Interstices

INTERSTICES. - Intervals of time established by the Church between the Orders, for the testing and formation of clerics and the exercise of each Order.

The discipline of the interstices, not always uniform, goes back to the first centuries and originated from the fixed times of ordinations and from the obligation to exercise oneself in the lower Orders before ascending to the higher ones. The interstices, observed at first by custom, were later sanctioned by laws. In the Council of Sardica (can. 10) there is the first prescription that one must reach the episcopate through the grades

PUNCTUATION, Signs of. - Punctuation marks in the manuscript of the Gesta episcoporum Neapolitanae Ecclesiae (10th century). Short pause (a point surmounted by a small oblique stroke to the right): lines 2, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19; medium pause (a point): line 4; long pause (a comma formed by two points side by side with an oblique stroke placed beneath to the left): lines 7, 14 - Vatican Library, cod. Vat. lat. 3007, f. 130.

lower; the popes then established it as a general norm. Siricius (epist. I, 9-10: PL 13, 1142-43) and Zosimus (epist. IX, 3: PL 20, 672-73) established distinct and long intervals of time between the Orders. The primitive discipline was rigid, but exceptions were not lacking, owing to the virtue of the candidate, to ambition and to intrigues. When the recruitment of the clergy became difficult, because of the devastations of war and famine, Gelasius I provisionally reduced the i. (epist. IX, 1-3: PL 59, 48-50). Such reductions then became the norm in many councils of Gaul and of Spain. In the Decretals the law took a more stable and less severe form as regards the number and the duration of the i. It was permitted to receive the four minor Orders on the same day, but not the subdiaconate as well, nor could two sacred Orders be received on the same day or on two consecutive days. The Council of Trent (sess. XXIII, chaps. 11, 13, 14) took up again the ancient law of the i., tempering it with the powers granted to the bishop. It prescribed an interval between the individual minor Orders, for the exercise and progress in virtue of the cleric, unless the bishop should judge otherwise expedient. Between the acolytate and the subdiaconate and between the individual sacred Orders it established one year, provided that necessity or utility, in the judgment of the bishop, did not require otherwise. It was forbidden, however, to confer two sacred Orders on the cleric on the same day.

The CIC mitigates these prescriptions (can. 978). The i. between first tonsure and the ostiariate and between the individual minor Orders is left to the prudent judgment of the bishop, but it is not lawful to confer on the candidate first tonsure together with a minor Order or all four minor Orders together. A contrary custom is not excluded, but it is debated whether this is legitimate. At least one year is prescribed between the acolytate and the subdiaconate, and at least three months between the individual sacred Orders. The bishop, if he judges it necessary or useful for the church, can dispense, but without the permission of the Roman pontiff he cannot confer, on the same day, on the candidate the minor Orders together with the subdiaconate, nor two sacred Orders, every contrary custom being rejected. Between the priesthood and the episcopate five years are prescribed (cann. 331 § 1, no. 3).

Vincenzo Carbone