Sacraments’ Validity Amid Coronavirus

National Catholic Register, 01 April 2020

The sacraments become more, not less, important in a time of distress.

Regarding confession and canon law in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic: If I get to confession, is there a chance it will be invalid?

Catholics can be at peace on that important canonical point.

The sacraments become more, not less, important in a time of distress.

That why bishops who have restricted the public celebration of the sacraments have described the decision as “excruciating.”

A question has arisen that might disturb the peace of the Catholic faithful. If a bishop restricts, or even “suspends,” the sacraments, does that mean that a sacrament administered is invalid?

It’s not a theoretical question. The Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts, had said that priests could administer the anointing of the sick by reciting the sacramental formula while someone else (a nurse) anointed the sick person with the oil. That separation of the two acts renders the sacrament invalid, which was clarified within days by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

That grave error — even if well-intentioned — meant that anyone who was anointed in such a fashion did not in fact receive the sacrament. It was invalid.

The validity of the sacraments is of utmost importance. When it is discovered, for example, that a priest or deacon did not celebrate baptisms properly, perhaps making up his own formula, a diocese will go back years, even decades, to ensure that the people invalidly baptized are now properly baptized. That is extremely rare, but it has happened.

Thus one would presume that Springfield has seen to it that any such people anointed invalidly — if still alive — were later properly anointed. But perhaps not, as the diocese “suspended” the anointing of the sick entirely.

 Suspending the Sacraments

It is not clear what exactly that means; there are no exactly applicable precedents. It is certainly a counterintuitive measure to suspend the anointing of the sick in a time of widespread sickness. But the decision of Bishop Mitchell Rozanski does not appear to invalidate any anointings that might be done in his diocese. The priest would clearly be going against the will of Bishop Rozanski if he administered an anointing. He would have to answer to the bishop and his conscience for that. But the anointed person would have received the grace of the sacrament. It would be valid.

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