Transcript

When God became man and dwelt among us, He instituted seven Sacraments as special channels of His grace to bring about the salvation of souls.

When talking about how these Sacraments function, one thing that people often struggle to distinguish is the difference between when a Sacrament is invalid versus when it is illicit, with people often characterizing a Sacrament as one thing when they mean the other.

In essence, validity refers to those things that actually make a Sacrament work, while licity has to do with whether the Sacrament is done in union with Rome.

Though these two ideas are obviously interrelated, they are important to distinguish because a particular sacramental action could fall into both of these categories, neither, or just one, depending on the situation.

All seven Sacraments require correct form and matter to make a Sacrament valid.

Form can be loosely identified as the structure or context of an action, while matter is the essential properties of which that action is composed.

To illustrate, let's take a relatively easy example like Baptism.

Baptism is one of the easiest Sacraments to perform validly, which makes sense as it is an essential prerequisite for the other six and our introduction into God's grace.

The form of Baptism is the words, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, said with the intention to incorporate a person into the death and resurrection of Christ, while the matter is triple immersion or a fusion with water.

In general, any Baptism performed within these parameters will be valid and will instill a person with sacramental grace, whether performed by a Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant minister.

However, the licity of this Sacrament is a different story.

The ordinary minister of the Sacrament of Baptism is a deacon, priest, or bishop, which is evident from the examples of baptism in the Acts of the Apostles and throughout the New Testament.

As Canon 682 notes, In danger of death, anyone may licitly baptize.

But outside of these extraordinary cases, all Baptisms performed by those not specifically designated as ministers through Holy Orders are illicit, even if they are valid.

For example, all Baptisms performed by Protestants are automatically illicit.

Though certain features of all the Sacraments are common to every age, the parameters for valid form and matter are determined by the Church, as stated in the Code of Canon Law at Number 841.

This hearkens back to the words of the Council of Trent, which note that this power has ever been in the Church that, In the dispensation of the Sacraments, their substance being untouched, it may ordain or change what things soever it may judge most expedient for the prophet of those who receive or for the veneration of the said Sacraments, according to the difference of circumstances, times, and places.

Because the Church's power can alter particular properties of the Sacraments, certain Sacraments may have different requirements in one age versus another.

Let's take the example of the Sacrament of Marriage.

Validity for marriage requires the form, which is the consent of spouses in the matrimonial contract, and matter, which is the unity of persons via this consent and the intention to form an indissoluble bond.

Though the exchange of vows is common to all forms of marriage, the Church has sometimes adjusted the details of a valid matrimonial contract.

As Canonist Cathy Caridi points out, In the Middle Ages, the Church permitted clandestine or secret marriages, but now makes the presence of a witness a necessary component of marital validity, which helps verify when people are married, especially if they claim not to be or are seeking remarriage.

In this way, a Catholic couple today who attempt to have a secret marriage are not merely doing something sinful and illicit, but are actually failing to form a matrimonial bond at all because they lack valid form through their choice of secrecy.

But in other cases, the requirements for validity, which I have detailed in a previous video, may all be met, yet a marriage could still be illicit through failure to follow proper canonical procedure.

For instance, when someone has a destination wedding at a parish that isn't their own, it's required that the pastor of the parish where the couple actually lives not only be notified, but give consent for the couple to be married elsewhere.

In practice, the details might be handled behind the scenes without the couple actually reaching out to their home parish, but if we assume it wasn't, then this would be a clear case where the marriage itself would be valid but illicitly performed.

But what are the actual consequences of performing a Sacrament illicitly?

After all, if the sacramental grace still works, then what's the actual problem?

Isn't it essentially a paperwork issue?

Well, no, not really.

Let's look at an example like Holy Orders.

The form of Holy Orders is these words, accompanied by the imposition of hands by a bishop.

In conjunction with these two things, a bishop can ordain a male validly to the clergy, or even make them a bishop, but does so illicitly when they fail to follow Rome's directives on who should be ordained.

Rather than being mere procedure, Rome's rules about who should be ordained are vital for ensuring that only good men are ordained to the priesthood.

For instance, Canon 1041 forbids heretics, murderers, schismatics, and the insane from being licitly ordained to the priesthood, but a bishop can ordain them anyway without properly investigating that person.

In relatively recent memory, the Schismatic Bishop Marcel Lefebvre fell into this category in the '80s when he ordained fellow dissenters to the priesthood, as well as consecrating his own bishops to carry on his opposition to Rome.

The priests and bishops he ordained are really given the grace of Holy Orders, but the manner in which they were consecrated is effectively stolen and the very act by which they were consecrated is itself a sin.

This is why it is essential to make certain that only good men are elevated to the episcopacy, since of their own power they possess the ability to make more bishops who think and act like them.

Now that you have a broad sense of the difference between validity and invalidity, we should add another layer of complexity, which is faculties.

Faculties are simply the capacity to do a certain thing.

In this case, the jurisdiction to perform a certain Sacrament.

While Sacraments like Baptism can be presumed valid even when done by anyone, and others like Holy Orders can be presumed valid even if done by a Schismatic bishop, confirmation can be a bit more tricky.

Confirmation is validly conferred with these words and the imposition of hands coupled with the anointing via chrism oil.

This sacramental action requires faculties to be performed validly, and where they are lacking, the Sacrament is invalid.

This brings us to the Eastern Orthodox, who we have not talked much about yet.

Because the Eastern Orthodox are out of communion with Rome, their Sacraments can broadly be characterized as illicit, but there is a popular error that, although Orthodox Sacraments are illicit and in a certain sense sinfully performed, they are nonetheless valid in all cases, but that's not always the case.

Eastern Orthodox Christians have been in and out of communion with Rome on many occasions, and yet they are also not a monolith, but rather are a hodgepodge of splinter groups and ethno-national identities with varying theologies and relationships to the Holy See.So when an Eastern Orthodox person converts to Catholicism, it's not automatically a given that all of their sacraments have been conferred validly depending on their own specific national religion's connection to Rome.

While all Orthodox Christians are, by definition, schismatic through lack of communion with Rome, the circumstances of their rupture are varied.

In some cases, though some particular church may have fallen into schism from Rome, its faculties to perform the Sacrament of Confirmation or chrismation were not explicitly withdrawn.

And in such cases, the Holy See has historically advised against reconfirming such persons.

While in other places, the faculty to perform confirmation was explicitly withdrawn and so they should be reconfirmed lest the sacramental grace be lost through invalidity.

So far I've talked a lot about what makes something invalid and illicit, but it's also important to briefly stress something that doesn't invalidate a sacrament which, is an unworthy minister.

As condemned by the Council of Arles in the 300s, belief that the effectiveness of a sacrament depends on the worthiness of the minister is the heresy of Donatism.

No Catholic has to worry about their confession being invalid because the priest who heard that confession is a secret ax murderer or philanderer.

In the words of the Church, The Sacraments are ex opere operato, which means by the work worked.

The sacrament is effected by the power of Christ Himself and not the minister.

Of course, the essentials of that sacrament are still required.

In the case of confession, for instance, the recipient must still intend to reform their life to receive Christ's grace.

All sacraments are ultimately a continuation of the work of Christ and a participation in His ministry.

This is why though the Church may have a certain flexibility in the administration of the sacraments, they cannot establish the sacraments in such a way that they conflict with the work Christ did.

Pope John Paul II touched on this limitation when he declared in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that, The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.

In all cases, therefore, let us strive to participate in the sacramental life of the Church as faithfully as possible, neither altering the words nor intentions that have been handed down by the Church which, is the bride of Christ.