Does a [Western Rite Roman Catholic] priest who renounces his vows still get to participate in the sacraments of the Church as a regular member? Or is he excommunicated and/or a persona non grata?
Do the circumstances of his renunciation matter (as in, if he quit the priesthood to marry vs. quit the priesthood because it just wasn’t for him and he wanted a day job)?
He becomes a civilian Catholic. He is certainly not excommunicated unless he did something separate that is subject to excommunication (it’s hard to do). He can certainly attend Mass.
I’ll look but there may be a technical position that you can’t undo Holy Orders (once a priest, always a priest) and that the Holy Spirit doesn’t remove whatever charisms Holy Orders gave him, which would make him technically a “retired priest” who could still perform, say, a valid marriage. But this paragraph is speculation (first one’s not).
While were on the subject, a related question:
There was an episode of Law and Order I remember seeing, where eventually a guilt-ridden priest told the police about another priest that confessed to him that he had sex with an altar boy. Their bishop confronted the first priest and told him that he will be excommunicated and/or barred from receiving the sacraments, and he has put his mortal soul in danger.
Is this true? Is that a serious enough of an offense for a priest?
I’d think in the situation detailed by Law and Order, the first priest would be lambasted for breaking the sanctity of the Confessional.
All Sacraments put an indelible “mark” upon the soul. The priest will always be a priest, however he can be released from his vows and live as a “civilian.” He still has the authority of the Apostolic succession, but he won’t be asked to consecrate at Mass. In a pinch, he can hear a last Confession and perform Absolution.
I suppose if he wants to quit the priesthood and convert to Mormonism, the Church would release him from his vows. However, if he were to reconsider, the Church would welcome him back.
With only one wife, I suppose.
~VOW
Yep, once a priest always a priest turns out to be true.
To further clarify, once a Catholic, always a Catholic (again that pesky Holy Spirit putting his graffiti on you when you’re baptized). “Excommunicated” means you can’t, well, take communion. You’re still a Catholic and obliged to, say, attend Mass, obey other canon law, etc. Good news is if you do that, you can get the excommunication remitted, if you’re lucky, and be back in full communion.
ETA “obliged” means in the eyes of the Church, who will presume that you’ll eventually come to your senses, fly right, and qualify to get back in. It’s not like they’ll chase you down if you don’t though.
The seal of the confessional appears, from my quick skim of some references, to be quite stringent. I think the conventional answer would come out that the confessor cannot repeat what was said to him, period, but that he can do everything else in his power to stop the situation and get the penitent priest to fess up. E.g., he could counsel the penitent to turn himself in, and could reasonably deny absolution (which is what the penitent is there seeking, presumably) if the penitent does not demonstrate sincere contrition by promising to do so, and following through.
What is the old ritual? “Tu es sacerdos in aeternum,” or roughly “You are a priest forever.” Once a priest you are always a priest. As I understand it, one can become suspended, resigned, terminated or laicized.
Suspended means roughly the priest is not allowed to perform priestly functions, but they remain a priest. A suspension can be lifted. Any excommunicated priest would also be suspended, probably in anticipation and as part of the excommunication process. But a suspension does not necessarily follow wrongdoing. One can be suspended due to any other cause that would prevent a priest from fulfilling their duties, like an illness. Although I understand that in general that is rare.
Resigned means the priest has left both the clergy and church. In theory the church still recognizes the underlying authority all priests retain “forever,” but they have no right to exercise that authority. This is functionally equivalent to a voluntary excommunication and suspension.
Terminated is technical. Basically a priest that only partially completes the process of becoming a priest and is ordained but for whatever reason isn’t allowed Incardination and thus never begins active service is considered terminated. A terminated priest would be considered more or less to be like any other lay member, but is still a priest, kinda sorta.
Laicized means that the church considers the original ordination to have been invalid and thus never took place. It is the priestly equivalent of an annulment. If there were no other bar the priest would again be just like any other lay member.
Depending on exactly how a priest left or was removed from service he may receive any of the above statuses. And depending on that, may or may not be eligible to participate in the various sacraments like any other member. Only a Resigned priest would automatically be barred from sacraments. Suspended, Teminated and Laicized priests may very well retain good standing within the church.
Well, shit, we can all do that. Weren’t you trained in performing Baptism, Confession, and Extreme Unction in elementary school? We couldn’t consecrate hosts or marry folks, but we could do those if there wasn’t a priest handy. We had a crucifix with all the fixin’s hanging on the wall, Just In Case.
To dropzone:
Yeah I know we all have the capability to hear a Last Confession, or to do a Baptism. But Absolution is completely out of our realm, unless we’ve taken Holy Orders.
And the catechism was a bit beyond my reach in elementary school. I’m an adult convert.
~VOW
A religious (priest or nun) who has taken final (lifetime) vows can only be released from them by the Pope. If he/she just walks away, that gets excommunication latae sententiae (automatic). Breaking the seal of the confessional is among other actions which also incur this.
A laicized priest can validly perform all sacraments but it would be illegal and a sin. It’s like taking a doctor’s licence: He still know medicine, he can’t work as a doctor.
For those who may need some more clarification here: there’s a distinction between the validity and the licitness of a sacrament. A sacrament can be valid (effectual), but not licit (permitted).
In other words, if you were to confess to a laicized priest, the confession would have effect and your sins would indeed be remitted, but it would not have been done according to church law.
Sorta saying that the priest did wrong, but you didn’t?
Actually, a priest cannot make turning oneself in a condition of absolution.
ETA: This thread also addresses a whole bunch of hypotheticals:
Yeah, but that assumes you didn’t know he wasn’t authorized to perform those specific Sacraments at the time. If you knew, then you were willfully breaking the rules and therefore you did wrong too.
And priests cannot marry people except if they’ve been released from their vows. It’s the spouses who perform the Sacrament; the priest is, like everybody else present, merely a witness. Having a priest present at a wedding and having that priest record that he was present at it is not a requirement for a marriage to be sacramentally valid; it is something which came about in order to make it easier that the spouses had, indeed, taken each other as spouse (as opposed to the previous system of “having to call up the whole village to prove that people knew about it”).
No.
Only the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders place such an indelible mark on the soul (or, as the new Cathechism describes it, “imprint a character.”) This is why these sacraments can be received only once. The Eucharist, Penance, Last Rites, and Matrimony can be received multiple times and do not imprint any indelible mark on the soul.
I say it’s a bit stronger than what your sentence implies. The Code of Canon Law, Can. 983 ß1, provides:
And Can. 984 ß1:
No. “Laicization” is the common term for what canon law calls the “loss of the clerical state.” (Can. 1336 ß1 5ƒ ). It means simply that the man, although still imprinted with the character of Holy Orders, is nonetheless not able to licitly execute any of the functions of a priest. As Can 292 puts it, “A cleric who loses the clerical state in accordance with the law, loses thereby the rights that are proper to the clerical state and is no longer bound by any obligations of the clerical state . . . He is prohibited from exercising the power of order, without prejudice to can. 976. He is automatically deprived of all offices and roles and of any delegated power.”
Interestingly enough, he is not auytomatically released from his vow of celibacy. That takes a separate act, which is reserved to the Pope. (Can. 291).
What you describe is an anullment decree – a Declaration of Nullity of Sacred Ordination. This process, described by Can. 1708 et seq, is very similar to a marriage anullment, complete with the appointment of a defender of the bond if necessary, and requires a finding by the local Ordinary or local tribunal, and a finding by appeal. Once the second finding is made, the subject “…loses all rights proper to the clerical state and is freed from all its obligations.” (Can. 1712) In effect, this is a finding that, despite appearances, the Sacrament of Holy Orders was never validly conferred in the first place.
No, not quite. It’s saying that the priest truly DID something (absolved you, baptized your kid, etc.), even though he wasn’t ALLOWED to.