Sacramento del Orden / Sacrament of Holy  Orders (DCH)
 

No. 2025-08

English Abstract: 

The sacrament of Holy Orders played a fundamental role in early modern Catholicism: it was not only the means through which the Church itself expanded and its ministers were formed, but all the other sacraments depended on it for their proper administration in different ways. As a result, even though there was a detailed legal framework regulating who could confer and receive all the sacraments, and under which circumstances, the normativity concerning Holy Orders was particularly delicate — especially in missionary and colonial contexts such as those of Spanish America and the Philippines. This article examines the legal and theological frameworks that regulated this sacrament in the  early modern Spanish empire. It explores canon and civil law pertaining to its characteristics, ministers, and the conditions of its administration; the requirements and conditions that ordinands needed to satisfy; irregularities and impediments to its reception; and the various ways in which these norms were adapted in the diverse missionary contexts of the Spanish empire.