[Question:]{.underline} What are we to think of independent priests?
[Answer:]{.underline} Independent priests do not exist in the Catholic Church, nor can they licitly exercise the power of Holy Orders. The first reason for this is that only the bishop receives the fullness of the power of holy orders, so that a priest’s exercise of this power is necessarily limited. Furthermore, the exercise of the power of holy orders, being a power of the mystical body of Christ, is necessarily limited by the power of government, or jurisdiction, given to the Church’s hierarchy. It is by jurisdiction that the Church is bound into one visible body. It is for this reason that a priest is forbidden to exercise his power of holy orders unless he has received “faculties,” namely the authority to do so from his religious superior or his ordinary. To deny this is to deny the Church’s hierarchical structure and to reduce it to the level of a Protestant sect.
From the earliest ages of the Church, consequently, clerics were not to
be ordained except for service in a definite territory or diocese.
Unattached clerics were called headless (“acephali”) and were
forbidden to exercise the sacred ministry. During the Middle Ages the
abuse of clerics unattached to a bishop or to a superior developed, with
considerable scandal and detriment to the Church. Hence the Council of
Trent (Session XXIII, Chapter XVI; July 15, 1563) decreed
“that no one shall in the future be ordained who is not assigned to that
church or pious place for the need or utility of which he is promoted,
where he may discharge his duties and not wander about without any fixed
abode.” This is called the title of ordination, still strictly required
to this very day. The holy Council continues to determine what shall be
the consequence if a priest abandons that title, namely his bishop or
his superior, to go it alone: “But if he shall desert that place
without consulting the bishop, he shall be forbidden the exercise of the
sacred orders. Furthermore, no cleric who is a stranger shall, without
commendatory letters from his Ordinary, be admitted by any bishop to
celebrate the divine mysteries and to administer the sacraments.”
A priest’s submission to his bishop or to his religious superior, called in both cases his ordinary, since he has ordinary jurisdiction over him, remains strictly obligatory in canon law. It is called incardination. It is contained in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 111, §1 which states: “Every cleric must be incardinated in a diocese or religious community, so that unattached clerics are in no way to be accepted.” The 1983 Code of Canon Law repeats the same (Can. 265).
Before the Vatican II, this principle was everywhere accepted. A priest who left his diocese or religious community knew full well that he could not preach, administer the sacraments (outside of danger of death), or publicly celebrate Mass until such time as he found a new religious superior or bishop to incardinate him and to give him the authority to do so. The breakdown of the Church’s authority structure in the wake of Vatican II has caused quite some confusion on this issue.
There were many older priests who were unjustly stripped of their faculties, or declared suspended or even excommunicated. Such sentences, being manifestly unjust, were canonically null and void. Consequently, such traditional priests continued, rightly, their pastoral administration of the sacraments and the celebration of Mass. In justice they retained their incardination, whether it be in their diocese, from which they had been unjustly excluded, or likewise in their religious community, to whose rule they alone remained attached. In case of need the Church supplied jurisdiction, and they administered the sacraments validly and licitly. However, most importantly the “independence” of such priests was purely apparent, due to the crisis of authority, and their rejection by their own superiors. They remained attached for life to their diocese or religious community. However, most of these older priests have passed to their eternal reward, and few traditional priests remain in this situation.
Entirely different is the situation of the new generation of “independent” priests, who have been ordained by rogue bishops, such as sedevacantists and Old Catholics, without any canonical attachment at all. They set up their chapels where they can find a few faithful and set up their churches in the same way that a Protestant pastor would gather a congregation around him. They are in no way attached to the Church’s hierarchy. It is consequently forbidden for them to celebrate Mass or administer the sacraments, and likewise for the faithful to assist at their Masses, or to receive the sacraments from them, except in case of danger of death.
Many such priests allege as the justification for their behavior the crisis in the Church, and certainly with some degree of credibility. However, the modernists’ abuse of authority cannot be a justification for bypassing the entire authority structure of the Church. Evil cannot be overcome by doing evil, by ripping apart the Church’s structure even more. Here it is a question of the divine institution of the Church itself, for it was Christ Himself who established the power of jurisdiction as distinct from that of holy orders. Consequently, the Catholic response cannot possibly be to dispense with all authority in the Church and to act as if it did not exist at all. This would be to admit that the gates of Hell have prevailed against the Church, which is impossible, being directly opposed to the words of God Himself. In fact, such independent priests are nothing less than opportunists, taking advantage of the particular situation of the crisis in the Church to set up their own congregation, as if it were a private business.
Some folks will respond to this by saying that given the fact that there are no traditional dioceses, future priests and the faithful have no choice but to choose the independent, acephalous, unattached option. God would never reduce the Church to such limits that would deny her very nature, and even in these desperate circumstances has provided religious communities and clerical congregations, correctly and canonically established, with superiors who are ordinaries (at least for their members), to provide for the spiritual necessities of the faithful. These are such communities as the Society of St. Pius X and the associated Franciscan, Dominican, Benedictine, and many other communities world wide. All are just as attached to the holy virtue of obedience, upon which the Catholic Church is built, as they are opposed to the horrible illusion of an “independent” priesthood.
Consequently, the faithful have always the right to ask a priest about his incardination, or faculties, or about his ordinary, whether it be a superior or a bishop. If it is an older priest, having been many years in a religious community or diocese, who is persecuted for his love of Tradition, there will not be any doubt in this regard. If it is a priest of a regularly constituted community, such as the Society of St. Pius X, he would certainly not take umbrage at such a question, but consider that the faithful have the right to know, and that it is his great honor to declare his superior and his community, through which he is attached to the Church.
However, there are some priests who will refuse to answer the question, and who will be indignant that it is even asked. The faithful are forbidden to attend the Masses of such priests. These are the priests, usually Feeneyites, Sedevacantists, or Old Catholics, who have no attachment to the Catholic Church at all, who are either without superior or bishop, or who have as their “bishop” a non-Catholic, schismatic, sedevacantist bishop who himself has no attachment to the Catholic Church. They will make every effort to compare their false bishops (if they have any) to the Society’s bishops. However, the difference is manifest. The Society’s bishops have their attachment to the Church through the Society of St. Pius X, a legitimately established community of which they are but auxiliary bishops, and through which they receive their entire authority to administer the sacraments of confirmation and holy orders.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.