Can I jump right from Catalina 10.15 to Monterey 12.3 without any intermediate updates?

Caution - jumping over all the newer versions and directly to Big Sur  / Monterey on Qualifying computers is Technically possible - there are those who have attempted and were successful.

Then there are those who attempted and had less than good results.

If this is a Production or Mission Critical Set-up - a more prudent and measure approach is suggested. 

The above is from observations on the Apple Support Community Forums and IMHO

There are reports appearing on the ASC Forums regarding failed installation of Monterey on older Qualifying Apple Computers. In most cases this is related to having a NON Apple Original internal drive ?  

The EFI Boot ROM included in Monterey is verifying for Original Apple Drive and if not found , may Balk or fail to upgrade to Monterey. 

Reports indicate the EFI BOOT ROM is Required to Flash the Computer and is a  requirement for a Successful Monterey Installation.

Do you have a Rescue Plan In-Place. This comprises having 3 Backups using 2 methods and 1 Off Site incase of Theft, Loss or Natural Disasters. A Time Machine Backup  is very useful and can be used to Revert to Previous Working macOS. 

For addition purposes - two Tested Clones each to separate external drives. This is insurance incase the upgrades goes sideways. At least one Tested Clone and / or Time Machine Backup should be Off - Site

Does my CCC backup have to be bootable for me to restore data from it?

Installing a new OS is a great opportunity to keep your mac fresh and healthy. While in theory one could keep upgrading since 10.2 Jaguar until Monterey, in practice upgrading in place year after year after year accumulates stuff that at some point you have no idea it’s there or what it is for and will break at some point.

Here is what I do with every new major upgrade: two full backups (TM and a bootable clone); create a usb installer; erase and install; migrate just the user accounts. This way my mac has all my documents (some are dated from the previous century!), all my mail, etc, but a pristine system. No old extensions to crash.

aquino07 wrote:

Can I jump right from Catalina 10.15 to Monterey 12.3 without any intermediate updates?

I did this upgrade from 10.15.7 to 12.1 (back then), skipping Big Sur, with no issues. That said, it was a newer laptop that had come with 10.15 originally, so none of the "leftover" files or extensions from earlier systems were present, as mentioned by Luis Sequeira earlier, which could be a factor.

That said, with this update in the MacOS, the computer appears to shut down, go to black screen, with no indication that it is on or receiving power. It does this a few times, and can stay blank for up to a few minutes, before coming back on and continuing with "time left" indicator, progress bar, etc. This may be part of the firmware updates, but it can be disconcerting, so once the update has started, it might be best to leave the room for a while.

I attempted this and got an error that some file was missing (I found out later a file from Big Sur). I then installed Big Sur and then Monterey and all was fine.

Yes.