From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
If Father Joe Schmoe were validly ordained a bishop, and then immediately excommunicated for having been illicitly so ordained, does he actually have any of the abilities/authorities that bishops are supposed to have? If Deacon John Smith were to someday be ordained a priest by (then) Bishop Schmoe before the excommunication were lifted, would that ordination be valid?
Under normal circumstances a man who is – without the mandate of the Holy See – consecrated as a bishop incurs the automatic excommunication reserved to the Holy See. The automatic excommunication would doubtless be confirmed with a declaration from the Holy See if it is a public matter. Once imposed or declared, can. 1331 §2 adds further effects, including invalid exercise of acts of governance.
That bishop validly, but illicitly, ordains to Holy Orders and confirms and celebrates Mass. In fact, an excommunicated person cannot either celebrate or receive any of the sacraments. He cannot even go to confession unless there is danger of death. A confessor (i.e., a priest with faculties to receive sacramental confessions) cannot absolve him. He would have to go through the process with the proper authority to have the censure lifted before he could go to confession. In the case of an illicitly consecrated bishop, he would have to either himself go to Rome to the Apostolic Penitentiary (or to the Pope) and work with them or else have recourse to the Apostolic Penitentiary through the intermediary of a confessor.
A man ordained a priest by that excommunicated bishop is validly ordained, but he is suspended from exercising Holy Orders. He says Mass validly, but illicitly. Unless there is danger of death, he does not have the faculty to absolve sins.
