Papal Approval of Presbyteral Ordination

Lawrence Crumb has written an excellent paper titled "Presbyteral Ordination and the See of Rome", in which he provides a good historical case, particularly from the medieval area, that there were instances in which popes approved presbyters to ordain other presbyters, abbot, deacons, and subdeacons. The trickiest issue here is whether the orders in question that could receive ordination from priests were part of the four "major orders", as articulated within Papist canon law. I have set forth here the cases which Crumb examines:

Pope Innocent IV taught that a cleric could confer any order which he himself held and had received, and that a priest may ordain where there is papal approval. (Franz Gillmann, Zur Lehre der Scholastik vom Spender der Firmung und des Weihesakraments [Paderborn, 1920], pg. 88)

On February 1, 1400, Pope Boniface IX conferred the power to ordain priests upon the Augustinian abbot of St. Osyth (Sacrae Religionis). It was revoked 3 years later after the complaints of Bishop Robert Braybrooke of London. We know that this bull had respect to the major holy orders since these orders are mentioned by name in the 1403 bull of revocation (J. A. Twemlow, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters [London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1893-1960], 5:534-35). The original bull is recorded twice in the Calendar of Papal Letters. 

In 1489, Pope Innocent VIII, by the bull Exposcit tuae devotions, “conferred on the four Proto-Abbots of the Cistercian Order and their successors the privilege of ordaining their subordinates to the Sub-diaconate and the Diaconate. The Cistercian Abbots were still using this privilege in the 17th century without hindrance.” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pg. 459). There has been some scholarly dispute over whether the Exposcit bull merely confers upon abbots the power to ordain the sub-diaconate, or also the diaconate as well. In 1954, Mgr. A. Mercati found the bull recorded in the Pontifical Archives of the Vatican which established that it referred to both the diaconate and sub-diaconate. The bull states that the reason for giving the abbots special powers was “so that the monks of the said order be not obliged to run here and there outside of the cloister in order to receive [these orders].” 

Pope Martin V issued the bull Gerentes ad vos (1527) which also gave abbots the power to ordain. This bull was discovered only recently in 1943 by K.A. Fink. “According to the terms of this bull, the Cistercian abbot of Altzelle, in the diocese of Meissen, was granted “authority to ordain to all the sacred orders for the space of five years, and not only his own religious, but also the clergy who served the parishes appropriated to the abbey.” (Lawrence N. Crumb, “Presbyteral Ordination and the See of Rome,” Church Quarterly Review 164, no. 350 [January-March 1963], pg. 20)

I may write more in the future on how the medieval canon lawyers approached the bishop-presbyter distinction, particularly within Gratian's Decretum and the commentaries on it. For now, I will end with a quote from Pope Gregory VII which will dip our toes in the water:

“First of all, it must be noted that in these apostolic instructions, under the name of "bishop," presbyters are also included. For it would be inappropriate for the Apostle, after describing the bishop, to immediately address deacons if presbyters were not encompassed under the description of the bishop. Presbyters are second to the bishop and undoubtedly ranked above deacons. Either the Apostle never spoke of the ordination of presbyters, or he included them under the name of bishops. But it would be incongruous to omit the teacher while describing his minister, since the teacher is more necessary for ecclesiastical arrangements. Moreover, when the Apostle commands Titus to ordain presbyters in cities, he immediately informs him about their ordination, saying: "A bishop must be blameless." Similarly, he writes to Timothy: "Do not neglect the grace given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the presbytery," and shortly thereafter adds, "Do not be quick to lay hands on anyone," which specifically pertains to bishops. Therefore, he refers to the same individual as both bishop and presbyter. Thus, both Blessed Jerome and Saint Ambrose, faithfully explaining the Apostle's statements, testify that among the ancients, the bishop and presbyter were the same, with one name denoting the office and the other the age. However, as Jerome asserts, when individuals began to consider those whom they baptized as belonging to themselves rather than to Christ, to prevent schisms, it was decreed throughout the whole world that one of the presbyters should be placed over the others, to whom the entire care of the church would belong. After describing the bishop and presbyter, the Apostle cautiously adds instructions concerning deacons, saying: