Peace, Love, and Joy

Yesterday, I wrote a short article on Fr. Cekada and his opinions of the TLM. As I was going to bed last night, I decided that I would look up some of the questions that I had raised in some theology manuals so as to be sure that I hadn’t made a massive mistake. Indeed, I was pleasantly surprised. Here are some things that I found in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma  by Ludwig Ott:

1. The Matter of the Sacrament of Holy Orders: The matter of the Sacrament of Holy Orders is the laying on of the bishops hands on the ordinand. This means that the hands of the bishop must touch the head of the ordinand. As Ott points out, there may be instances in which the bishop may stretch out his hands and not touch the head of the ordinand. In the writings of Pope Pius XII, there are references to this (Sacramentum Ordinis, for example).

2. The Consecration of A Bishop: In order for a bishop to be validly and licitly consecrated, there must be at least three bishops present at the consecration. This means that there must be at least one consecrator of the bishop and two co-consecrators. In order for the Sacrament to be valid only, there must be only one bishop present. Note that Ott and other theologians say that the Sacrament is only valid. It is not licit which means that it is not legal in the eyes of the Church unless there are three witnesses.

In terms of the consecration of traditionalist bishops, this raises an important questions. Are any of the bishops ordained in traditionalists groups validly consecrated? The answer to this is yes because they were consecrated by another bishop. But were the consecrations licit? The answer is no for multiple reasons.

1. The most glaringly obvious one is that none of the bishops consecrated in traditionalist groups received their consecrations directly from Rome. This means that they were consecrated without the consent of the Roman Pontiff and, therefore, their consecrations are not licit in the least. Even if there were three bishops present, these consecrations would still not be viewed as licit because they were not done in union with Rome.

2. Ironically, these bishops then have the power to confirm laypeople and ordain priests, but not one of these Sacraments is licit in the eyes of the Church. I know that there are many people that will ask about the validity of the consecrations performed by Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngo Dinh Thuc because his right to ordain priests and consecrate bishops in emergency situations was never revoked. In this case, I will not comment until I have the facts straight and I will then write a longer article.

For anyone of you that is even remotely interested in the writings of Fr. Ludwig Ott. You can purchase Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma here (https://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/page/shop:flypage/product_id/79/keywords/fundamentals+catholic+dogma/)  or on amazon.com.