Expert: Fr. Michael - 1/29/2010

Question
Father, is it true that most Priests are invalidly ordained in today's seminaries and that it's only getting worse? It makes me wonder about the younger Priests who decide to leave the Norvus Ordo to be Traditional Priests and find out they haven't been ordained properly and have to have redone by a traditional Bishop. Would this be a typical case.  

Answer
Since 1968 the Novus Ordo does not ordain priests; it installs presbyters, essentially ministers.  The New Ordinal of 1968, which is based on Protestant rites, has eliminated the conferal of the traditional power "to offer Mass for the living and the dead."  Moreover, the bishops doing the installing have, since that same date, not been consecrated, as the rite of consecration has been replaced in the New Ordinal with an even more Protestant rite.  Thus, they do not have the power to confer Holy Orders.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders cannot be "redone," as presbyters never received the Sacrament in the first place.  Those who have been installed as Novus Ordo presbyters must go through scrutiny of vocation, teaching, training in the Faith *de novo, from the beginning,* just as would a Protestant minister, for a period of several years.