New Holy Orders possible?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Spirithound
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Spirithound

Guest
Jesus ordained the Apostles as Bishops at the Last Supper. Later on, when the Apostles ordained Deacons, and later still, when Bishops began ordaining Priests, we came to realize that the Orders of Priests and Deacons were contained within the Order of Bishops from the time of the Last Supper.

It seems that the Orders of Deacons and Priests (and the authorities proper to them) were conferred out of some necessity. Could this leave open the possibility of a new Holy Order in the future which empowers a man to confer different sacraments? Like a Priest who could ordain Priests, but not Bishops? Or a Deacon who could hear confessions?

Maybe another way to ask this is whether the Church has the power, or the authority to sort of “parcel out” sacramental authority, differently to how it is now?
 
Spirithound said:
Maybe another way to ask this is whether the Church has the power, or the authority to sort of “parcel out” sacramental authority, differently to how it is now?
Click to expand...
I highly doubt it. I’d look at Trent (on the sacrament of Holy Orders) and Vatican II (Christus Dominus and Presbyterorum Ordinis for specifics on Bishops and Priests, Lumen Gentium for more general information) and Pope Paul VI’s Ad pascendum (on Deacons) for definitive teachings on the nature of the ministerial priesthood.
 
Spirithound said:
Jesus ordained the Apostles as Bishops at the Last Supper. Later on, when the Apostles ordained Deacons, and later still, when Bishops began ordaining Priests, we came to realize that the Orders of Priests and Deacons were contained within the Order of Bishops from the time of the Last Supper.

It seems that the Orders of Deacons and Priests (and the authorities proper to them) were conferred out of some necessity. Could this leave open the possibility of a new Holy Order in the future which empowers a man to confer different sacraments? Like a Priest who could ordain Priests, but not Bishops? Or a Deacon who could hear confessions?

Maybe another way to ask this is whether the Church has the power, or the authority to sort of “parcel out” sacramental authority, differently to how it is now?
Click to expand...
Surprisingly, the answer is yes, but not in the way that most people might think at first.

The 3 major orders of deacon, priest, and bishop cannot be changed.

The minor orders however can be changed. Subdeacon used to be a major order. This order has since been supressed, but there’s nothing preventing a future Pontiff from restoring it. Subdeacon is still a minor order (as it always has been) in the Eastern Churches.

Other minor orders (and these have varied considerably): reader/lector, cantor, exorcist, porter (doorkeeper), acolyte. Some of these have been combined over the years. Sometimes they were/are conferred at the same time, at other times, they have subsisted within another order (just for example, one might not be ordained an acolyte, but the order of acolyte is “included” in subdeaconate).

Subdeacons used to be able to witness marriages in some circumstances. Those in minor orders (at least Lectors) could also confer certain limited blessings.

So yes, in a certain sense, the Church could establish (or re-establish) certain orders, but can’t change the 3 major orders of deacon, priest, and bishop.
 
Spirithound said:
Jesus ordained the Apostles as Bishops at the Last Supper. Later on, when the Apostles ordained Deacons, and later still, when Bishops began ordaining Priests, we came to realize that the Orders of Priests and Deacons were contained within the Order of Bishops from the time of the Last Supper.

It seems that the Orders of Deacons and Priests (and the authorities proper to them) were conferred out of some necessity. Could this leave open the possibility of a new Holy Order in the future which empowers a man to confer different sacraments? Like a Priest who could ordain Priests, but not Bishops? Or a Deacon who could hear confessions?

Maybe another way to ask this is whether the Church has the power, or the authority to sort of “parcel out” sacramental authority, differently to how it is now?
Click to expand...
The church may increase the number of orders that are “sacramentals” - which as was pointed out previously are the minor orders.

As to whether priests can ordain priests, there were those who did hold that they could, but this was, and is, largely in the realm of theological speculation. The current, and longstanding practice of the Church is to treat such ordinations as invalid, and those who attempt them incur canonical penalties. For ordinations by priests, there are previous threads which a search of the forum should turn up.
 
The current, and longstanding practice of the Church is to treat such ordinations as invalid, and those who attempt them incur canonical penalties.

Mr. Lucian Pulvermacher, formerly OFM, and alias Pope Pius XIII has come up with the satanic fiction of “potestatas ligata”, claiming that the presbyterate and episcopate were the same order.

This is the same error embraced by Protestants at the beginning of the Reformation.
 
AJV said:
As to whether priests can ordain priests, there were those who did hold that they could…
Click to expand...
That’s not quite what I am thinking of though. I was wondering whether there could ever be a new Order, which would outrank the Presbyterate, and thus could ordain to that Order, but would not be the Episcopate.
 
Spirithound said:
That’s not quite what I am thinking of though. I was wondering whether there could ever be a new Order, which would outrank the Presbyterate, and thus could ordain to that Order, but would not be the Episcopate.
Click to expand...
At one time, in certain places in the East, there was a rank called “chorepiscopos”–literally, “country bishop.”

These were basically suffragan bishops for oversight of rural areas around a city, but they were NOT granted faculties to ordain.

One or the other of the Ecumenical Councils–Chalcedon, I think–suppressed it, though it had fallen into abeyance decades before.
 
Cluny said:
Mr. Lucian Pulvermacher, formerly OFM, and alias Pope Pius XIII has come up with the satanic fiction of “potestatas ligata”, claiming that the presbyterate and episcopate were the same order.

This is the same error embraced by Protestants at the beginning of the Reformation.
Click to expand...
A “satanic fiction”? Rather strong perjorative words for a concept held by Aquinas.
 
Cluny said:
At one time, in certain places in the East, there was a rank called “chorepiscopos”–literally, “country bishop.”

These were basically suffragan bishops for oversight of rural areas around a city, but they were NOT granted faculties to ordain.

One or the other of the Ecumenical Councils–Chalcedon, I think–suppressed it, though it had fallen into abeyance decades before.
Click to expand...
FYI, the chor-episcopate is alive and well in the Syriac Churches, both CC and OC. Chorepiskopoi may, with episcopal delegation, ordain candidates to Minor Orders but never to a Major Order.
 
That is true. Aquinas, and many Thomists after him have held that view. It is also different from the errors of the Protestants. It may be less probable now in the light of Magisterial declarations. But it is not a view that can just be dismissed - it does have coherence within a particular strand of thought. I found reading a dissertation published by the CUA in their multivolume set “Studies in Sacred Theology” to be helpful. I think it is number 30-something (36? 35?)
 
AJV said:
I found reading a dissertation published by the CUA in their multivolume set “Studies in Sacred Theology” to be helpful. I think it is number 30-something (36? 35?)
Click to expand...
I learned a lot reading Eugene Correco’s essay about how jurisdiction and orders interact as an aspect of communio in Canon Law and Communio: Writings on the Constitutional Law of the Church ed. Borgonovo and Cattaneo. He tries to make theological/canonical sense of the medieval ordinations performed by abbots who weren’t bishops.
 
Just_Lurking said:
I learned a lot reading Eugene Correco’s essay about how jurisdiction and orders interact as an aspect of communio in Canon Law and Communio: Writings on the Constitutional Law of the Church ed. Borgonovo and Cattaneo. He tries to make theological/canonical sense of the medieval ordinations performed by abbots who weren’t bishops.
Click to expand...
Thanks JL. I got the book today and am looking forward to seeing what he says.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top