Priest "resigns"?

[Brendan]

cestusdei:

Actually there are circumstances where an ordination could be declared null. But it would be very very hard to prove. It would mean that all of the sacraments that priest did, other then baptism and marriage, would also be null. That would be a huge headache. So the bar to prove it is extremely high. I haven’t heard of a case in modern times.

To invalidly ordain a priest is also very hard to do.

A Sacrament requires Form, Matter, Intent and Authority.

To be invalid, the Ordination would have to have had an invalid Form, which is something that would be apparent during the Ordination itself.

For the Matter to be invalid, the Matter is the priest himself. He would have to either have not be Baptized and Confirmed, or not male.
The Baptized part would be the most likely and why Seminaries are very careful on the subject.

Intent is on the Bishop, in fact most Ordinations have 3 Bishops do the Ordination. This is done for purposes of both Intent and Authority.

The last one is Authority. The Authority required is that the one performing the Ordination be in Holy Orders of at least the same ‘rank’ as the Ordination is for.

Often 3 Bishops are used as this confirms that even if one Bishop had invalid Intent or Ordination, the Ordination still occurs.

So for a priest to have an invalid Ordination is almost an impossibility, by design.

 

[philjane]

John Higgins:

Found in another spot:

The only voluntary laicization of a bishop in recent times I know of was Bishop James Patrick Shannon an auxiliary in St. Paul-Minneapolis. He did get married.

if a priest gets married in a civil union—can he still receive the sacraments----i didn’t think that he could but i know of a situation where an ex-priest is going to communion every sunday & i don’t think that he has been laizied yet