Traditionalist Catholic - Validity of Holy Orders of Traditionalist Clergy

Validity of Holy Orders of Traditionalist Clergy

Catholic doctrine holds that any validly ordained bishop can ordain any other baptised male as a priest or a bishop, provided that he has the correct intention and uses an acceptable ordination liturgy. This remains the case whether or not the ordination is performed with official approval, and even if the individuals involved are not Catholics. The conferring of holy orders may therefore be valid but illicit.

The Catholic Church obviously considers the orders of traditionalist clergy who are in good standing with the Holy See, such as the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, to be both valid and licit. It sees as valid but illicit the orders of the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, and accordingly considers them to be forbidden by law to exercise priestly offices. As for the "independent" traditionalists, whether bishops or priests, it certainly sees their ordination as illicit, but its judgement on the validity is less clear. The Holy See declared devoid of canonical effect the consecration ceremony conducted by Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục for the Carmelite Order of the Holy Face group at midnight of 31 December 1975, while expressly refraining from pronouncing on its validity. It made the same statement with regard also to any later ordinations that those bishops might confer, saying that, "as for those who have already thus unlawfully received ordination or any who may yet accept ordination from these, whatever may be the validity of the orders (quidquid sit de ordinum validitate), the Church does not and will not recognise their ordination (ipsorum ordinationem), and will consider them, for all legal effects, as still in the state in which they were before, except that the ... penalties remain until they repent."

Traditionalists themselves are divided on the question of the validity of the orders conferred using the rite promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1968. Those who deny or put in doubt the validity of the sacramental liturgies as revised after the Second Vatican Council pass the same negative judgement on all such ordinations. The Society of Saint Pius V split from that of Saint Pius X for reasons that included Archbishop Lefebvre's acceptance of priests ordained according to the revised sacramental rites as members of the traditionalist Society that he founded.