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About ordination and consecration per saltum

Ordination and consecration per saltum (literally by a leap) is a practice that occurs on a number of occasions in the Old Catholic movement in the twentieth-century. Although it is usual to bestow the orders of deacon, priest and bishop separately so that there is a gradual and distinct progression from one to the next, in per saltum ordinations one or sometimes two orders are effectively conferred simultaneously, the higher of course being considered to include the lower, so that a layman may be directly ordained priest or bishop, or a deacon ordained directly to the episcopate.

This practice, though not current in the Roman Catholic Church today, has significant historical precedent within it. Dr Claude Beaufort Moss, writing in The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Dogmatic Theology (London, S.P.C.K., 1943, part II, chapter 63, II:5, available online at katapi.org.uk) acknowledges that this practice is perfectly valid,

“A layman may be consecrated or ordained per saltum (by a leap) to be a bishop or priest, or a deacon may be consecrated per saltum to be a bishop. The latter process was at one time usual at Rome and other places.”

while expressing the view that this practice was no longer current (of course, Moss is not talking of Old Catholicism but instead of the mainstream church, though he was to address Old Catholicism elsewhere). A famous case of consecration per saltum is that of the Scottish bishops in 1610.

The Old Catholic Archbishop Charles Brearley may have been consecrated per saltum by Archbishop Cooper (and then similarly re-consecrated sub conditione by Archbishop Singer). The account in Peter F. Anson's Bishops at Large (New York, October House, 1963, now republished by the Apocryphile Press) makes it clear that no evidence for a separate ordination to the diaconate and priesthood had been found at the time of writing.

A related question is that of the bestowal of the orders of deacon and priest (presbyter) at the same service. Again, there is significant historical precedent for this in the Roman Catholic Church. The leading example is that of Paulinian. The Anglican +Wordsworth, writing in Ordination Problems (London, S.P.C.K., 1909), says,

“It was to supply this house with an officiating Priest that Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, intrusively and forcibly ordained Jerome’s brother Paulinian in opposition to John, Bishop of Jerusalem (Epiphanius, Ad Iohannem Hierosol. in Jerome’s works, Ep. 51, cp. Ep. 82. 8). In this case, Paulinian was ordained Deacon and Presbyter in the course of the same service.”

“The eighth and ninth of the Ordines Romani, first published by Mabillon in the second volume of his Museum Italicum, 1689, describe ordinations first of Deacons and Presbyters, which took place in the same service, and then of Bishops. A Presbyter was advanced to both offices in the same service, as it is expressly provided (Ordo VIII, §4, l.c., p. 86).”

“The ninth Ordo of Mabillon of a rather later date describes just the same process. Deacons and Presbyters are ordained together in the same service, the Presbyters receiving in it the benediction of Deacons as a mere act of transition to the presbyterate. The passage runs: “Surgentes autena ab oratione, Pontifex stat in sede sua, singillatim imponens manus capitibus eorum, et benedicit eos (i.e. as deacons). Accedens autem archidiaconus tollit orarios (stoles) de confessione (i. e. the tomb of St. Peter) qui de hesterna die repositi sunt ibi; imponit super eos; et Pontif ex induit eos planetis et stant induti. Diaconilia indumenta tollunt qui diacones esse debent de medio eorum, et complentur benedictiones eorum qui presbyteri ordinantur: et tunc descendant in presbyterium: et statim unus ex novitiis diaconibus legit evangelium,” &c. (ib., P-90).”

+Wordsworth concludes with some general comments on ordination that can serve to sum up these observations,

“This evidence seems all to point to the conclusion that the only essential thing to aim at in ordination to the diaconate, presbyterate, or episcopate, is fitness for the office. This need to ascertain fitness is expressed by St. Paul in various ways, but he clearly laid down nothing more than a general rule. The various ecclesiastical rules which have since gradually been formulated are nothing more than rules of discipline, which generally tend to ensure fitness, but which are in no sense conditions requisite to ensure the validity of the sacramental act of ordination, in the sense that the four requisites of matter, form, minister, and intention are necessary. The ideal and to some extent the general practice of passing slowly through the degrees, at any rate the superior degrees, so as to gain experience in each, has great advantages from a practical point of view, but it has constantly been infringed.”