Homily - 18 November 2007

This week’s Catholic Times contains a brief article stating that Pope Benedict XVI has dismissed Msgr. Eugene Costa from the clerical state.[1] This process is what is commonly called “laicization”.

I want to speak with you today about what it means to be dismissed from the clerical state, because it is a matter of great concern for the Church and for individual members of the faithful. It is a most serious matter that deserves our attention.

When a man is ordained to the Sacred Order of Priests, he is configured

to Christ by a special grace of the Holy Spirit, so that he may serve as Christ's instrument for his Church. By ordination one is enabled to act as a representative of Christ, Head of the Church, in his triple office of priest, prophet, and king.[2]

“[T]his share in Christ's office is granted once for all. The sacrament of Holy Orders … confers an indelible spiritual character and cannot be repeated or conferred temporarily.”[3] By virtue of this indelible mark, the priest receives the sacred power to act in persona Christi, to act in the person of Christ, when he celebrates the Eucharist and hears confessions. By virtue of his ordination, every priest stands in the midst of the Church in the place of Christ, who is the Head and Shepherd of the Church.[4]

It sometimes arises that a priest is unfaithful in carrying out the sacred duties entrusted to him and to which he commits himself before ordination. Priests are not always faithful in small matters and sometimes – fewer times, thanks be to God – priests are unfaithful in grave matters. By this we see that the

presence of Christ in the minister is not to be understood as if the [priest] were preserved from all human weaknesses, the spirit of domination, error, [or] even sin. The power of the Holy Spirit does not guarantee all acts of ministers in the same way. While this guarantee extends to the sacraments, so that even the minister's sin cannot impede the fruit of grace, in many other acts the minister leaves human traces that are not always signs of fidelity to the Gospel and consequently can harm the apostolic fruitfulness of the Church.[5]

The grave infidelity of a few priests is disheartening and lamentable, but it is not a reason to lose faith or hope. It is, rather, a reminder that each of us is daily in need of the Lord’s merciful love and that we must each cooperate with his grace if we are to attain salvation. We must always remember that “the day of the Lord is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble” (Malachi 3:19).

The Holy Father has dismissed Costa from the clerical state ex officio et pro bono ecclesiae, that is, by virtue of his office as Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ, and for the good of the Church.

What, then, does it mean to be “laicized”? The Code of Canon Law views priests in three respects: first, in terms of the sacrament of holy orders he has received; second, in terms of his faculties to exercise his priestly ministry; and third, in terms of his relationship to a diocese.

As we have already seen, once a priest is ordained his ordination cannot be removed or taken away; he is a priest forever because the sacred character, the indelible mark, he received is permanent. The faculties that a priest receives either from the law of the Church or from his local Bishop give him permission to exercise his priestly ministry; no priest can function without the approval and support of his Bishop, whose extension he is. This third aspect concerns the dismissal from the clerical state.

Dismissal from, or the loss of, the clerical state entails

a permanent separation from all ministry: [a dismissed priest] loses all rights and faculties associated with the priesthood and is not authorized to exercise ministry in the name of the Church; he is also dispensed from all obligations arising from his ordination to the priesthood, most notably the obligations of celibacy; and he loses his "incardination," that is, the special bond or attachment to the diocese or religious institute for which he was ordained.[6]

He is still a priest, though he may neither function as such nor present himself as a priest; he is forbidden to exercise the sacred power entrusted to him at his ordination even though he still bears the sacramental character on his soul.

The term “laicization” is not meant as a derogatory statement toward the laity; it is rather a statement of fact. There are two states of life in which all Catholics live; a Catholic is either a cleric or a layman. A man who is dismissed from the clerical state no longer lives as a cleric but as a layman, even though he is still a cleric.[7] There is not a third state in which he can live; for which reason this process is commonly called “laicization”.

What are we to say then about the sacraments a dismissed priest performed? What of the baptisms he performed, the marriages he witnessed, the Eucharist he celebrated? Are they invalid? Was Christ not present in them? To say so would be to limit the power of God. We know that even through sinful priests

Christ's gift is not thereby profaned: what flows through him keeps its purity, and what passes through him remains dear and reaches the fertile earth.... the spiritual power of the sacrament is indeed comparable to light: those to be enlightened receive it in its purity, and if it should pass through defiled beings, it is not itself defiled.[8]

The power of the sacraments is unaffected by the sinful of the priests who celebrated them, which is a cause of hope and joy for each of us.

Today, as the sins of another are so publicly before us, let each of us look upon our sins and seek the Lord’s mercy through the grace of the sacrament of Penance. Let each of us fear the name of the Lord, that there may arise for us the “sun of justice with its healing rays” (Malachi 3:20). Let us persevere in humility, faith, hope and love, so as to secure our lives in heaven (see Luke 21:19). Amen.

[1] Kathie Sass, “Former priest dismissed from clerical state,” Catholic Times, 18 November 2007, page 2A (111:38).
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1581. See also Canon 290.
[3] CCC, 1582.
[4] See CCC, 1549.
[5] CCC, 1550.
[6] Gregory Ingels, J.C.D., “Loss of the Clerical State.” Available at http://www.opusbono.org/canonlaw/articles/loss_of_the_clerical_state.asphttp://www.opusbono.org/canonlaw/articles/loss_of_the_clerical_state.asp. Accessed 16 November 2007. See also canon 292.
[7] See CCC, 1583.
[8] CCC, 1584.