ABSTRACT
The general aim of this book was to seek an answer to the question of whether the papal curia through its negligence was guilty of creating a great mass of unqualified priests because it allowed anyone to be ordained to the priesthood, as many historians such as Denys Hay or Francis Rapp have claimed in their studies. The aim of the first part of this book was to investigate – as a counterhypothesis to these claims – the real policy of the Catholic Church in respect of the quality of priestly candidates and the carrying out of ordinations. The starting point for this argument was the fact that the papal curia could not be totally negligent in respect of the quality of priestly candidates because canon law consisted of numerous complex regulations regarding the quality of ecclesiastics as well as the procedures for carrying out the act of ordination correctly.
