REORDINATION. – A modern term used to indicate the practice, which has prevailed in certain periods and only in certain circles, of repeating an Ordination that was considered invalid because it had been conferred by heretical, schismatic, deposed, or excommunicated ministers.
This practice is linked to the theory, which has strong connections with Donatism (q.v.), that held Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders to be invalid when conferred by unworthy ministers (q.V. SACRAMENTS). Although St. Augustine (q.v.) had demonstrated the theoretical and practical inconsistency of Donatism, clearly setting forth the doctrine of the objective efficacy of the Sacraments (ex opere operato) and the indelibility of the character (q.v.) in the three Sacraments mentioned, nevertheless, in periods of particular theological and moral decline, the error and its practical consequence of reordination occasionally resurfaced, already being practiced among the Donatists.
In the East, Apostolic Canon 68 (4th century) already recognized the necessity of reordination in the case of bishops, priests, or deacons ordained by heretical ministers. Patriarch John Scholasticus (565–77) attempted to impose reordinations upon the Monophysites. In the West, overlooking the error of St. Cyprian (q.v.) and Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocia, it should be noted that the Councils of Orléans (511) and Saragossa (592) prescribed that Arian clergy returning to the Church be reordained. Around 669, Theodore of Canterbury reordained Ceadda, former bishop of York; the Roman Council of 769 prescribed the reordination of clergy ordained by Pope Constantine; the Council of Soissons (853) declared invalid the ordinations performed by Ebbo during his governance of the Church of Reims; in 881, John VIII approved the reordination of Joseph of Vercelli, performed by Santero; the ordinations of Pope Formosus were held invalid by Sergius III (904–11) and in part repeated; the Roman Council of 964, presided over by John XII, rejected as null the ordinations of Leo VIII. During the turbulent period of the simoniacal heresy (11th century), Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida vigorously maintained the invalidity of ordinations conferred by simoniacal ministers, while St. Peter Damian (q.v.) defended the correct doctrine; in the Investiture Controversy, the Roman curia wavered between Humbert’s theory (supported by Cardinal Deusdedit) and the doctrine of Peter Damian (defended by Cardinals Atto and Anselm of Lucca). The legate Cardinal Amatus often adhered to the opinion of Cardinal Humbert; and Bonizo of Sutri (q.v.) attests that in northern Italy, around 1088–90, reordinations were performed; in 1091, the deacon Poppo, already ordained by the simoniac Engelbert, was reordained; in 1088, the deacon Daibert, already ordained by the simoniac Wenilo of Mainz, was reordained by Urban II. This practice became an established theory in the School of Bologna through the work of Roland Bandinelli (later Alexander III) and Rufinus (q.v.) and resurfaced during the Western Schism (14th–15th centuries).
The arguments advanced by St. Cyprian and the Donatists to defend their practice—that the Holy Spirit cannot be conferred by one who does not possess Him and that unworthy ministers (heretics, schismatics, the deposed, etc.), being outside the Church, lack grace—already refuted by St. Augustine, reappeared in the Middle Ages and were combined with others that emerged in times of particular anarchy and were applied without sufficient consideration. Emphasis was placed especially on subordination to the Church (to the hierarchy legitimately established), and the principle was formulated that for an Ordination to be valid, not only the power of Order (potestas Ordinis) but also the license to exercise it (licentia Ordinis exequendi) was necessary (as, for example, in Hugh of Amiens, Roland Bandinelli, and Rufinus), drawing too close a parallel between the power to absolve and the power to ordain. It was argued that just as a priest lacking jurisdiction absolves invalidly, so too a bishop (or other minister) who is deposed, excommunicated, a schismatic, or a heretic, being separated from the Church, does not possess the office or mandate to exercise the Order, and his act is null. This doctrine, never definitively condemned, has even in recent times found advocates who have presented it with careful nuances in keeping with the current progress of studies (cf. C. Baisi, *Il ministro straordinario degli Ordini sacramentali*, Rome 1935).
This marginal conception, even if accepted in practice by some popes, did not compromise papal infallibility, since no definitive judgment was ever intended in concrete cases. Instead, the common doctrine prevailed, already enunciated in the 3rd century by Pope Stephen in his famous rescript (*Nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum est*), by which he rejected the theory of St. Cyprian and the rebaptizers, and was later sanctioned by the Council of Nicaea (325). This doctrine was developed and brilliantly illustrated by St. Augustine and, through St. Gregory the Great, reached Rabanus Maurus (9th century), Eugenius Vulgarius and Liutprand (10th), Fulbert of Chartres, St. Peter Damian, and Bernold of Constance (11th), Ognibene, Gandulf of Bologna, and Hugh of Pisa (12th), until it triumphed with St. Raymond of Peñafort, Roland of Cremona, Alexander of Hales, and especially with St. Thomas Aquinas (*Summa Theologiae*, III, qq. 60–90 [his entire sacramental theology presupposes this doctrine] and *Supplement*, q. 38, art. 2). The Council of Trent defined the validity of Baptism conferred by heretics (Session VII, *De Baptismo*, canon 4), but refrained from declaring valid the ordinations conferred by heretical ministers or those in any way separated from the Church—not because any doubt could exist on this point, but to avoid placing the doctrine of certain Catholic authors in opposition to a defined truth of faith.