Art. 2. The Prerequisites for Ordination

Can. 1033 A person is promoted licitly to orders only if he has received the sacrament of confirmation.

Can. 1034 §1. A person aspiring to the diaconate or presbyterate is not to be ordained unless he has first been

enrolled among the candidates through the liturgical rite of admission by the authority mentioned in cann. 1016

and 1019; his petition is previously to have been written in his own hand, signed, and accepted in writing by the

same authority.

§2. A person who has been received into a clerical institute through vows is not bound to obtain this admission.

Can. 1035 §1. Before anyone is promoted to the permanent or transitional diaconate, he is required to have received

the ministries of lector and acolyte and to have exercised them for a suitable period of time.

§2. There is to be an interval of at least six months between the conferral of the ministry of acolyte and the

diaconate.

Can. 1036 In order to be promoted to the order of diaconate or of presbyterate, the candidate is to present to his

bishop or competent major superior a declaration written in his own hand and signed in which he attests that he

will receive the sacred order of his own accord and freely and will devote himself perpetually to the ecclesiastical

ministry and at the same time asks to be admitted to the order to be received.

Can. 1037 An unmarried candidate for the permanent diaconate and a candidate for the presbyterate are not to

be admitted to the order of diaconate unless they have assumed the obligation of celibacy in the prescribed rite

publicly before God and the Church or have made perpetual vows in a religious institute.

Can. 1038 A deacon who refuses to be promoted to the presbyterate cannot be prohibited from the exercise of the

order received unless he is prevented by a canonical impediment or another grave cause to be evaluated in the

judgment of the diocesan bishop or competent major superior.

Can. 1039 All candidates for any order are to make a spiritual retreat for at least five days in a place and manner

determined by the ordinary. Before the bishop proceeds to ordination, he must be certain that the candidates

properly made this retreat.