CathInfo.com

So, considering your list above a) "Doubtful priest"; Would you go to a traditional priest who had been baptized in the N.O. or came from a protestant sect? If his baptism was doubtful,

99% of novus ordo baptisms are valid.  Don't be scrupulous about this. 


Most of protestant baptisms are valid.  Some are doubtful but this is based on the "type" of protestant sect.  

So, considering your list above a) "Doubtful priest"; Would you go to a traditional priest who had been baptized in the N.O. or came from a protestant sect? If his baptism was doubtful, so is his priesthood...

Good question.  I think there are thresholds or degrees of doubt.  I think a lesser degree of doubt suffices to justify a conditional Baptism vs. the degree of doubt required to avoid a priest who may have been baptized Novus Ordo.  At that level, you'd probably be looking at something closer to a negative than a positive doubt, where you're in "what it ...?" territory (the general characterization of negative doubt).  What if THIS priest's Novus Ordo Baptism was invalid?  To me that's closer to the question even in the Traditional era of "What if the priest who baptized this priest [Traditional Rite] botched the form?"  It's much less likely that this would happen, but still possible.

Let's say that in the pre-V2 era, .005% of Baptisms were invalid (due to mistakes by priests) but in the Novus Ordo era, .5% are invalid due to, say, a tendency for some priests to go "off script" and invalidate the essential form.

I believe that the .5% we're talking about here would suffices to justify a conditional Baptism, but not be sufficient to be required to treat any given priest as doubtful, or to withhold giving Holy Communion to those who had come over from the NO without a conditional Baptism.

So, IMO, different thresholds of doubt required, a lower one for conditional Baptism, a higher one for doubting the validity of any given priest.

You know, given the modern era, I do question why the Church wouldn't and shouldn't add various requirements (ordinary requirements) to have all the essential form parts of Baptisms videotaped, and then reviewed quickly by someone at the Chancery in case any problems are detected.  I mean, why not?  We have the technology that would make it a trivial effort.  I imagine an individual at the Chancery could go through all the tapes in about an hour a week.  Probably much better use of that time than 95% of all the activities that happen in the NO circuses.