CCC 1573 The essential rite of the sacrament of Holy Orders for all three degrees consists in the bishop’s imposition of hands on the head of the ordinand and in the bishop’s specific consecratory prayer asking God for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and his gifts proper to the ministry to which the candidate is being ordained.1

1 Cf. Pius XII, apostolic constitution, Sacramentum Ordinis: DS 3858.