REPARATION
775
REPARATION
struggle with the chorepiscopi, the ordinations con-
ferred by these prelates were often declared null.
In 881-82 Pope John VIII prescribed the reordination
of Bishop Joseph of Vercelli, who had been ordained
by the Archbishop of Milan, then under the ban of
excommunication. On several occasions the ordina-
tions conferred by Pope Formosus were declared null
and were repeated. After the eleventh century the
discussions concerning simony pave new sharpness
to the controversy about reordinations. Cardinal
Humbert affirmed the nullity of simoniacal ordina-
tions as did also the Synod of Girona (Spain) in 1078.
In the strife between the emperors of Germany and
the popes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries the
power of ordination of schismatic bishops was dis-
cussed and denied in various ways (cf. Saltet, "Les
rdordinations", 205-412). In the thirteenth cen-
tury the conditions for the validity of Holy orders
were determined in such a way that since then all
uncertainty has been excluded.
III. Interpretations and Conclusions. — The chief instances just cited and the attempts that have been made to justify them, constitute, from the theo- logical standpoint, doctrinal deformations. It is not then surprising that these difficulties have sometimes, and even quite recently, been used as objections against the Church and the pope, especially by Anglicans, who are always sensitive on the question of ordinations. It is true that during these con- troversies the doctrinal authority of the popes was more than once involved. But to what extent? It is obvious that the decisions of the popes on these points did not possess the character required by the Council of the Vatican for definitions involving the sovereign authority of the pope in doctrinal matters. In the history of reordinations the authority of the popes is much less concerned than in the doctrine regarding the relations of the civil and ecclesiastical powers, in which, nevertheless, as theologians main- tain, papal infallibility is not involved (cf. J. Fessler, "La vraie et la fausse infaillibilite des papes", Paris, 1873). The question as to the conditions for the validity of certain sacraments was one of those that caused serious divisions in the early Church. The popes cannot be held responsible for these lengthy controversies. In ancient times it was the whole Church that sought the solution of these great difficulties. At a time when ecclesiastical or- ganization was only just beginning, the initiative, and the resppnsibilities as well, were heavy burdens for the great Churches and their heads. It was not only the tradition of Rome which at first was some- what hesitant on certain aspects of this question, but that of the Church in general, and in this matter the tradition of Rome was incomparably more firm than that of all the other Churches. To accuse the Church in Rome in this matter is to accuse the Uni- versal Church; and on this as on so many other questions the Anglican Church has an interest in common with the Roman Church. Old Catholics and Anglicans often bring charges against the Roman See, which, if they had the value that is claimed for them, would tell not only against the popes but also against the earlj' Church and the Fathers. Against this manner of representing the state of theological tradition concerning the conditions for the validity of Holy orders, only they can raise objection who interpret in a strict sense the saying of Vincent of L^rins; "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus". But to defend tliis thesis is to undertake to show in tradition the absolute identity and the unchangeableness of the most essential Christian doctrines, a task which will readily appear impossible. History shows us in the life of the Church and in doctrine a movement between determined limits and the popes as regulators of this movement. To implicate the popes in the long history of these con-
troversies it must be proved that they failed in this
task, which cannot be done.
MoRiN, Commentariits de sacris ecclesicB ordinationibus (Paris, 1655) ; Hergenhotheb, Die Reordinalionen der alten Kirche in Oesterreich. Vierteljahresschr. fur kathol. Theol. (1862). 207-52, 387-456; Idem, Photius Patriarch von Constantinopel, sein Leben seine Schriflen u. das griech. Schisma (Ratisbon, 1867-69); Saltet, Les reordinations, etude sur le sacrement de I'ordre (Paris, 1907); Kern, Biii. in Zeitschr. {iir kathol. Theol. <.\90'i),5O7-\5; Lebbe, Bibl. in Revue benedictine (1907), 560-65; Wordsworth in The Guardian (London, 1908, 25 Nov. and 2 Dec), 1963 sqq., 2005 sqq.; and the reply of Saltet in The Guardian (1908, 30 Dec, 2175 sqq.); Wordsworth, Ordination Problems (London, 1909), cf. Saltet in Bulletin de littSrature eccUsiastigue (Toulouse. 1909). 276.
Louis Saltet.
Reparation is a theological concept closely con- nected with those of atonement and satisfaction, and thus belonging to some of the deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith. It is the teacliing of that Faith that man is a creature who has fallen from an original state of justice in which he was created, and that through the Incarnation, Passion, and Death of the Son of God he has been redeemed and restored again in a certain degree to the original condition. Al- though God might have condoned men's offences gratuitously if He had chosen to do so, yet in His Providence He did not do this; He judged it better to demand satisfaction for the injuries which man had done Him. It is better for man's education that wrong doing on his part should entail the necessity of making satisfaction. This satisfaction was made adequately to God by the Sufferings, Passion, and Death of Jesus Christ, made Man for us. By voluntary submission to His Passion and Death on the Cross, Jesus Christ atoned for our disobedience and sin. He thus made reparation to the offended majesty of God for the outrages which the Creator so con- stantly suffers at the hands of His creatures. We are restored to grace through the merits of Clirist's Death, and that grace enables us to add our prayers, labours, and trials to those of Our Lord "and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ" (Col., i, 24). We can thus make some sort of reparation to the justice of God for our own of- fences against Him, and by virtue of the Communion of Saints, the oneness and solidarity of the mystical Body of Christ, we can also make satisfaction and reparation for the sins of others.
This theological doctrine, firmly rooted in the Christian Faith, is the foundation of the numerous confraternities and pious associations which have been founded, especially in modern times, to make reparation to God for the sins of men. Thus the Archconfraternity of Reparation for blasphemy and the neglect of Sunday was founded 28 June, 1847, in the Church of St. Martin de La None at St. Dizier in France by Mgr Parisis, Bishop of Langres. With a similar object, the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face was established at Tours, about 1851, through the piety of M. Dupont, the "holy man of Tours ". In 1883 an association was formed in Rome to offer reparation to God on behalf of all nations. The idea of reparation is an essential element in the devotion of the Sacred Heart (see Heart of Jesus, Devotion to the).
The Mass, the representation of the sacrifice of Calvary, is specially suited to make reparation for sin. One of the ends for which it is offered is the propitiation of God's wrath. A pious widow of Paris conceived the idea of promoting this object in 1862. By the authority of Pope Leo XIll the erec- tion of the Archconfraternity of the Mass of Repara- tion was sanctioned in 1886.
Beringer, Les indulgences (Paris, 1890) ; Nilles, De rationibus Festorum sacratissimi Cordis Jesu et purissimi Cordis Maries (5th ed.,2 vols., Innsbruck. 1885); Galuffet. The Adorable Heart of Jesus (New York, 1887) ; Tickell, The Life of Bhastd Margaret Mary (London, 1869).
T. Slater.
