JD Flynn/CNA
13 February, 2019
The ex-cardinal faces dismissal from the clerical state. But what does that mean in practice?
Archbishop Theodore McCarrick will reportedly be laicized this week, if he is found guilty of having sexually abused minors.
But what does it mean to be “laicized,” “defrocked,” or “dismissed from the clerical state?”
Ordination, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits the exercise of a ‘sacred power’ which can come only from Christ himself through his Church.”
The Church says ordination marks a person with an irremovable imprint, a character, which “configures them to Christ.” Ordination, in Catholic theology, makes a permanent change that the Church has no power to reverse.
“You are a priest forever,” the Letter to the Hebrews says.
This change is referred to as an ontological change, or a change in being itself.
In addition to making an ontological change, ordination also makes a legal change in a person’s status in the Church. By ordination, a person becomes in canon law a “cleric.” The word “cleric” is derived from the Greek word for “casting lots,” a process of selection similar to drawing straws or rolling dice, because in Acts 1:26, Matthias is added to the 11 remaining apostles after lots are drawn to select the right person.
A cleric, or a sacred minister in the Church, is an ordained man who is permitted by the Church to exercise sacred ministry. A cleric is bound to certain obligations, among them is usually celibacy in the Latin Catholic Church, and he possesses certain rights, among them is the right to be appointed to pastoral leadership positions in the Church. Clerics have the right to be financially supported by the Church, and are bound by obedience to the pope and to local Church authorities.
While ordination can never be lost – no power on earth can erase the sacramental imprint of ordination – a person can lose the legal status of being a cleric – this is what is referred to as “laicization.”
When a person loses the clerical state, he no longer has the right to exercise sacred ministry in the Church, except the extreme situation of encountering someone who is in immediate danger of death.
Someone who has lost the clerical state also no longer has the canonical right to be financially supported by the Church.
Often, a man who is laicized is also dispensed from the obligation of celibacy, and permitted to marry – but this is not always the case, especially when someone has been involuntarily removed from the clerical state.
Ordinarily, the Church does not permit a person who has been dismissed from the clerical state to teach, as a layman, in a Catholic college or school, to be a lector or extraordinary ministry of Holy Communion, or to exercise other functions in the name of the Church. This is determined on an individual basis, and exceptions and dispensations can be made.
A person can lose the clerical state because he has requested it through a special petition to the pope personally, or he can lose it as a penalty for committing an ecclesiastical crime, as is likely to be the case for McCarrick. There are even provisions which allow for a priest or deacon who has abandoned his ministry to be removed from the clerical state after a protracted period of time, and through a specified canonical process.
Losing the clerical state as a penalty comes after a person has committed some crime. But it is not the case that everyone who has been laicized has done something wrong- the Church does not suggest that it is immoral for a priest or deacon to request laicization, and there are many legitimate reasons a priest might do so, though these are often deeply personal.
A laicized priest is no longer referred to as “Father,” or by any other honorary title given to clerics.
If McCarrick is laicized, the Church will no longer have responsibility to provide him with housing, medical care, or any other financial benefits. He will not be permitted to celebrate Mass or any other sacraments, except in situations he is unlikely to encounter, such as being with a person in danger of death.
If he is laicized, it is not yet known whether McCarrick will leave the Kansas friary where has been living a life of prayer and penance. Though he is reported to have some financial means at his disposal, and is likely entitled civilly to a Church pension, it is not yet known what options are available to him.
PAT SAYS,
It is absolutely right that McCarrick is laicized.
He has committed numerous criminal and canonical crimes.
He sould not be allowed to parade around as a VIP.
He should of course being in jail.
I imagine that he has enough lolly to live very comfortably.
I believe he has no faith, no morals and no remorse.
This is the kind of creature that the RC crowd turns out in the hundreds of thousands.
58 replies on “MC CARRICK – WHAT WILL LAICISATION MEAN FOR HIM?”
I found Magna’s account yesterday of where the idea that homosexuality is objectively disordered comes from, helpful. Thank you, if I had ever heard that, I had forgotten it.
However if the purpose things are ordered to can be observed, then I think that idea is applicable to this post as well. What purpose could clerics of this stripe be ordered to, which is clearly seen?
Well, obviously they are ordered to cause people to avoid the Catholic Church and expose its great corruption. In this case the faithful celibate ones are intrinsically disordered, since they don’t expose the train wreck which is the life of the church when you scratch beneath the surface.
I just looove playing fast and loose with Thomas Aquinas!
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The answer to your question Bp Pat is, as Fr. Jack Hackett would say to Fr. Ted Crilly or Fr. Dougall McGuire,
‘FECK ALL! ‘! 🤪
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Magna is a great asset to this blog.
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9:36
Anyone can go directly to Wikipedia themselves.
The contributers who post under the MC pseudonym are a mixed bag. Most of their posts, because of their use of vulgar language have no place in a discussion forum.
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9:36;
I agree. Magna is a very smart, intelligent man, and a man of faith.
Keep rockin’, Magna! 👍
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09.36am Coming out with that shite you are a great ass to this blog. If that’s all you’ve got to offer us then stfu in future.
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I like it, 6:48;
Cardinal Walter Kasper’s main worry, according to Martels book, is not sexual orientation, but whether the church is helping people find a way to God. Now, there’s a legitimate concern. There’s an old saying;
‘You can’t give what you haven’t got’ !
So many of these guys have little or nothing to give other than religious platitudes…guff! 😇
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I found my way to God after I had been away from the church for ten years. I had been into meditation for some years. A chance meeting with a baptist minister pointed my in the right direction. The only way to God is total absolute surrender. The classic catholic books by St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross say the same thing. Only when a person has reached union with God is he able to be celibate. Everyone needs love. If you can’t find God you need it from other humans.
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9:54
Is wiki where you get your info? Just wonderin like. Vulgar language, tut-tut. Don’t you get tired of repeating that line while lookin down your nose? It’s becoming, ever-so tideously tiresome. 👺
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Cardinal Walter Kasper’s main worry now is likely to be be that – even at the age of 88 – a laicised McCarrick might be up to giving a few TV interviews.
Do any of you remember this former priest, a man who was once tipped to be the next Archbishop of Dublin? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39eJQzPS4mU
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11:01
The last sentence of your post is, to me, its most important: ‘So many of these guys have little or nothing to give other than religious platitudes.’
It’s true; woefully true. And it happens because none of them has made a single-minded committment to serve God with all his might, with all his strength. And, therefore, none of them really knows God personally…beyond the platitudes they have picked up along the way.
I once asked a priest a question about God, and he proceeded to quote me chapter and verse from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
‘But Father, can’t you answer from your personal experience of God rather than relying on professional answers?’
Father made no relevant reply.
These guys want to ride two horses at once, and this is not possible in the spiritual life. As Jesus said, you serve either God or mammon.
There is no straddling that divide.
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9:54
You delude yourself when you make such comment about me. But if it helps you handle the fact that I am much more intelligent, and much more learned, than you’d care to believe, so be it.
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2:08;
Bullseye Maga!
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1:47
It’s more likely, 9:54 is projecting! He’s probably part of a group which goes under Anon, or Crackbat or Lollipops or Kerry eye or Lillie the Pink, et al;
the willie watchers! 😆
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9:54
By the way, Magna is ONE person; many facets, but one person. 😆
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If Magna isn’t more than one person then it’s not that you have “many facets” but rather that you are schizophrenic.
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2:27
Try to use the correct psychiatric terminology: it’s multiple personality disorder, not schizophrenia.😆
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9:36, 9:57, 2:27
Anon., KC, Frankie: thanks for the compliments.❤
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3:16
No problem bro !
Keep on rockin,
Magna. 👍😎
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I am 9.36.You are welcome Magna.
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He’s a criminal and should face justice from civil society. No longer can this church act with impunity. Let him rot in jail where he belongs. He has shown no remorse, only selective forgetfulness
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11:38
Great post!
Stay with the meditation and remain walking in the Spirit. God willing, in time,
the Lord may lead you to ever deepening contemplative union. (that’s the Lords business)
It’s All about Love ❤️.
God is ❤️.
If you ever experience profound union with ❤️ you will never be the same!
I wish you well.
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12.13 Thank you! I do hope the Vatican is still reading this blog.
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2:27
Gaslighting alert! 😲
Jesus was gaslighted in his day!
Magna, you’ve been unwittingly given a spiritual brownie point by 2:27.
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Thanks for noticing that, Magwa, cos I didn’t.
Yes, you’re right.👍
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3:01pm what on earth are you banging on about???
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Whether he should or he shouldn’t , the likelihood is, he won’t be laicized. Even if the public is told he has been laicized, how are the public to know whether or which?
I’m sure the Vaticano has their spin doctors and fake news is big business nowadays. The dynamic of ‘all for one and one for all’ which is intrinsic to this mess for years, is now apparent at the very top.
He’ll live out the remainder of his days in ‘penance and prayer’ and pop his clogs at the appointed time. Before he pops his clogs, he’ll sweat with existential angst, guilt, dread and anxiety, in the knowledge, he’s going to face his Lord and Master and have to give an account of his stewardship in the vineyard of the Lord. Whether he has faith, morals or remorse , believes or doesn’t believe in God, won’t matter a damn. When he confronts the Lord, Ted will sayin’, Lord, forgive me for I knew not…! Meanwhile, this circus will continue…
Come Lord Jesus!
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9:52 Your action of prayer is a sham.
When what you pray begins to affect your life, and your negative rants, your prayer will start to become authentic.
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@ 10:02
Are you ‘The Holy Spirit?’
Are you the ‘Third Person of the Blessed Trinity?’
Is that ‘God’? Nay….
More likely to be aul Nick! 👿
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10:02
You come across as a sniffy, spiritual snob, with ill-concealed contempt for those you consider your inferiors.
Pharisees, by and large, were the same.😕
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12:26
Don’t be concerned about the Vatican. The Holy Spirit is the head ‘honcho’; Papa Francisco is only a foreman.
Nothing is impossible to God.
Oh happy fault….! The Lord even uses our sin to fulfill His kind purposes. Stay faithful to your time of silent prayer.
God’s running the universe
and any other multitude of universes that may exist. Poster, at 12:26; between me, you and the Holy Spirit,
God exists, ❤️
some of us footsoldiers know!
God bless you.
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4;35;
No problem bud! 👍
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While I believe McCarrick behaved so wrong, morally and spiritually, and believe justice should be seen to be done, I wonder about the crucifying, condemnatory language being levelled against him now! Surely his awareness of God’s judgment must instill an uncomfortable inner fear, loneliness and angst. I would not like the weight of that in my heart or the ignominious shame attached to his life. The clericalist culture has indeed produced some deep corruption and rotteness. I must always renew my own life every day in all aspects and as a follower of Christ I try, albeit it with great difficulty, to imitate his virtues, mercy, compassion and tolerance being but a few…..
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10:56
Sticks and stones Rev.
You’re spot on regarding fear, loneliness and angst and shameful ignominy. To say the clericalist culture has produced some deep corruption and rottenness is, with respect Fr, an understatement, to say the least. It’s very late in the day for McCarrick to start fearing the Lord! Very late. That man has lived a life of existential dissonance and has brought much on himself. Same goes for any person whose life is a lie. Existential dissonance catches up and bites in the arse, and won’t let go, until your on the flat of your back!
The wages of sin….
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McCormick’s Laicisation:
1. He will be laicised. Papa Francesco wants to make an example of him before the upcoming synod.
2. Laicisation means that he will be removed from the clerical state and forbidden to exercise any function of the priesthood, except in extraordinary circumstances where he could give the last rites and absolution to somebody in extremis.
3. He will still remain, sacramentally, a priest. That cannot be undone. But 2 will apply.
4. He will continue to live in some ‘sheltered’ religious accommodation, in prayer and penance, unless he decides to go it solo and make his own private arrangements. But 2 will still apply.
5. The Church has the right to remove someone from the clerical state (laicisation), as does an individual to request laicisation.
6. Other civil and criminal actions against McCarrick will depend on other jurisdictions. The Vatican does not have the authority to take anything like that forward in McCormick’s case. I suspect he will avoid any criminal action in the USA because of the statute of limitations.
6. There are no grounds to excommunicate McCarrick.
7. Whilst McCarrick’s actions were abhorrent and constitute a grave sin for which he must answer, there is still the obligation of mercy on behalf of the Church towards him if he shows remorse and is truly penitent. Remember the Year of Mercy.
8. Papa Francesco has many questions to answer himself about how he has dealt in the past with abuse cases – in Argentina, in the case of McCarrick and what he knew and when (cf Vigano), in the case of the halting of the inquiry in to Cormac Murphy-O’Connor (cf Mueller). He may well be found to have been lacking, in which case it is anybody’s guess what will happen. Will zero tolerance apply to Papa Francesco himself, as he has said it will apply to abusing priests, and to bishops who have not acted decisively and properly in cases. Will we have two retired Popes ?
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10:58am
Tell me Canon, what are the rights of the laity in canon law, if any?
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Put simply the actions of the Vatican is a sly political move. To be tried under canon law within the Vatican City State means McCarrick has been tried under civil law. He is therefore afforded protection from prosecution in the USA by virtue of Double Jeopardy, a second line of defense after the statute of limitations.
Of course if a USA court suspended the limitation and said double jeopardy does not apply; it would be near impossible to get an impartial jury of peers due to his defrocking destroying any presumption of innocence.
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Following his resignation, the practising mo, KOB, became cardinal in name only and subsequently exiled to England. Also, I don’t think he was allowed to say Mass. His friends and former parishioners universally described him as “a good man who made the wrong decisions.” His former lovers variously described him as “a good shag.”
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LOL!
There is a question asked above which strikes at the heart of this problem: how these people’s lives can be so at variance with their professed beliefs.
I don’t have an easy answer to this one, and don’t think there is a simple answer which can take in both human nature and the complexities of formation experience.
But… It is becoming apparent that in all these cases people knew about them for years and their behaviour was not stopped. To be frank I could almost feel sorry for McCarrick being made an example of, when so many other clerics get away with all sorts!
Neither do I accept explanations that this must be expected because of flawed human nature.
I suspect that the Christian community will never happen in reality because it is not possible.
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I agree that, rather than being an egregious perpetrator, McCarrick is an indication of a wide spread phenomenon. I wonder how much mental turmoil KOB went through when making his increasingly hysterical pronouncements against “the gays”, or whether he simply compartmentalized his public and private life: this too is a phenomenon which still needs to be admitted among the clergy. The late Richard Sipe and now this book have only lifted the stone slightly. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if little changes. In Westminster, for example, the gin will continue to flow amid the tittering and back-biting.
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Anon @12.32, you ask the question to which I have previously responded.
The key words are “professed beliefs.”
It is my belief that the variance between professed belief and abusive behaviour of some clergy is best explained by assuming they simply no longer have belief/commitment to former beliefs. Without a religious ideology prop they have poorly developed moral imperatives to exercise restraint.
I find common explanations reliant on spasmodic human weakness unconvincing in light of grave and repeated abuse throughout years of predatory behaviour.
MMM
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@12:32
Maybe the answer to your question regarding ‘lives at variance’ is more simple than you think. Maybe, just maybe, far too many clerics are not doing or don’t know or practice, the A,B,Cs when it comes to the spiritual life. (Other than lip service).
Maybe that starts in seminary?
I knew a spiritual director in a seminary and country which will remain nameless. This man
publicly professed at an Easter liturgy, to a congregation, he tried to go to confession once a year! ( the minimum).
The same man preaches heresy,( his own comfy brand of catholicism).
I wouldn’t trust him to
direct whiskey into a glass!
‘You can’t give what you haven’t got.’
Maybe its time for the Church, hierarchy, clergy and laity
to get on their knees in repentance for countless abominations.
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So the whole Church should get on its knees in prayer because of one alleged spiritual director. Yeah sure, you live in fantasy land. You’ve been directing too many whiskeys into the glass yourself.
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5:12
Have you been in a world of your own, unaware of the church implosion and why it’s imploding?
Go back to sleep.
Sweet dreams.
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Nuncio to Paris is being investigated by the French cops about sexual assault of a young male city hall employee.
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/02/15/french-police-investigate-sexual-assault-claim-against-vatican-nuncio
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5.46: MMM, more longwinded, complicated comments, especially the last sentence. Are you trying to impress with pseudo psychology?
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I’m really sorry you find it too complicated.
Perhaps if you try reading more slowly and engaging your brain before fingering your keyboard? It might, just might, help.
MMM
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MMM
👍
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9.24: MMM – try not to be too smart. Try not to condescend. Since you are an avowed atheist, your meanderings are irrelevant to me. Your long winded last sentence as at 5.46 with 22 words is awkward prose! Sorry to say but it is an attempt to impress!!
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Laicisation is a juridical term hi but it might be a scare to someone who can’t hide behind his skirts any more. I don’t know where th auld fella stands on faith and fear of the Lord tho but
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8:36
Hi Fly, true hi. Some of his pals may be exposed in the futur. Who knows. Th lord knows where he stands fly. We don’t need to know. Bye fly.
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8.36 Indeed yes (hi)
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R T E news tonight.
Who is the cleric caught groping ?
It never ends
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The papal nuncio to Paris.
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He’d have better luck grabbing Hugh
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10:53
Yes, Pere Jean Vianney did refer to Satan as ‘Le Grappin’.
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9:44
The grappin was on the job. The nunc was doin the work of the divil.
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Pat may I ask your honest opinion of the Maynooth Seminary Independent Panel.
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