A Question of Ordination

Gregor Stravinski is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Outer Mongolia. In his diocese, there are 40,000 Roman Catholics spread over an area roughly the size of the State of Ohio. There were 100 Catholic parishes in the Diocese of Outer Mongolia at the turn of the century, each with their own resident priest-pastor. In recent years, with the dwindling numbers of ordained clergy, the parishes have been getting larger and fewer. In the last ten years, Bishop Stravinski has had to enlarge the parishes to an extent that each of them covers one-tenth of the Diocese, with an average of 4,000 parishioners, because he had only ten priests remaining in his region.

Bishop Stravinski is the only bishop in the Diocese. His chancery staff is composed of lay Catholics because he does not want to take any of his priests away from needy parishioners. The diocesan seminary has long been closed; there has been no qualified postulant for Holy Orders in these ten years. There have been several married men and women who have applied to be considered for Orders. Each one of them has had the requisite seminary training and is in on-going spiritual formation. Each one is a faithful Catholic who is a recognized leader in their parish and civic community. Still, Bishop Stravinski has turned them away due to the canonical prohibitions which forbid their ordinations.

Bishop Stravinski arrives at the office one Monday to discover that all ten of his remaining priests were killed in an automobile accident when they were on their way to the annual diocesan clergy retreat. In this emergency situation, Bishop Stravinski reconsiders his previous decision to reject these other candidates for Orders. The pastoral need of his people drives him to select the best of these prior applicants, and to call them forth for ordination. Representatives of the four Deaneries of the Diocese of Outer Mongolia each present one candidate for ordination:

  1. the first is a married man, age 40;
  2. the second is a religious woman, age 35;
  3. the third is a married woman who has been the pastoral minister at one of the diocesan parishes for the last 12 years; she is age 45;
  4. the fourth is a man who had been an active Roman Catholic priest, but left the active ministry 15 years ago in order to marry; he was never laicized; he is now 50 years old, and has grown children.

In spite of the urgency of the situation, Bishop Stravinski is careful to observe all of the proper rites for the ordination of the three new priests and reinstatement of the fourth. In his homily at the ordination Mass, he presents them to the Diocese, expressing his sorrow over the tragic death of the ten prelates, and doing his best to prepare his flock for these new ministers. He calls for understanding and cooperation in this trying time of grief and adjustment.

Several weeks later, the papal legate to his country hears about these unusual ordinations, and reports them to Rome. Bishop Stravinski gets asked to come to Rome and explain his actions to the Holy See. You have been asked to help Bishop Stravinski present his case, and to defend the validity of these ordinations. Will you agree to take this case? On what grounds will you make an argument to support or deny Bishop Stravinski's contention that these ordinations and reinstatement should be upheld as valid?

Analyze this case: