Q1. Can a deacon be ordained to the priesthood, less than six months after his ordination to the diaconate? For example, a congregation or diocese is urgently in need of priests, can their ordinary actually anticipate it and release an indult? — Rafael
Q2. This may be the silliest question you have ever been asked. Canon 1039 says that all candidates for ordination must make a retreat for at least five days, and the bishop must verify that the candidates have made this retreat before ordaining them. But can a bishop dispense with Canon 1039 and allow for less than the 5-day retreat prior to Ordination of Candidates? —William
A: Worldwide, this tends to be the season for ordinations to both the diaconate and the priesthood (cf. c. 1009.1, and see “What Can (and Can’t) a Deacon Do?” for more on the diaconate); and since most of the world is suffering from a dire shortage of Catholic clergy, every ordination is a blessing for which we should be thankful! At the same time, of course, candidates for ordination naturally want to be sure that theirs is administered validly—an understandable (and definitely not silly) concern which has prompted these questions. As with all the sacraments, the code lays out what is required for the celebration of the sacrament of Holy Orders, so let’s take a general look at what has to happen to ensure a valid ordination. Then the answers to our questioners’ concerns will become clear.
Canon 1008 provides us with a basic theological understanding of the sacrament of ordination, which will quickly be seen to be directly relevant to us here:
By divine institution, some of the Christian faithful are marked with an indelible character and constituted as sacred ministers by the sacrament of holy orders. They are thus consecrated and deputed so that, each according to his own grade, they may serve the People of God by a new and specific title.
Being “marked with an indelible character” is a pretty abstract concept, but this marking is made visible to all who are present at an ordination, when the sacrament is conferred by the imposition of hands by a bishop (cf. c. 1012) and the consecratory prayer prescribed by the liturgical books (c. 1009.2).
Yet if you’ve ever been to an ordination, celebrated in accord with the Church’s liturgical books, you have seen how complex the liturgical ceremony can appear! There are plenty of other words and actions that form parts of the administration of the sacrament of Holy Orders. That’s why, as we saw in “Can a Priest Have His Ordination Annulled?” there was, in years gone by, some confusion as to what exactly was necessary for a valid ordination. To cite only one example, the candidates for priestly ordination prostrate themselves before the altar during the Mass. Is this necessary for the ordination to be valid too?
With his 1947 Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis, Pope Pius XII resolved the uncertainty about this issue. Pius stated that
We of Our Apostolic Authority and from certain knowledge declare, and as far as may be necessary decree and provide: that the matter, and the only matter, of the Sacred Orders of the Diaconate, the Priesthood, and the Episcopacy is the imposition of hands; and that the form, and the only form, is the words which determine the application of this matter, which univocally signify the sacramental effects—namely the power of Order and the grace of the Holy Spirit—and which are accepted and used by the Church in that sense. (SO 4)
So the Pope spelled out the required form and matter for the valid conferral of this sacrament. And these have not been changed; the current Catechism of the Catholic Church basically repeats the same statement in paragraph 1573. The other necessary element for a valid sacrament, of course, is a proper intention on the part of the minister—in this case, the ordaining bishop. (Pius XII did not discuss the issue of intention in his Apostolic Constitution, because it was not part of the confusion that needed to be resolved.) Taken together, these are the bare bones that are needed to confer the sacrament of Holy Orders validly in the Catholic Church.
If you want to be really precise, there is one other important factor, which was so obvious to everyone back in 1947 that Pius XII would never have dreamed of mentioning it: the only person who can validly receive the sacrament of Holy Orders is a baptized male. This is stated unequivocally in canon 1024. (See “Can Women be Ordained Priests?” for a more in-depth discussion of this issue.) Canon 1031.1 adds some age specifications to the equation, noting that men being ordained to the transitional diaconate must be at least 23 years old, while those seeking ordination to the priesthood must be at least 25. The same canon requires a six-month interval between ordination to the diaconate and priestly ordination—a requirement that we’ll return to later.
To sum up: yes, the ministers of all the Church’s sacraments are required to follow the liturgical books when administering those sacraments, and so in that sense all the various prayers and actions that form the ordination ceremony are necessary; but we can see that relatively speaking, there’s actually very little of the rite of ordination that is needed for validity. If we turn now to the other requirements that candidates for Holy Orders must complete before their ordination, we’ll see that this statement still holds.
Canons 1033-1039 list the prerequisites for ordination, which include a requirement that those to be ordained first write by hand and then sign a statement expressing their wish to be ordained (c. 1034). This “rite of admission” presumably developed as a means of verifying that a man does indeed accept ordination freely, and is not being forced to become a cleric by others (cf. c. 1026, forbidding anyone to force a man to be ordained against his will).
Another prerequisite is referenced by Rafael in his question: as per canon 1035.2, there is to be an interval of at least six months between the conferral of the ministry of acolyte and the diaconate. (We looked at the history of the ministry—formerly a “minor order”—of acolyte in “Canon Law and Altar Girls,” as well as “Altar Girls and the Pope’s New Document,” and “Who Can Conduct an Exorcism?”) These orders are supposed to be conferred one at a time, with a prayerful interval of time between them! And finally, as William notes in his question, canon 1039 requires all candidates for any order (i.e., the diaconate, the priesthood, or the episcopacy) to first make a retreat of at least five days.
By now, astute readers can logically deduce the answers to both questions: since (a) the six-month interval before being ordained a deacon and (b) the five-day retreat before reception of Holy Orders are not mentioned by Pius XII as being necessary for the validity of the ordination … they aren’t. In fact, both requirements can and sometimes are dispensed by the appropriate authorities. We took a look at the conception of dispensation, or the relaxation of a merely ecclesiastical law in a particular case (c. 85), in “Marriage Between a Catholic and a Non-Catholic” and “When Can You Get a Dispensation, and Who Can Grant It?”
One could easily argue that even if Pius XII had never issued Sacramentum Ordinis, it would still be perfectly clear that a bishop can dispense a candidate for ordination from these two requirements. That’s because, as we saw in “Are There Any Limitations on the Power of the Pope?” a man-made law such as these can be dispensed—while those laws considered to be of divine origin cannot. As was just noted in the preceding paragraph, canon 85 is perfectly consistent with this understanding of the distinction between divine law and ecclesiastical law, since it asserts that it’s possible to grant a dispensation only for the latter, and not the former.
It’s not hard to imagine all sorts of reasons why it could be feasible to dispense a candidate for Holy Orders from these pre-ordination requirements. Perhaps, as Rafael suggests, a shortage of clergy prompts a bishop to dispense a man from the six-month interval required by canon 1035.2, in order to ordain him that much sooner. (Note, by the way, that Rafael’s terminology is inaccurate, as this requires a dispensation and not an indult.) In mission lands, where visits from the bishop are infrequent and/or made only with tremendous difficulty, it might be prudent for him to ordain all his seminarians in one fell swoop—rather than trying to return again to the area later, simply in order to observe these man-made time limits. Or imagine the case of a seminarian who is terminally ill, and wishes, quite reasonably, to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders before he dies. The flip-side is of course possible too: imagine a bishop who knows he has only a short time left to live, and wants to ordain his men before his own death leaves them waiting for his eventual successor to arrive.
As for the age requirement mentioned in canon 1031.1, mentioned above, this too can be dispensed. In fact, canon 1031.4 specifically tells us this, when it declares that a dispensation of more than one year is reserved to the Holy See. In other words, a bishop can himself grant a dispensation, if he wants to ordain a 22-year-old to the transitional diaconate, or a 24-year-old to the priesthood; should he wish to ordain someone even younger, it’s not impossible—but he has to seek a dispensation for that from Rome.
While we may be envisioning here the ordination of deacons and priests, bear in mind that 
the same sorts of dispensations can be, and have been, granted for ordinations to the episcopacy as well. The French Jesuit Michel d’Herbigny (1880-1957) was a Russia scholar who was consecrated a bishop by Pope Pius XI. He then was sent into the Soviet Union, ostensibly for pastoral reasons, to secretly consecrate Catholic bishops—who would in turn be able to ordain Catholic priests to minister inside Soviet territory.
When d’Herbigny got to Moscow, he met with Father Pie Eugène Neveu in the one Catholic church that was still functioning there. Neveu was a French priest who had been sent to Russia many years before as a missionary, and had managed to continue his ministry for years, somehow avoiding trouble with the communist authorities. We can only imagine his shock when d’Herbigny told him bluntly that the Pope wanted him to be ordained a bishop, so as to clandestinely lead the Catholic Church in Russia! Father Neveu had no idea that this was coming, and was only given a few minutes to prepare himself spiritually for his episcopal ordination. Since d’Herbigny was keenly aware that Soviet authorities were following him around, he knew he couldn’t stay inside the church for too long with Father Neveu without arousing suspicion. Obviously, there was no opportunity for significant prayerful preparation, much less a retreat!
Needless to say, these circumstances were not typical. But the point is, Bishop Neveu’s ordination as bishop was completely valid.
In short, our questioners have no reason to worry about not following the requirements that they cite, before ordination. Since these were established by man, not by God Himself, they aren’t necessary for validity. It’s entirely possible for a man to validly receive the sacrament of Holy Orders without them.
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