Williamson was consecrated bishop by Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, a schismatic bishop, against the express orders of Pope John Paul II. Lefebvre and Williamson were excommunicated as a result, although Pope Benedict has since lifted the excommunication.
So, under the canons of the church, is Williamson truly a bishop, although irregularly consecrated, or did the Pope’s bar on the consecration render it void ab initio?
Not exactly. He was ordained in defiance of the Pope’s explicit orders, by a valid bishop according to an outmoded but acceptable form. That makes his ordination valid but not licit in their views. When his excommunication was lifted, there would have been some instruction on whether he could exercise his orders (probably not, based on the idea of laicization.) I susect Bricker may have a better handle on the canon law in question, but that’s my grasp of it, based on news reports about Williamson and the SSPX.
The Church distinguishes between valid and invalid consecrations, and also between licit and illicit consecrations. A valid consecration means it actually happened—that is, the person performing it had the power to do so, and properly said the magic words to make someone a bishop. A licit consecration means the person performing it had the proper authority (permission) to do so. It is possible for a consecration to be valid but illicit (as is the case with Lefebvre’s).
so if Williamson had a conversion (again!), quit the SSPX, told Benedict he accepted all of Vatican II and was ready to serve, and Benedict decided Williamson was sincere, Benedict could appoint him to a diocese without the need for a re-ordination as bishop?
For the Catholics, you not only need to be ordained to the episcopate or the priesthood but you have to be endowed with the ‘faculties’ to celebrate a sacrament, preach, etc. The first is irrevocable, the second isn’t. When a clergyman willfully goes aginst the Vatican, his own bishop, etc., or chooses to ‘leave the priesthood to marry’, his faculties are revoked. He remains a priest (or a bishop, if consecrated to the episcopate) but he holds the right to do those thngs reserved to the priesthood or the episcopate only in an emergency, when no ‘regular’ priest is available, or by special permission of the ordinary. This is laicization.
A small note is that there’s no specific religious distinction between priests and Bishops. That is, only entry into the preisthood is considered to have fundamentally altered you. Becoming Bishop is funcitonally a posting within the preisthood, though a high-ranking one with authority over other priests.
It’s sort of like the difference between a general and a soldier. They both went through something to make them soldiers. The general has been promoted to a high level of responsibility and authority, but he is still considered to be a soldier within the military. That is seperate from the civilian sphere. He can lawfully kill other soldiers in times of war and must avoid killing civilians if he can, and his counterparts may lawfully kill him within the same practices.
This is incorrect. A man can receive the sacrament of Holy Orders up to three times: Once to become a deacon, once while a deacon to become a priest, and once while a priest to become a bishop. There is not, however, a separate sacrament or application of sacrament to become an archbishop, cardinal, or even Pope.
However, at least in the U.S., officers such as generals are commissioned by the President, and soldiers (from sergeants or their equivalents on down) are not. I don’t think you can directly analogize to Catholic clergy.
Ah, someone who learned his catechism from the Baltimore Catechism! Like me.
The current Catechism says that these sacraments “imprint a character.” Same concept, different words.
Right. There are acts only a bishop can perform. A priest may not ordain priests, for example. So there is a difference between the reception of Holy Orders for the diaconate, the presbyterate, and the episcopate.
You’re right on the money. His ordination was sacramentally valid but not legal, to give the situation a different spin.
I don’t think he was ever laicized. That refers to one of the harshest penalties that may be imposed: defrocking, or being dismissed from the clerical state. This doesn’t erase the mark of Holy Orders – nothing can do that – but it forbids the cleric from exercising any ministerial function again[sup]*[/sup]. There are lesser penalties, such as excommunication and interdiction, that temporarily impose the same bar, but may be lifted when the offense in question is remediated.
The only exception I can think of: a laicized priest or bishop may still, in grave circumstances, licitly confer the sacrament of penance.
This, by the way, is the Wesleyan and Reformed theory – SB is not so much incorrect as erroneously stating one (actually two) tradition’s ecclesiology as valid where it is not. The longstanding tradition of the Church, from ca. 100 AD when we have the first non-New Testament mainstream Christian writings, down to ca. 1500, in all branches, was that the episcopate was a distinct ‘order’ of clergy, to which some presbyters (=priests=elders) were raised. It remains the case in the Assyrian, Oriental Orthodox (Coptic, Armenian, and Jacobite), Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and some Lutheran traditions.
Thanks. Re laicization, it was my understanding that someone voluntarily laicized, e.g., a Roman Rite priest seeking to marry, was permitted to:
[ul]
[li]Give last rites, baptize, and absolve in cases of emergency[/li][li]Perform other priestly acts only with the consent of his ordinary* and where ‘grave cause’ exists[/li][li]minister to and for his own family pastorally under certain circumstances, with the consent of his pastor and ordinary[/li][/ul]
“Ordinary” in this context is the bishop with faculties to ordain (hence the name) and govern priests’ activities for his diocese – i.e., normally his diocesan bishop or archbishop.
Actually, anyone at all (even a non-Christian) can baptize in cases of emergency. There’s nothing special about a laicized priest there. All that’s necessary is a sincere intent to baptize, water, and words to the effect of “I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. Though, absent an emergency, it’s proper for baptism to be performed by a priest in good standing.
Any bishop can speak ex cathedra – it simply means, “formally and officially, after due study, from the cathedra, the official episcopal chair.” A bishop’s home church is a cathedral, not because it’s big, beautiful, Gothic, or conducts services with enough pomp and circumstance to warm Elgar’s heart, but because it’s the bishop’s seat in the most literal sense, it’s the church where his cathedra is kept.
The Pope speaks ex cathedra for the whole church (according to Catholic thought) because he occupies the seat of Peter, head of the apostiles, first among bishops, patriarchs, etc. And the idea behind papal infallibility, again by Catholic theology, is that when the Pope, after study and prayer, teaches something:
[ul]
[li]from the chair of Peter[/li][li]explicitly as official and binding doctrine[/li][li]belief in which is binding on all the faithful[/li][/ul] - when and only when those criteria are met, the Holy Spirit will ensure that he does not teach falsehood. Not necessarily that he will be guided to the best or most salubrious expression of the truth, just that it wll not be in error.
While the Pope’s official teachings, and even individual bishop’s official teachings, are not governed by this unless those criteria are met, they too are done after study and prayer and carry authority – but not the guarantee of infaillibility. It’s important to note how seldom an ex cathedra statement is made – only two dogmas have been officially proclimed that way since 1850, and only a handful of doctrinal teachings have been delivered with those criteria. The rest consitutes the ordinary and extraordinary teaching magisterium of the church.
