On the Ecclesiastical hierarchy, and on Ordination.Д«ut, forasmuch as in the sacrament of Order, as also in Baptism and Confirmation, a character is imprinted, which can neither be effaced nor taken away the holy Synod with reason condemns the opinion of those, who assert that the priests of the New Testament have only a temporary power and that those who have once been rightly ordained, can again become laymen, if they do not exercise the ministry of the word of God. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love of sobriety. For the apostle says I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. Whereas, by the testimony of Scripture, by Apostolic tradition, and the unanimous consent of the Fathers, it is clear that grace is conferred by sacred ordination, which is performed by words and outward signs, no one ought to doubt that Order is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of holy Church. That Order is truly and properly a Sacrament. For the sacred Scriptures make open mention not only of priests, but also of deacons and teach, in words the most weighty, what things are especially to be attended to in the Ordination thereof and, from the very beginning of the church, the names of the following orders, and the ministrations proper to each one of them, are known to have been in use to wit those of subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, lector, and door-keeper though these were not of equal rank: for the subdeavonship is classed amongst the greater orders by the Fathers and sacred Councils, wherein also we very often read of the other inferior orders. And the sacred Scriptures show, and the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught, that this priesthood was instituted by the same Lord our Saviour, and that to the apostles, and their successors in the priesthood, was the power delivered of consecrating, offering, and administering His Body and Blood, as also of forgiving and of retaining sins.ДЄnd whereas the ministry of so holy a priesthood is a divine thing to the end that it might be exercised in a more worthy manner, and with greater veneration, it was suitable that, in the most well-ordered settlement of the church, there should be several and diverse orders of ministers, to minister to the priesthood, by virtue of their office orders so distributed as that those already marked with the clerical tonsure should ascend through the lesser to the greater orders. Whereas, therefore, in the New Testament, the Catholic Church has received, from the institution of Christ, the holy visible sacrifice of the Eucharist it must needs also be confessed, that there is, in that Church, a new, visible, and external priesthood, into which the old has been translated. Sacrifice and priesthood are, by the ordinance of God, in such wise conjoined, as that both have existed in every law. On the institution of the Priesthood of the New Law. THE TRUE AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, TOUCHING THE SACRAMENT OF ORDER, DECREED AND PUBLISHED BY THE HOLY SYNOD OF TRENT, IN THE SEVENTH SESSION, IN CONDEMNATION OF THE ERRORS OF OUR TIMEД«eing the seventh under the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IV., celebrated on the fifteenth day of July, MDLXIII.

Seminary formation council