The other day I looked at UE 19 which has given many people cause to worry that they will be quizzed about their loyalty to the Novus Ordo when asking for the usus antiquior. The solution there is simply to refer to what the instruction actually says. Legitimacy does not mean anything other than lawfulness, legality, licitness and cannot be stretched to mean anything more than that.
UE 31 presents a different problem and has also exercised many people. Here is the text:
31. Dumtaxat Institutis Vitae Consecratae et Societatibus Vitae Apostolicae Pontificiae Commissioni Ecclesia Dei subditis, et his ubi servatur usus librorum liturgicorum formae extraordinariae, licet Pontificali Romano anni 1962 uti ad Ordines maiores et minores conferendos.What of a Bishop who is happy to accept as candidates for the priesthood in his Diocese young men who will celebrate the Sacred Liturgy exclusively according to the usus antiquior? At first sight, it seems that he must ordain them using the Novus Ordo rite. As I have emphasised before, I am not a canonist: I am a dogmatist and proud of it. Therefore I hope that canonists (especially blogging ones) might consider the following suggestion.
31. Only in Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life which are under the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and in those which use the liturgical books of the forma extraordinaria, is the use of the Pontificale Romanum of 1962 for the conferral of minor and major orders permitted.
A Bishop could set up in his diocese a Society of Apostolic Life for clerics who are attached to the usus antiquior. He could request the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to have the oversight for which it is legally competent (thus incidentally "future proofing" the Society to a certain degree.) Then he could lawfully ordain those clerics according the the usus antiquior after also ordaining them to the various minor orders.
What then of candidates who want to maintain the extraordinary form with due honour "on account of its venerable and ancient use" (UE 6) but are in a Diocese that does not ordain men exclusively for the usus antiquior? I am thinking of the case where a Bishop would be generous enough to use the older form of ordination at the request of a candidate, but would feel constrained by UE 31.
Surely in this case he could apply for a dispensation. The Church's law is not positivistic in the way that modern civil law tends to be: contrary custom and epikeia play a much larger part, and there is a whole chapter in the code about dispensations (canons 85-93.) As a non-canonist, I hesitate to quote sections from the code, since my canonical colleagues know their way around the interplay of canons and interpretations which make this an area where only fools rush in. Still, to my untrained eye, this does seem to be an area ripe for dispensation. Every day, people obtain dispensations from all sorts of ecclesiastical laws: is this one specially protected?
Photo credit: Institute of Christ the King
7 comments:
Father, couldn't the Bishop simply send any number of his seminarians to an FSSP Seminary and ordain them, or have them ordained forhis Diocese there?
Any English bishop setting up such an institute in his diocese - especially if it was able to accept more mature candidates for whom societies like the FSSP don't seem well designed - would be likely to increase the number of ordinations in his diocese considerably.
Maybe it is a prudent decision [for the time being] so that divisions in dioceses don't get wprse. I well recall a couple of years ago when at least two newly ordained priests decided to celebrate their Mass of Thanksgiving AKA '1st Mass' in the Extraordinary form. One even went so far to offer it as a solemn Mass on the High Altar of the former [now closed] diocesan seminary. It caused no end of negative comment throughout the Archdiocese in question, not to say the whole country , did the Archbishop no good in terms of how priests saw him and has made these two young priests 'marked.' Unfair? Unjust? Uncharitable? Yes to all three but that is the reality - so maybe it is a way of avoiding for the time being young hotheads making demands which might not be prudent in the present climate. Things could esily change in a few years - look at what has been achieved in a few short years since Summorum Pontificum. Brick by brick, as one blogger describes it - but let's not rebuild the Berlin Wall over night and find preists being ghettoised. I believe in the prudence and forbearance of the present Holy Father.
Ttony - yes, a Bishop could do that, but there is at least one diocesan Bishop who has his own seminary and welcomes candidates who want to celebrate the Liturgy according to he usus antiquior. It is ideal for the seminarians to be among fellow-diocesans if they are to serve in the Diocese.
It is not impossible that the interested bishop(s) might get a dispensation of the application of n. 31 if he(they) simply ask for it to the PCED (even though this procedure is not expressly foreseen) - at least for individual cases, not a generic dispensation. I believe que ça passera...
You make a possible case to (effectively) get around this article in the Instruction, but at the end of the day, what is really does is to draw a line around the circumstances surrounding traditional ordinations and does not - as it should - free up the practice for the whole Church. It has been said that this puts (exclusively) traditional priests, more or less, in a ghetto, and this is not allowing the Church to use the most effective tool against the crisis in the priesthood. Surely we must start the process of reform with a new generation of priests, including allowing them the traditional ordination, given it is a such a treasure as described by the Holy Father?
One step at a time, I suppose...
I think that the problem with ordinations is rather the fact that the issue of minor orders has not been sorted out in case people go about mixing the rites of ordination. A candidate who has already been ordained a deacon in the NO but then is ordained priest in the EF would raise questions as to whether he has properly followed all the steps, and quod Deus avertat, in some circles even the legitimacy of his ordination - an adder's nest best avoided. Even putting such reasoning in the instruction would be akward.
I expect that, should it be asked, dispensation for ordaining candidates solely in the EF (all the way from layman to priest in the EF) would be given.
Also, I'd be very interested what would happen if a bishop would decide to involve the FSSP in his seminary; I can imagine that it would even be efficient and convenient to send students to the FSSP outfit for some courses, and their students to the diocesan seminary for others (assuming the latter seminary is solid and supportive of the EF, of course). There are many countries where seminaries are being merged or closed, so such a solution might be mutually beneficial. But then the question would be, how to go about the rite of ordinations... it would be beyond silly to ordain half the class one way, and half the other.
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