Are you arguing a layman can be consecrated a bishop?
I think you misread the passage you quoted:
That which is "now generally abandoned" is the idea that the episcopacy is not a holy order, not that one must be a priest to be consecrated a bishop.
Here is the full paragraph from which you are quoting (which opines in the exact opposite sense from which your fragment represents it):
"For the
subdiaconate and the higher orders there is, moreover, required a title, i.e., the
right to receive maintenance from a determined source. Again, the candidate must observe the interstices, or times required to elapse between the reception of various orders; he must also have received
confirmation and the lower orders preceding the one to which he is raised. This last requirement does not affect the validity of the order conferred, as every order gives a distinct and independent power.
One exception is made by the majority of theologians and canonists [i.e., regarding validity not being affected],
who are of opinion that episcopal consecration requires the previous reception of priest's orders for its validity. Others, however, maintain that episcopal power includes full
priestly power, which is thus conferred by episcopal
consecration. They appeal to history and bring forward cases of
bishops who were
consecrated without having previously received
priest's orders, and though most of the cases are somewhat
doubtful and can be explained on other grounds, it seems impossible to reject them all. It is further to be remembered that
scholastic theologians mostly required the previous reception of
priest's orders for valid episcopal
consecration, because they did not consider
episcopacy an order, a view which is now generally abandoned."
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11279a.htmIn other words, both the Scholastics and the majority of canonists and theologians are of the opinion that a priestly ordination is requisite for a valid episcopal consecration.
You are free, of course, to cling to those unnamed inexplicable situations from early Church history in which it appears that a layman did receive episcopal consecration (validly or invalidly??) without having first received priestly ordination (none of whom are named, by the way), but if you choose to adopt that minority position as a rebuttal to those who are questioning the validity of Webster's priestly ordination, it does nothing to remove the doubt surrounding your episcopal consecration, but instead adds one more concern to the list of possibly invalidating concerns:
1) Webster's ordination;
2) Websters consecration;
3) The botching of the form on attempt #1;
4) The lack of video showing a properly enunciated essential form;
5) And now, the argument, apparently, that even if Webster wasn't a priest (#1), he is still a bishop (despite #2), in virtue of unknown but presumed historical examples in the early Church who received consecration as laymen.
But supposing laymen received consecration, did they receive it validly or invalidly?
Topic: Bishop Pfeiffer (Read 30891 times)