[Question:]{.underline} Can a priest be removed from his vocation?
[Answer:]{.underline} A priestly vocation is given by God Himself. A man who desires to follow such a vocation will seek counsel from a spiritual director, who will help him to discern the signs of a vocation. Then he will enter into a Seminary or a religious community with the intention of following such a vocation. However the vocation does not consist in his subjective perception that he believes that he has a vocation. It consists in the calling of his bishop or superior, who after considering his years of studies and the good example of an upright life, approves him for priestly ordination. It is true that he must request this ordination, and in so doing confirm that he is doing so of his own free will, and that he willingly accepts all the obligations of this state in life, a state in which he is presumed to have acquired a certain degree of perfection.
Errors can certainly happen, but they are not frequent. A man can lie to his superiors about his personal disposition, and the superiors can make a too hasty judgment as to his good character. These are tragic. However, if a man acted with free will and did not directly deceive his superiors, then he can be sure that even if he may not have had all the usual subjective criteria of a priestly vocation, then it is God`s will and that he will receive all the graces necessary to be faithful to this vocation.
Much more frequent is the case of the priest, ordained with the best of dispositions, and all due care on the part of his superiors, who falls into lukewarmness, and eventually into very grievous sins. Such a scandalous priest has not lost his vocation; he has been unfaithful to it. It is a great human tragedy, as well as bringing much shame upon the Church. A true conversion of heart and life is necessary. If, however, his sins become public and scandalous, then his bishop or superior is obliged to punish him, after due canonical monitions. The Church has a variety of such punishments, some temporary, some life long. They start from the depriving of a priest of his faculties to suspension a divinis (forbidding him the celebration of Mass and the sacraments), both temporary punishments, which can be lifted after a period of penance. However, others are perpetual, such as reduction to the lay state, with interdiction to wear the clerical habit. This final punishment is given for the worst crimes, such as participation in abortion, pedophilia, attempted marriage and the like. However, the priest who has been so “defrocked” is still a priest by vocation and in reality, still having the priestly character and the power to administer the sacraments (even permitted in cases of real and urgent necessity). Moreover, he still retains the two essential obligations of the priestly vocation — the obligation of perfect chastity and that of daily recitation of the Divine Office. Even if reduced to the lay state, he must live a life of penance in reparation for his crimes by observing these two obligations.
Quite different is the case of the priest, in good standing with his superiors, who requests laicization. Before Vatican II, a Papal dispensation from the vow of chastity was required for subdeacons and deacons who requested to be reduced to the lay state, and it was granted when clear evidence showed that an error had been made in promoting such a man to the subdiaconate or the diaconate. However, it was never granted for priests, given the gravity of their obligations and their importance for the Church. Even if they were unable to bear the burdens of the priesthood, they were still bound to chastity and the recitation of the Divine Office, under pain of mortal sin. This vocation could not be removed from them any more than the character of the priesthood.
Since Vatican II, however, many thousands of such priests have requested and obtained voluntary laicization, such that they were freed from all the obligations of the priesthood, although they retain the sacramental character. By obtaining Papal dispensation, they became “free” in conscience to marry and to live a secular life. However, it is no secret that in almost all these cases, it came about through private violation of the vow of chastity, in turn due to the loss of the meaning of their priesthood. The possibility of obtaining this dispensation, opened up by Paul VI, became a sluice gate for the abandonment of the priesthood, and not just a personal tragedy for the individual priests, but for the whole Church. For it is the very identity of the priestly vocation that is at stake — “thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech” (Ps 109:4). For this practice is nothing other than the official approval of infidelity, under guise of compassion for human weakness.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.