given much are expected to help others, for “the gifts which they have received [are] not for their own sakes only, but for the sake of others also.”[33] Our Lord “came forth from the bosom of His Father into our midst, that He might benefit many,” and hence the love of God must overflow into the love of neighbor for God’s sake.[34] May we learn from the example of St. Gregory the Great, who, despite his personal protests to the contrary,[35] preached through the lofty holiness of his life in addition to his words.

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Footnotes:

1. Horace K. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Part 1: 590–657 (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1925), 1:241. On the influence of the Pastoral Rule, see St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, trans. Henry Davis, in Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, eds. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, no. 11 (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1950), 9–12 [hereafter Davis, Pastoral Care, page, book, and chapter].

2. Abbot Snow, St. Gregory the Great: His Work and His Spirit (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1924), 90–91.

3. Davis, Pastoral Care, 4, translator’s introduction.

4. Ibid., 10.

5. Ibid., 11.

6. Mann, The Lives of the Popes, 242.

7. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 47: 2a2ae. 183–189: The Pastoral and Religious Lives, ed. Jordan Aumann (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 60–61, footnote a [hereafter ST].

8. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On the Sanctification of Priests According to the Needs of Our Times, trans. Paul M. Kimball, (Camillus, NY: Dolorosa Press, 2013), ch. 1, art. 3.

9. Cf. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 1:64–65.

10. Davis, Pastoral Care, 32, I, 6. St. Thomas expands on this argument in ST 2a2ae.185.2, even quoting from the same passage of St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule.

11. Ibid., 51–55, II, 4.

12. Ibid., 85, II, 10.

13. Ibid., 56–57, II, 5.

14. Ibid., 58.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., 175, III, 24. St. Gregory writes, “The preacher drinks the water of his own cistern [.…] To be sure, it is proper that he should drink first, and then give others to drink by his preaching” (ibid.). This image anticipates St. Bernard’s striking comparison between the reservoir and the canal, which forms a perfect summary of St. Gregory’s thought on those seeking too eagerly for the pastoral office: “Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare. So urgent is the charity of those through whom the streams of heavenly doctrine flow to us, that they want to pour it forth before they have been filled; they are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern others while they know not how to govern themselves” (“Sermon 18” in On the Song of Songs, trans. Kilian Walsh, in Cistercian Fathers Series: Number Four: The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. M. Basil Pennington [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1971] 1:134, n. 3).

17. Ibid., 68–75, II, 7. St. Thomas famously perfects this line of argumentation when demonstrating that the mixed life rises above both the contemplative and active, for “just as it is better to illumine than merely to shine, so it is better to give to others the things contemplated than simply to contemplate” (ST 2a2ae.188.6). Interestingly, St. Thomas also argues that this mixed life is more perfect because it more closely resembles the perfection of the episcopal state (ibid.).

18. Ibid., 89–90, III, prologue.

19. Ibid., 130–131, III, 14.

20. Ibid., 227, III, 36.

21. ST 2a2ae.184.7.

22. Davis, Pastoral Care, 45, II, 1.

23. Ibid., 21, I, 1.

24. Ibid., 38, I, 9.

25. Ibid., 39.

26. Ibid., 180, III, 25.

27. Ibid., 23–25, I, 2.

28. Ibid., 48–51, II, 3.

29. Ibid., 77, II, 8.

30. Ibid., 232–233, III, 40.

31. Antonio Royo Marin, Teología de la perfección cristiana (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autore Cristianos, 2015), 806–807, n. 669, 5 (my translation). Cf. also St. John of the Cross who writes, “As for the one who teaches, the profit is usually commensurate with his interior preparedness. […] We frequently see, insofar as it is possible to judge here below, that the better the life of the preacher the more abundant the fruit, no matter how lowly his style, poor his rhetoric, and plain the doctrine” (Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez, in The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, eds. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez [Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1973], 291, III, 45).

32. Davis, Pastoral Care, 237, IV.

33. Ibid., 29–30, I, 5.

34. Ibid., 31.

35. Ibid., 237, IV.

Fr. Antonio Royo Marín on the Theology of the Apostolate

[800] Article 4

The Apostolate

664. The apostolate, in whatever its form, carried out with a true supernatural spirit, can and ought to provide to the Christian a true source of sanctification. We are going to examine the concept of the apostolate, its degrees, obligation, forms, and relations to Christian perfection.

665. I. Concept. We are going to detail its nominal meaning and its real content.

a) NOMINALLY, the word “apostle” comes from the Greek term ἀπόστολος, derived from the verb ἀποστέλλω (“to send”), and signifies an envoy, messenger, or ambassador.

In the New Testament this word is sometimes used to designate the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, to which there is added the names of Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, [801] who are apostles by antonomasia (par excellence); but at other times the name of “apostle” is also given to every kind of preacher of the Gospel, including those not belonging to the church hierarchy. Thus St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans: “Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and fellow prisoners: who are of note among the apostles” (Rom. 16:7).

It should be noted that the words “mission” and “apostolate,” as well as “missionary” and “apostle,” are etymologically equivalent. “Mission” and “missionary” come from the Latin verb mitto, which means “to send”; this is exactly the same as the words “apostle” and “apostolate,” which as we have said before come from the Greek verb ἀποστέλλω, which also means “to send.”

b) REAL MEANING. The nominal or etymological significance of the word apostle has set us on the path to its true meaning or real content. For in the understanding of the Church which interests us here, an apostle is, in the end, nothing but an envoy of God sent to preach the Gospel to men. St. Paul expressly says so (Rom. 1:1), and it is the common doctrine of the entire tradition of the Church. The expression apostolate has no meaning other than the work and activity proper to the apostle.

666. 2. Degrees. However, the word apostle is undoubtedly analogous and is applied in many different ways to different subjects of attribution. Accordingly, we can distinguish without effort, based on the data of Sacred Scripture and of tradition, up to six degrees or distinct categories of apostolate:

1. The apostolate in its most eminent grade, as the supreme analogate in its analogical scale, corresponds by right to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is sent by the Father in order to bring to the world the good news and message of redemption (Jn. 3:17, 8:16, 17:3, 8, 18, 21, etc.). From Him all other apostles receive the mandate and apostolic mission (Jn. 20:21).

2. In the second place, the apostolate corresponds to those apostles par excellence, in other words, the twelve apostles chosen by Christ, to which is added the names of Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, and those sent by Him to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mk. 16:15).

3. Occupying the third place is the Roman Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the remaining apostles and heirs of the ordinary mission that Jesus Christ has committed to them although not of the extraordinary mission as founders of the Church nor of the personal charisms if we make exception for the Roman Pontiff in referring to the privilege of infallibility.

4. Fourthly, simple priests sent by the Pope and the bishops with any jurisdictional mission that participates directly in the authority of the Church.

5. The laity involved in any apostolic organization, among which Catholic Action stands out, which, without participating in any manner in properly ecclesiastical or jurisdictional authority, nevertheless partakes in the official activities of that authority under the direction of the hierarchy and as their instruments. [802]

6. In the broadest sense, finally, the name of apostle can be applied to any person who performs some action of the apostolate (catechesis, giving good council, etc.) although it would be through his own initiative and not with any official mission.

667. 3. Obligation. Having explained the notion of the apostle, the apostolate, and the different degrees in which one can participate in the latter, it will be of interest to demonstrate before all the obligation of the apostolate on all the members of Christ without exception. No one may be excused from this sacred obligation although it affects Christians in many, diverse ways according to the higher or lower position in which they have been placed by Divine Providence on the scale of analogous degrees that we finished enumerating above.

Here are the principle reasons or theological foundations of the universal obligation of the apostolate:

1. It is a requirement of charity in relation to God, to our neighbors, and to ourselves.

a) RELATING TO GOD. The love that is selfish and sensual is exclusive: it does not want anyone to participate in its joy; it wants to savor it by itself. It is very easily understood because of the limitation and smallness of the creature upon which this love has fallen. But the love of God, which rests on an infinite and inexhaustible object, far from diminishing, grows and becomes truly massive even when in the depths of one’s being one does not feel the blazing of the fire of the apostolate. A love of God that remained indifferent to apostolic concerns would be completely false and illusory. “There is only one thing I desire,” said St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus: “to make God loved.” It is the fundamental and primary desire of all souls who are authentically in love with God. We will come back to this when discussing the relationship between perfection and the apostolate.

b) RELATING TO NEIGHBOR. The charity relating to our neighbor obliges us to desire and procure every kind of good for him, principally those in the spiritual order that are ordained to his eternal beatitude. It is impossible, therefore, to love one’s neighbor with a true love of charity without the affective and effective practice of the apostolate, at least to the measurement and degree compatible with our state in life and with the means and methods within our reach.

c) RELATING TO OURSELVES. It has rightly been said that material charity benefits more the one who gives than the one who receives because, in exchange for something material and temporal, one acquires a right to a spiritual and eternal reward. This same principle should apply, for greater reason, [803] to the great spiritual charity of the apostolate. It is certain that the recipient also benefits in the order of the spiritual and transcendent, but without any prejudice, even before this, comes a great benefit to the benefactor. By submitting ourselves to apostolic labors for the good of our brothers, we accrue on a grand scale our capital of merit before God. Hence in this manner the apostolate is not only an obligation but simultaneously an excellent practice of the love of God, our neighbor, and ourselves.

2. It is a consequence of the dogma of the Mystical Body of Christ.

God used the apostle St. Paul to give to His Church the doctrinal treasure of the theology of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is an infinite treasure of inexhaustible fecundity for the Christian life. Much has been written on it, and we have the fortune of possessing a wonderful synthesis in the enlightening encyclical of Pope Pius XII.¹ Perhaps in no other aspect of this doctrine are offered possibilities as magnificent for the theologian as those relating to the universal duty of the apostolate that flow from it naturally and without effort. In fact it is inconceivable that the members of one and the same supernatural organism should remain indifferent to the health and well-being of the others.

a) BAPTISM, by which we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, has linked us in such a way to our Divine Head and each one of us to the other that no one can “wash one’s hands of” the other without committing an attack, a true crime against the members of that same Mystical Body, which has inevitable repercussions even to its Divine Head. The “you did it to Me” of the final judgment will have its perfect application both in the line of the good and the bad (Mt. 25:40, 45).

b) CONFIRMATION. The demands of Baptism are invigorated and reinforced with the sacrament of Confirmation, which makes us soldiers of Christ and gives us the necessary strength to wage the battles of the Lord. The mission of the soldier is to defend the common good. A selfish soldier is a contradiction. For this reason he must be confirmed an apostle by an intrinsic demand stemming from his own fallen condition.²

668. 4. Forms. However, even here there is room for distinct modes and grades. Not all Christians are obliged to practice the apostolate in the same degree and, above all, in the same form. It is possible to characterize the apostolate as a state, as a life, and as a practice.

a) AS A STATE, the apostolate corresponds properly to the Roman Pontiff and the bishops, the legitimate successors of the apostles, to whom [804] Christ has entrusted the august mission of perpetuating the apostolic functions and ministries even to the consummation of the ages (Mk. 16:15).

b) AS A LIFE, it corresponds to any priest who has legitimately received the apostolic mission to announce the Gospel to the people. Within this fierce phalanx of the apostles of Jesus Christ, priests occupy an outstanding place because of the transcendent importance of their apostolate, these missionaries in a land of infidels and charged with expanding the dominion of the Christian faith until it has invaded the entire world.

c) AS A PRACTICE, it is the exercise of any apostolic activity whether with a canonical mission or not. This latter is that which extends also to the lay faithful, who must exercise the apostolate—in virtue of those demands that we noted above—at least in their particular environment with all the means at their disposal.

669. 5. Relations between the Apostolate and Christian Perfection. Having examined the concept of the apostolate, even if only with the extreme brevity that the extension and nature of our work obliges us, let us now see what its intimate relations with Christian perfection are.

a) THE APOSTOLATE, A FORMAL PART OR EFFECT OF PERFECTION. St. Thomas beautifully proves that apostolic zeal is an effect of charity.³ Above all, when charity attains to a great intensity, it tends to overflow into the exterior. It is impossible to love God “with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength”—the first commandment of the Law, in the perfect practice of which Christian perfection consists—without the soul feeling a devouring zeal for the glory of God and an insatiable craving for the apostolate. In this way the apostolate is inevitably a formal effect of Christian perfection. There is not nor can there be any form of Christian perfection that can prescind from or not want to have anything to do with this apostolic giving of one’s self towards others. In the Church of Christ all is united and collective. Egotistic isolation is a sin, and the sanctity that cares not for the good of others is an illusion. None, not even cloistered nuns or contemplative religious, can renounce being an apostle without committing a crime against the Mystical Body of Christ and without destroying the very contemplative life in its integrity. The nun of the cloister and the contemplative too have a most elevated apostolic mission that, at the same time that it is an indispensable duty, constitutes for them one of their most precious peals of glory. They are not to be apostles through the exercise of the word or exterior activities diametrically opposed to the spirit of their contemplative vocation, but they are to be, in an eminent [805] degree, apostles through their prayer, through their sacrifices, through their example and witness before the pagan society of our day.

Our immortal Donoso Cortés wrote the following phrase: “I believe that those who pray do more for this world than those who fight and that if the world goes from bad to worse, this consists in that there are more battles than there are prayers.”⁴ As a missionary bishop once affirmed, ten Carmelite nuns praying could help him more than twenty missionaries preaching.

There can be no doubt. The love of God when legitimate and true enkindles within our souls a love of neighbor. The apostle St. John arrives at the saying that he lies who says that he loves God but does not also love his neighbor (1 Jn. 4:20), and among the acts of love, not one is more authentic than the apostolic zeal and ardor for procuring our neighbor’s spiritual good.

b) INTIMATE UNION, NECESSARY FOR PERFECTION TO BE AUTHENTIC AND THE APOSTOLATE FRUITFUL. Between perfection and the apostolate there must be—necessarily so when authentic—a most strict relationship and a reciprocal and continual influence. It is a classic formula that the interior life is the soul of the whole apostolate and the guarantee of its efficacy. This affirmation is supported by very firm principles of Catholic theology.

As it is known, in establishing the comparison between the active life and the contemplative, the Angelic Doctor concludes that the latter is more perfect and meritorious than the active since, among other reasons that he explains there, the direct exercise of the love of God, which is the object of the contemplative life, is more perfect and meritorious than the love of neighbor, which is the immediate object of exterior activities.⁵ But a little afterwards he adds that the mixed life is more perfect than either of the others considered in isolation because it unites the best aspects of both and more closely imitates the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, the supreme model of perfection.⁶

The difficulty is in specifying the true concept of the mixed life, for there is no state of active life that does not claim for it some directing principle or source influence from the contemplative life. Hence if one does not proceed with much caution and theological rigor, one will come to the danger of concluding that the properly active life does not exist and that all apostolic activity—whatever may be its origin, end, and manner of fulfilling—enters fully into the concept of the mixed life and is, therefore, superior to the merely contemplative life. This would be a [806] most grave error that would affect not only the serene realm of theoretical principles but would also have enormous and pernicious repercussions in practice.

No! Not all apostolic activity is beneficial when it is cut off from the further excellencies of the mixed life and as if it worked in an ex opere operato manner. This excellence, according to the Angelic Doctor and the universal theological tradition, is what proceeds from the fullness of contemplation.⁷ It is an overflowing of one’s own supernatural life. It has two absolutely inseparable aspects: to contemplate and to communicate to others what has been contemplated: contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere.⁸ Neither of the two aspects can be neglected without damaging in a radical manner the concept of the mixed life. Without the contemplative element, we would have pure exterior activity: the active life. Without the apostolic giving of one’s self in exterior activity, we would have pure contemplation: the contemplative life. And in neither of these two cases would we have achieved the concept of the mixed life. The mixed life is, therefore, only that in which apostolic activities would be an effect and a redounding of one’s own contemplation. From which it must be concluded that when these apostolic activities, however numerous and intense they may be, do not emanate from an authentically contemplative soul that is ablaze with the love of God, they cannot claim to be part of the dignity and excellence of the mixed life: they are mere exterior activity, the active life pure and simple, greatly inferior in itself to the contemplative life and—a fortiori—to the authentic mixed life as well. That is why the Angelic Doctor carefully insists that when a contemplative is called to apostolic activities, this ought not to be done in a manner of subtraction, subtracting and reducing anything from the contemplative life, but in a manner of addition, adding in a manner that further enkindles one’s own life of union with God: hoc non fit per modum substractionis, sed per modum additionis (“this is done by way not of subtraction but of addition”).⁹

Is this to say that an apostle who does not live a profound and exuberant interior life is unforgivably condemned to sterility and failure? Applied to the priest in the totality of his ministry, it seems to us not to be the case. It would do no good here to invoke the argument that “one cannot give what one does not have.” The reason is that a good part of the ministerial activities of the priest has an intrinsic efficacy—ex opere operato—that functions independently of the personal worthiness of the one who administers the sacraments. In this sense, the priest does not give of his own but only what is of God, that is, that which God puts into his hands, however unworthy and sinful those hands may be. This is true. But one cannot entertain the slightest doubt that in all those other activities the efficacy of which depend in a good part on the proper dispositions of the instrument—ex opere operantis—(and these are all those activities of the priest except those we referred to in the valid administration of the sacraments), the supernatural efficacy of his apostolate will be in direct and immediate proportion to the degree of sanctity and perfection of the minister of God, and a poor curate in Ars, ignorant and scorned but aflame with divine love, will convert [807] more sinners and bring more souls to God than all the professors of the Sorbonne in Paris combined.

Hence, an intimate and deep union between the contemplative life and the active is indispensable in order to come to the authentic notion of the mixed life and to assure the authenticity of Christian perfection and the fruitfulness of the apostolate. Therefore it is necessary to avoid with all caution the errors and dangerous deviations of both extremes.

c) ERRORS AND DANGEROUS DEVIATIONS OF BOTH EXTREMES. Without any doubt, in the field of the apostolate there are greater errors and dangers that arise from an exaggerated overestimation of the active life than from an unhealthy exaltation of the contemplative life: the activism or Americanism, which was called by the most recent Popes the heresy of action, is a much deadlier error than quietism. In any case, every error is pernicious, and we ought carefully to avoid both vicious extremes in order to come to the just and balanced middle in which virtue consists.

a) The excess of uncontrolled activity almost always leads to the heresy of action and the personal failure of the man who lives in such a way. Well known are the words of a man as apostolic as Cardinal Lavigerie: “For an apostle there is no middle ground between complete sanctity—at least desired and pursued with fidelity and tenacity—and absolute perversion.” Unfortunately, experience daily confirms the somber perspective of this phrase. The man, devoured by the fever of action, submits himself more and more to exterior activities: paperwork, statistics, organizations, the press, radio, cinema, the devouring fever of movement…

Does he live a life of profound piety, of continual and intense prayer? Does he recite the breviary digne, attente, ac devote (“worthily, attentively, and devoutly”)? Does he make a long preparation in order to celebrate the Holy Mass and deepen and prolong his thanksgiving afterwards? Does he do spiritual reading, meditation, and acts of personal piety? “There is no time for this!” he says. “The times are very bad; the forces of evil have organized themselves to oversee everything more and more; it is necessary to oppose them by the barricade of our resistance, from organization to organization, activity to activity. If only we could attend to everything! We would love very much to live the life of prayer, to keep in constant contact with our Lord in the tabernacle… What a pity! We do not have the time for this.” Such is how these poor souls run astray. The result of this insensible reasoning tends to be the loss of the spirit of faith, lukewarmness and boredom in the prayer life, and, all too often, a noisy and belligerent defection and the scandal of final apostasy.

b) Quietism. In diametrical opposition to this great error, another great aberration disguised as supernatural prudence tries to take refuge in darkness and sloth. It is quietism, a ridiculous caricature of recollection and the contemplative life, which coincides in reality with the most repugnant selfishness when it does not fall into the abyss of sensuality as history has so often testified. The quietist “does not want to meddle in anything.” Under the pretext of concentration and prayer, he fortifies himself into a castle of isolation and idleness without thinking of anyone outside of himself or preoccupying himself with anything other than his own interests. He has not heard—or does not want to hear—the anguished cry [808] of the Divine Redeemer: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Lk. 12:49).

He is very comfortable not “meddling in anything” or to abandon for a single instant his sweet idleness—il dolce far niente—, but it is not acceptable, when he has such a contemptible attitude, to call himself a disciple of that divine Master Who precisely for meddling in every affair was put to death on the height of the cross.

d) THE JUST AND BALANCED SOLUTION. It is precisely to avoid carefully and equally both vicious extremes. The just and balanced solution was given to us by the Angelic Doctor in that gem of an expression which we have already mentioned above: Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere: To contemplate the divine realities through prayer and study and then to communicate to others the clean and crystalline waters that spill over from the fullness of our own supernatural life.

---

Footnotes:

1 We have collected an extensive summary of this encyclical in another place in this work (cf. n. 78).

2 Cf. III,72,2.

3 I-II,28,4.

4 Donoso Cortés, Obras completas t.2 p.227 (BAC, Madrid 1956).

5 Cf. II-II,182,1,2.

6 Cf. II-II,188,6.

7 «Ex plenitudine contemplationis derivatur» (II-II,188,6). “Proceeds from the fullness of contemplation.”

8 «Et hoc praefertur simplici contemplationi. Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari» (ibid.). “And this work is more excellent than simple contemplation. For even as it is better to enlighten than merely to shine, so is it better to give to others the fruits of one's contemplation than merely to contemplate.”

9 Cf. II-II,182,1 ad 3.

---

Source: Fr. Antonio Royo Marín, OP, The Theology of Christian Perfection, trans. by Richard Grablin (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2015), 800–808.

Fr. Antonio Royo Marin on Signs of a Vocation to the Priesthood

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ARTICLE 6

The Subject of the Sacrament of Orders

And here it is also necessary to distinguish within the subject the necessary conditions for validity and liceity.

A) For validity

Conclusion. A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly (CIC 1024).

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428. We wish to explain the conclusion a little.

A MAN ALONE, not a woman. St. Paul expressly states, “Let women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted them to speak, but to be subject” (1 Cor. 14:34). And in another place: “Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection” (1 Tim. 2:11). The Holy Fathers explain these words in the sense of excluding women from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and this has been the constant and universal practice of the Church.

In ancient church literature it is sometimes spoken of female bishops and priests, and St. Paul himself speaks with praise of the deaconess Phoebe (Rom. 16:1-2) and gives to his disciple Timothy norms for choosing deaconesses from among the widows (1 Tim. 5:9-10). None of these women received ordination as such but a sacramental instituted by the Church, by way of a blessing of the virgins consecrated to the Lord, which enabled them to help the priests or deacons in the administration of baptism for women, in the catechesis of women, etc. Sometimes the actual spouses of the deacons, priests, or bishops simply received those titles before ecclesiastical celibacy was obligatorily imposed.

BAPTIZED, that is to say, he who has received the sacrament of baptism (the baptism of desire is not sufficient), which is the obligatory and indispensable door to be able to receive any other sacrament.

B) For liceity

Conclusion. In order to receive holy ordination licitly, it is required that the candidate meet the canonical conditions determined by the Church.

429. In addition to a divine vocation, the state of grace—which is the indispensable condition to receive licitly any sacrament of the living—and not having any irregularity or impediment, certain conditions are required by Canon Law, which we will examine in detail in the following article.

ARTICLE 7

Prerequisites in order to receive sacred ordination

The prerequisites which the candidate must meet in order to receive Holy Orders are of two types: a) the possession of the positive qualities demanded by the Church; and b) the absence of irregularities or impediments. We will examine these separately.

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I.                   POSITIVE QUALITIES

The essential qualities, those that we just finished citing in the previous conclusion, one naturally presupposes, are a divine vocation to the priesthood, the state of grace, and a right intention. We will examine these one by one.

A) The Divine Vocation

430. There is a great variety of opinions among theologians on the genuine and true concept of a vocation to the priesthood. All contain some essential core of truth, but the greater part of them fail from inadequacies because they do not examine the priestly vocation except from an incomplete and partial point of view: the theological or the canonical.

The priestly vocation, adequately considered, seems to us to consist of three elements:

a) A special calling from God.
b) Canonical suitability (idoneity).
c) Admission to the clerical state by the bishop.[1]

By this understanding, we might say that there is a true vocation to the priesthood for anyone who, feeling the call of God in a special way and possessing canonical suitability, is admitted to the clerical state by a legitimate bishop.

We are going to examine briefly each one of these three essential elements.

a) A Special Call from God

It is a theologically indisputable fact that divine Providence orders all things that exist towards the attainment of the final end of creation, namely, the divine glory.[2] This providence of God extends absolutely to everything, including the most insignificant—etiam minimorum, says St. Thomas Aquinas[3]—, even to the point that God has counted all the hairs of our head (Mt. 10:30), and the leaf of a tree does not move without the previous permission of God.

This being the case, one understands how great and excellent a thing is the Catholic priesthood, which ought to continue across the centuries the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, the Son well-beloved of the Father, and it is not possible that God would abandon it to the free choice or caprice of men. “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” expressly says the Lord in the Gospel (Jn. 15:16). That is why it seems to us that those make a great error of perspective, theologically unjustifiable, [542] who speak of choice of state to suggest to the possible candidate the excellent greatness of the priesthood. There is not, there should not be such a choice of state—as if the initiative of a decision of this magnitude was by man alone, and God was forced to accept what the creature has decided—but solely an examination of the depths of the inclination and the qualities which the candidate possesses in order to discover in those qualities, with greater or lesser clarity, the mysterious calling of God, which, theologically speaking, constitutes the heart of the vocation.

This call of God tends to take on many diverse forms. Sometimes it appears in the conscience of the candidate with complete clarity and evidence, a blessing that does not allow harboring the slightest doubt. At other times, it is obscure and mysterious yet at the same time very true and real. Again, sometimes it imposes itself upon the conscience in the form of a categorical imperative[4]; at other times it does not go beyond being a sweet invitation, quietly persuasive. But whatever form it adopts or with whatever force that it may impose itself, it never dominates human free will, which remains perfectly safe, even when efficacious grace falls upon it, producing its effect infallibly and is most freely accepted by the man.

The existence and necessity of a divine vocation to the priesthood, that is, of this call of God, can be fully demonstrated through traditional theological sources:

1.       SACRED SCRIPTURE. “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain” (Jn. 15:16).

“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send laborers into his harvest” (Lk. 10:2). 

“And going up into a mountain, he called unto him whom he would himself, and they came to him. And he made that twelve should be with him, and that he might send them to preach. And he gave them power to seal sicknesses, and to cast out devils” (Mk. 3:13-15). 

“Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was. So Christ also did not glorify himself, that he might be made a high priest, but he that said unto him: Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee” (Heb. 5:4-5). 

“And praying, (the apostles) said, “Thou, Lord, who knowest the heart of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own place” (Acts 1:24-25).

The testimony of Sacred Scripture cannot be clearer or more conclusive.

2.       THE MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH. This point of view, profoundly theological by having its immediate foundation in Sacred Scripture, has been fully confirmed through the magisterium of the Church by clarifying with total care and exactness some exaggerations regarding the priestly vocation that have remained obscured by some excessively amateur authors, who viewed this matter exclusively from a canonical point of view and downplayed its theological aspect, which is just as important if not more than the canonical.

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In fact, in the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Sacraments of December 27, 1930,[5] approved and confirmed by Pius XI, it says among other things the following:

1.       The priestly vocation should not be confused with admission to the ecclesiastical state made by the bishop since it is seriously warned that the latter will not allow candidates to receive orders if they are deprived of a divine vocation: “divina destituti vocatione” (§1, n.1). Therefore it is a clear thing that the divine vocation is distinct from and prior to the call of the bishop.

2.       This same idea is repeated constantly through the length of the instruction. Here are some texts:

“Those who have been chosen by the Holy Ghost to govern the Church of God, in order to avoid many and great evils against the Church and the faithful, must with the greatest caution block the path of those who through lack of a priestly vocation to such a high ministry should have applied to them the words of our Lord (Jn. 10:1): ‘Amen, amen I say to you: he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber’” (§1, n.1). 

“In order that things may not come to this result, there must be firmly impressed upon the souls of the bishops and local ordinaries an interest in a great means of immediately separating those who are to receive orders from those who are unworthy and not called” (§3, n. 4).

3.       Every candidate to Holy Orders must sign with his own hand and in his own handwriting a document in which he declares his desire to receive Holy Orders freely and spontaneously with all the responsibilities accompanying it, “since I experience and feel within me truly the call of God.”

c)    THE THEOLOGICAL REASON. It is a natural and immediate consequence of divine Providence, which extends itself to the smallest things as St. Thomas says.[6] It is absurd to think that one of the most excellent things, the priestly vocation, would have been abandoned to the arbitrary will and whim of man so that whether a man takes it or leaves it depends on if he has a desire for it.

It is not valid, then, to say that the aspirant to the priesthood does not sometimes sense a small hint of the divine calling within his interior but rather that he has full consciousness of possessing the self-determination to choose the priesthood, having calmly considered the spiritual benefits that have been reported of such a state. Nothing that we have finished explaining goes against vocation in the sense of a divine initiative since this apparent self-determination, perhaps the product of a long, cold, and painful deliberation, is in reality one of the forms of the divine call, an effect of God’s free election, according to the words of Sacred Scripture: “As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, whithersoever he will he shall turn it” (Prov. 21:1).

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This demonstration, so clear and evident, can be further confirmed with new and decisive arguments. It is worthwhile to explain some in order to restore fully the truth about this subject, so important and oftentimes so obscure. The arguments are:[7]

1.       The ecclesiastical ministry demands, by its very nature, a special help of grace in order to be able to exercise it conveniently. But God gives these special aids only, or at least principally, to those who were really called and not to those who contrary to the will of God have the audacity to consecrate themselves to the divine ministries.

2.       The priestly state cannot be worthily and laudably exercised without special qualities of soul and body. However, these talents are gifts of God, which He gives to those called precisely in virtue of their calling, and it is not given to the rest, at least according to the general norms of His ordinary providence.

3.       The priest holds the position of mediator between God and man, according to these words of St. Paul: “Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that the may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Heb. 5:1); and these other words: “We are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20); and finally: “Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). However, it would be absurd to think that someone, without being called by God, could have the audacity to chose the role of ambassador of Christ, dispenser of the divine mysteries, and mediator between God and man.

4.       The sacerdotal state carries with it the gravest obligations, which cannot morally be observed with fidelity for an entire lifetime without special helps from God. However, according to the ordinary norms of His divine Providence, God does not refuse any general graces and sufficient helps, but He grants special and efficacious graces only to those legitimately called by Him.

b) Canonical Suitability

In addition to a divine calling, it is required in the candidate those conditions or qualities that establish the aptitude or canonical suitability for the priesthood. Precisely the lack of this suitability will be the clear sign that God is not calling the candidate to the priesthood—even if the candidate believes otherwise—because in God there cannot be any contradiction. And to the contrary, the clear and manifest presence of that suitability in a man who willingly aspires to the priesthood is the clearest and most manifest proof of a divine vocation.

Canon Law emphatically expresses to bishops the gravest obligation not to promote to Holy Orders those candidates who lack this canonical suitability.

We will see in the following pages [545] what those qualities may be that constitute this canonical suitability. But first we must examine the last point of our discussion.

c) Admission on the Part of the Bishop

The final and authoritative judgment over the admission or denial to Holy Orders of the aspiring candidate rests solely with the bishop, who must not ordain any layman if it is not necessarily or useful for his diocese (cf. CIC 2025).

During the pontificate of St. Pius X, a commission of cardinals examined the work La vocation sacerdotale by Canon Lahitton—which had stirred up great commotion among authors—and had the following report issued regarding it:

“The book of the eminent Joseph Canon Lahitton, titled La vocation sacerdotale, is in no way to be condemned, but rather it is deserving of outstanding praise in the following points:

1. that no one has a right to ordination antecedently to the free choice of him by the bishop;

2. that the condition to which the Ordinary should look, and which is called a priestly vocation, by no means consists, at all events necessarily and as a general rule, in some interior aspiration of the subject or in impulses of the Holy Ghost to receive the priesthood;

3. but on the contrary nothing more is required in the candidate that he may rightly be invited by the bishop than a right intention together with a fitness based on those gifts of nature and grace, and confirmed by that goodness of life and sufficiency of learning, that afford a well-founded hope that he would be able rightly to fulfill the priestly duties and maintain its obligations holily.[8]

This teaching is of complete certitude. But it does not follow in any way that in order to be ordained a priest a prior divine vocation is not required—as some have affirmed, disproportionately exaggerating point 2 of the above declaration—but only that no one has a right to be ordained before the free choice of the bishop and that in order for the bishop to be able legitimately to invite him, it suffices that the candidate possess right intention together with a due suitability, that is, the unequivocal signs of a true and authentic divine vocation to the priesthood.

Without a doubt, because of the exaggerations of these authors to whom we have just alluded, it was seen that the Holy See was obliged to clarify the true import of point 2 of the previously mentioned declaration. And as we have seen above, in the instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Sacraments of December 27, 1930, approved and confirmed by Pius XI, there is a clear distinction made between a divine vocation to the priesthood and admission to the ecclesiastical state by the bishop. [546] We have already cited the texts and have nothing further to add here.

B) The State of Grace

431. The state of grace is an indispensable prerequisite in order to receive licitly the sacrament of Holy Orders. The reason is because it is a sacrament of the living, the reception of which presupposes a soul in possession of supernatural life (the state of grace). The reception of truly sacramental orders (diaconate, presbyterate, and episcopy) while conscious of mortal sin would constitute a grave sacrilege, apart from the mortal sin that would be committed by the unworthy reception of the Eucharist, which must be received together with major orders.

C) Right Intention

432. This is another indispensable condition demanded by the very nature of the sacrament.

This rectitude of intention means that the candidate by his ordination ought to strive exclusively, or at least principally, for the glory of God, the good of souls, and his own sanctification. If he would intend to obtain temporal goods, honors, or an easy life as his exclusive or principal goal, then he would commit a most serious mortal sin. It is not forbidden, however, that besides the primary supernatural end he may also seek after other secondary natural goods (e.g. in order to assist in the honest sustainment of his parents). But it must be understood that his intention would be more upright and purer the less it is influenced by these secondary, purely natural motives.

D) Holy Confirmation

433. It must be understood that the candidate set apart by the sacrament of Orders for the divine mysteries and the shepherding of the faithful must be fully confirmed in the Faith and strong in the practice of virtue. Moreover, it would not be good that a man, before reaching the status of a soldier in the military of Christ, should take on the responsibility of a chief or captain. Hence the necessity of receiving the sacrament of Confirmation before that of Orders.

Long ago this prerequisite was considered binding under pain of venial sin only. But modern moral theologians consider it to be binding under pain of mortal sin. The reason seems to come from canon 1033, which in order for ordination to be licit demands among other things that the ordinand “has received the sacrament of confirmation.” Since it deals with an intrinsically grave matter [547] and is necessary for liceity, it seems that its culpable omission would constitute a true mortal sin.[9]

E) Virtuous Life

434. Among the conditions required to bring the candidate to Holy Orders, the Code of Canon Law demands “qualities in keeping with the order to be received” (CIC 1029).

Not all the orders require the same sanctity of customs since they confer neither the same dignity nor the same powers. But it is evident that the candidate to any order ought to show clear signs of possessing a true and authentic priestly vocation through a solid piety and ought to be firmly resolved in completely renouncing, throughout his entire life, the empty promises of the world and of the flesh.

The more compromised case and that which might offer greater doubts regarding a legitimate priestly vocation in a young man is in relation to the virtue of chastity. Although in this as in all cases there may be exceptions, which must be determined, nevertheless as a general rule, the youth for whom it proves very difficult[10] to keep perfect chastity in the environment of the seminary or religious house—which is a kind of spiritual greenhouse, heated for piety and removed from all kinds of dangers—will find it almost impossible to keep custody when he must live “outdoors” in the midst of the storms of the world, which he will have to confront very closely.

There is a common agreement among authors in demonstrating that the candidate who has contracted a vice against chastity is not able to present himself to receive Holy Orders, and if he does so, sins mortally.

The length of time that he ought to remain in perfect chastity before approaching to receive Holy Orders cannot be mathematically determined since it depends greatly on the temperament, the energy of character, etc., of the candidate. In general authors tend to indicate a year before entering the priesthood. But the Holy Congregation of Seminaries [currently called the Congregation for Catholic Education] has given much more severe orders and desires that access to the priesthood be excluded not only from all those who have sinned with another person (even if this was only once), but also as a rule those who have fallen into external mortal sin after the penultimate year of philosophy.[11]

IN PRACTICE, the confessor or spiritual director must advise the candidate who has contracted an evil habit against purity to leave the seminary or religious house immediately in order [548] to choose another form of life more suitable for his weak virtue. And if the candidate obstinately persists on a path that is not his, absolution ought to be denied to his sins until he decides to leave or to postpone reception of orders until he has successfully achieved the total rectification of his habits.

F) Canonical Age

435. This is what Canon Law states:

Canon 1031. Ҥ1. The presbyterate is not to be conferred except on those who have completed the twenty-fifth year of age and possess sufficient maturity; an interval of at least six months is to be observed between the diaconate and the presbyterate. Those destined to the presbyterate are to be admitted to the order of deacon only after completing the twenty-third year of age.

“§2. A candidate for the permanent diaconate who is not married is not to be admitted until after completing at least the twenty-fifth year of age; one who is married, not until after completing at least the thirty-fifth year of age and with the consent of his wife. 

“§3. The conference of bishops is free to establish norms which require an older age for the presbyterate and the permanent diaconate. 

“§4. A dispensation of more than a year from the age required according to the norm of §§1 and 2 is reserved to the Apostolic See.”

G) Requisite Knowledge

436. Canon Law states the following:

Canon 1032. Ҥ1. Those aspiring to the presbyterate can be promoted to the diaconate only after they have completed the fifth year of the curriculum of philosophical and theological studies.

“§2. After a deacon has completed the curriculum of studies and before he is promoted to the presbyterate, he is to take part in pastoral care, exercising the diaconal order, for a suitable time defined by the bishop or competent major superior. 

“§3. A person aspiring to the permanent diaconate is not to be promoted to this order unless he has completed the time of formation.”

The episcopate requires a doctorate or a licentiate in sacred theology or canon law, or at least true competence in these disciplines (CIC 378 § 1, 5°).

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H) Exercising the Minor Ministries and Keeping the Interstices[12]

437. Canon 1035 states the following:

“§1. Before any may be promoted to the diaconate, whether permanent or transitory, he must have received the ministries of lector and acolyte, and have exercised them for an appropriate time. 

“§2. Between the conferring of the ministry of acolyte and the diaconate there is to be an interval of at least six months.”

I) Other Requisites for Ordination

Canon Law indicates principally the following:

438. 1. Freedom to be Ordained. “For a person to be ordained, he must enjoy the requisite freedom. It is absolutely wrong to compel anyone, in any way or for any reason whatsoever, to receive orders, or to turn away from orders anyone who is canonically suitable” (CIC 1026).

439. 2. The Proper Declaration. “For a candidate to be promoted to the order of diaconate or priesthood, he must submit to the proper Bishop or to the competent major Superior a declaration written in his own hand and signed by him, in which he attests that he will spontaneously and freely receive the sacred order and will devote himself permanently to the ecclesiastical ministry, asking at the same time that he be admitted to receive the order” (CIC 1036).

440. 3. Acceptance of Celibacy. “A candidate for the permanent diaconate who is not married and likewise a candidate for the priesthood, is not to be admitted to the order of diaconate unless he has, in the prescribed rite, publicly before God and the Church undertaken the obligation of celibacy, or unless he has taken perpetual vows in a religious institute” (CIC 1037).

441. 4. Spiritual Exercises [i.e. a Retreat]. “All who are to be promoted to any order must make a retreat for at least five days, in a place and in the manner determined by the Ordinary. Before he proceeds to the ordination, the Bishop must have assured himself that the candidates have duly made the retreat” (CIC 1039).

II.     ABSENCE OF IRREGULARITIES AND IMPEDIMENTS

In addition to the positive qualities or conditions which we have finished examining, the candidate for orders must possess certain negative qualities, [550] that is, must be free from so-called irregularities and from simple impediments that prohibit the reception of orders. We will examine each of these separately.

A) Irregularities in General

441.2. 1. The Notion. In ecclesiastical law, an irregularity is understood to be a perpetual, canonical impediment that prohibits the reception of orders or the exercise of those orders already received.

We will briefly explain the terms of the definition:

AN IMPEDIMENT, that is, a certain inability for the clerical state, either culpable or by no fault of the one who has it.

CANONICAL, that is, established by the Church in view of the dignity and honor of the priestly ministry and the reverence owed to Holy Orders. No irregularity can be incurred except from this viewpoint and which has been expressly defined by Canon Law.

PERPETUAL, at least, intrinsically; that is, it does not cease with the simple passage of time, but may be overlooked only by a dispensation or a provision of ecclesiastical law. This is distinguished from a simple impediment, which ends, as we shall see, when the cause that produces it disappears.

THAT PROHIBITS THE RECEPTION OF ORDERS. This is the primary and direct effect of an irregularity. Note, however, that an irregularity does not affect the validity of ordination but only its liceity; although in itself, it binds the person gravely.

OR THE EXERCISE OF THOSE RECEIVED, even though the irregularity was contracted after ordination. This is the secondary and indirect effect of an irregularity.

442. 2. Foundation. The remote foundation of irregularities is found in natural law and in divine positive law, which demand due reverence and honor for the sacred ministries. The proximate foundation is in ecclesiastical law as we have already said.

443. 3. Division. The following summary chart shows the different classes of irregularities recognized by Canon Law:

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a) By defect. These stem from some physical defect or moral incompatibility that is not fitting to the sacred ministry.

b) By delict. These proceed from a personal sin that is grave, external, completed with full deliberation, and committed after baptism.

c) Antecedent, if it is contracted before ordination.

d) Consequent, if committed after.

e) Total, if it impedes the reception or exercise of any order.

f) Partial, if it impedes only the ascent to a higher order or the exercise of some order (e.g. the priest that lacks a thumb is irregular with respect to celebrating the Holy Mass but not with respect to hearing confessions).

g) Public, if it has been made known among the faithful.

h) Occult, if it isn’t and probably will never be known by the faithful.

444. 4. Subject. Irregularities affect only the baptized male; and if it is a matter of irregularity from a crime, the subject must be able to commit it (in other words, he has matured out of childhood).

The unbaptized are neither the subject of irregularities nor of the sacrament of orders. But they can become the subject of each after receiving baptism (for instance, if they receive baptism from a non-Catholic as in the case of extreme necessity), or if the defect can remain after baptism, affecting the person who still has it.

445. 5. Conditions. In order to incur an irregularity, the following are required:

a)       IT IS CERTAIN, that is, the crime or defect on which the irregularity is based exists or can be certainly verified. With this condition, the irregularity is contracted by the mere fact that what it is based on is verified, without the need for any declaration from the Church.

A doubtful irregularity is null. The reason is that in the case of something hateful, it should be interpreted strictly, and in the case of something doubtful, it should not be presumed but must be proven.

b)      THE ACTION that brings the attached irregularity by delict must be a personal, mortal sin, external, completed deliberately, and committed after baptism. Everything that excuses a grave sin (e.g. lack of grave matter, a fault of advertence, good faith, etc.) will also excuse from the irregularity.

However, an occult sin with all the characteristics that we have just indicated is sufficient to contract an irregularity.

Ignorance of irregularities, whether from a crime or defect, does not exempt one from them. The same may be said of impediments (CIC 1045). The reason is because irregularities are not properly speaking a penalty or a punishment (as it is with excommunication for instance), but they are rather an obstacle or an impediment that prohibits the reception or exercise of orders.

446. 6. Multiplication. “Irregularities and impediments are multiplied if they arise from different causes, not however from the repetition [552] of the same cause, unless it is a question of the irregularity arising from the commission of willful homicide or from having actually procured an abortion” (CIC 1046).

From this principle it may be inferred that a priest who is suspended from exercising orders contracts only one irregularity if he celebrates Mass several times. On the other hand, the man who commits ten homicides has ten irregularities.

447. 7. Cessation. Irregularities cease only by a dispensation from a legitimate superior granted in the internal or external forum. Simple impediments cease when the cause for them disappears (e.g. by the termination of military service) or through a dispensation from a superior.

448. 8. Author of a Dispensation. 1. THE APOSTOLIC SEE can dispense from all classes of irregularities and impediments. This faculty is exercised by means of the Sacred Congregation of Sacraments (or of Religious) for these if they are not public; through the Sacred Penitentiary if they are occult; by the Holy Office [the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith], if it deals with irregularities or defects relative to the Faith.

2. ORDINARIES can dispense those under their jurisdiction as well as religious in the same place, either by themselves or by means of another, from all irregularities that proceed from an occult delict (except one motivated by voluntary homicide or by the procuring and carrying out of an abortion) or from any other which has led to a judicial forum.[13]

They are also able to dispense from those which may be doubtful, provided that they are those that the Roman Pontiff usually dispenses from. They can also grant a dispensation when it might be difficult to appeal to the Holy See or when there may be a grave danger in the delay.

3. ANY CONFESSOR has, with respect to those persons who can have their confession heard, the same faculties as those of the ordinary that we explained in the first paragraph of number 2 above in more urgent occult cases if they cannot go to the ordinary and if there may be a danger of grave harm or infamy but only so that the penitent can exercise licitly the orders already received (CIC 1048).

449. 9. Manner of Petitioning for a Dispensation. The following is set out by Canon Law (CIC 1049):

Ҥ1. Petitions to obtain a dispensation from irregularities or impediments must indicate all the irregularities and impediments. Nevertheless, a general dispensation is valid even for those omitted in good faith, except [553] for the irregularities mentioned in can. 1041, n. 4, and for others brought to the judicial forum, but not for those omitted in bad faith.

Ҥ2. If it is a question of the irregularity from voluntary homicide or a procured abortion, the number of the delicts also must be mentioned for the validity of the dispensation.

“§3. A general dispensation from irregularities and impediments to receive orders is valid for all the orders.”

B) Irregularities in Particular

450. As it has been stated, irregularities can be through delict or through defect. The former always suppose a grave fault in the one who has committed it; the latter can affect innocent persons. Here is a complete list of each of the irregularities according to the new Code of Canon Law:

Canon 1040. “Those affected by any impediment, whether perpetual, which is called an irregularity, or simple, are prevented from receiving orders. The only impediments incurred, however, are those contained in the following canons.”

Canon 1041. “The following are irregular for receiving orders:

1. A person who labors under some form of amentia or other psychic illness due to which, after experts have been consulted, he is judged unqualified to fulfill the ministry properly;

2. A person who has committed the delict of apostasy, heresy, or schism;

3. A person who has attempted marriage, even only civilly, while either impeded personally from entering marriage by a matrimonial bond, sacred orders, or a public perpetual vow of chastity, or with a woman bound by a valid marriage or restricted by the same type of vow;

4. A person who has committed voluntary homicide or procured a completed abortion and all those who positively cooperated in either;

5. A person who has mutilated himself or another gravely and maliciously or who has attempted suicide;

6. A person who has placed an act of orders reserved to those in the order of episcopate or presbyterate while either lacking that order or prohibited from its exercise by some declared or imposed canonical penalty.”

Canon 1042. “The following are simply impeded from receiving orders:

1. A man who has a wife, unless he is legitimately destined to the permanent diaconate;

2. A person who exercises an office or administration forbidden to clerics according to the norm of cann. 285 and 286 for which he must render an account, until he becomes free by having relinquished the office or administration and rendered the account; [554] 

3. A neophyte unless he has been proven sufficiently in the judgment of the ordinary.”

Canon 1043. “If the Christian faithful are aware of impediments to sacred orders, they are obliged to reveal them to the ordinary or pastor before the ordination.”

Canon 1044. “The following are irregular for the exercise of orders received:

1. A person who has received orders illegitimately while affected by an irregularity to receive them;

2. A person who has committed a delict mentioned in can. 1041, n. 2, if the delict is public;

3. A person who has committed a delict mentioned in can. 1041, nn. 3, 4, 5, 6.

“The following are impeded from the exercise of orders:

1. A person who has received orders illegitimately while prevented by an impediment from receiving them;

2. A person who is affected by amentia or some other psychic illness mentioned in can. 1041, n. 1 until the ordinary, after consulting an expert, permits the exercise of the order.”

Footnotes:

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[1] Cf. CAPPELLO, De sacramentis vol. 4, n. 363. We follow this author closely in the following pages.

[2] Cf. 1,22,104.

[3] 1,22,3.

[4] I.e., an absolute moral obligation binding upon the person, regardless of their personal inclinations.—Translator’s note.

[5] AAS 23,120 ff.

[6] 1,22,3.

[7] Cf. CAPPELLO, S.I., op. cit., n. 370, with whom we are in total agreement in this matter.

[8] Circular Letter of the Secretariat of State to the Bishops of July 2, 1912 (AAS 4.485).

[9] Cf. CAPPELLO, op. cit., n. 405.

[10] This does not mean to say that it is necessary that the candidate does not experience temptations, even if they may be very vehement, but that they can be overcome, and in fact that he does conquer them with the help of divine grace and by employing the appropriate means.

[11] Cf. ARREGUI, Compendio de teología moral (Bilbao 1945) n. 680.

[12] The space of time that must pass between receiving different orders according to Canon Law.

[13] Actually, bishops and religious superiors enjoy wider faculties with respect to dispensing from irregularities.

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Source: Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, OP, Moral Theology for Laity, Volume II: The Sacraments, trans. by Richard Grablin (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2006), 539–554.

This translation is from a reprint of the 5th Spanish edition, published originally in November 1994. The Spanish title is Teología moral para seglares, II: Los sacramentos.