Session VII (March 3, 1547)

For the completion of the salutary doctrine of justification, which was a promulgated in the last session with the unanimous consent of the Fathers, it has seemed fitting to treat of the most holy sacraments of the Church, through which all true justice either begins, or being begun is increased or being lost is restored. Therefore the holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit with the same legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein, in order to destroy the errors, and to uproot the heresies concerning these most holy sacraments, which in this stormy period of ours have been both revived from the heresies previously condemned by our Fathers, and also have been invented anew, which are exceedingly detrimental to the purity of the Catholic Church and to the salvation of souls; this Synod in adhering to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, to the apostolic traditions and to the unanimous opinion of other councils and of the Fathers, has thought it proper to establish and decree these present canons, intending (with the assistance of the divine Spirit) to publish later the remaining which are wanting for the completion of the work begun.

Can. I. If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the New Law were not all instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, or that there are more or less than seven, namely baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, order, and matrimony, or even that anyone of these seven is not truly and strictly speaking a sacrament: let him be anathema.

Can. 2. If anyone shall say that these same sacraments of the new Law do not differ from the sacraments of the Old Law, except that the ceremonies are different and the outward rites are different: let him be anathema.

Can. 3. If anyone shall say that these seven sacraments are equal to each other in such a way that one is not for any reason more worthy than the other: let him be anathema.

Can. 4. If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation, but are superfluous, and that, although all are not necessary for every individual, without them or without the desire of them through faith alone men obtain from God the grace of justification; let him be anathema.

Can. 5. If anyone shall say that these sacraments have been instituted for the nourishing of faith alone: let him be anathema.

Can. 6. If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the New Law do not contain the grace which they signify, or that they do not confer that grace on those who do not place an obstacle in the way, as-though they were only outward signs of grace or justice, received through faith, and certain marks of the Christian profession by which the faithful among men are distinguished from the unbelievers: let him be anathema.

Can. 7. If anyone shall say that grace, as far as concerns God's part, is not given through the sacraments always and to all men, even though they receive them rightly, but only sometimes and to some persons: let him be anathema.

Can. 8. If anyone shall say that by the said sacraments of the New Law, grace is not conferred from the work which has been worked [ex opere operato], but that faith alone in the divine promise suffices to obtain grace: let him be anathema.

Can. 9. If anyone shall say that in the three sacraments, namely, baptism, confirmation, and orders, there is not imprinted on the soul a sign, that is, a certain spiritual and indelible mark, on account of which they cannot be repeated: let him be anathema.

Can. 10. If anyone shall say that all Christians have power to administer the word and all the sacraments: let him be anathema.

Can. 11. If anyone shall say that in ministers, when they effect and confer the sacraments, the intention at least of doing what the Church does is not required: let him be anathema.

Can. 12. If anyone shall say that a minister who is in mortal sin, although he observes all the essentials which pertain to the performance or conferring of the sacrament, neither performs nor confers the sacrament: let him be anathema.

Can. 13. If anyone shall say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church accustomed to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments may be disdained or omitted by the minister without sin and at pleasure, or may be changed by any pastor of the churches to other new ones: let him be anathema.

Can. 1. If anyone shall say that the baptism of John had the same force as the baptism of Christ: let him be anathema.

Can. 2. If anyone shall say that real and natural water is not necessary for baptism, and on that account those words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit" (John 3:5), are distorted into some sort of metaphor: let him be anathema.

Can. 3. If anyone shall say that in the Roman Church (which is the mother and the teacher of all churches) there is not the true doctrine concerning the sacrament of baptism: let him be anathema.

Can. 4. If anyone shall say that the baptism, which is also given by heretics in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, with the intention of doing what the Church does, is not true baptism: let him be anathema.

Can. 5. If anyone shall say that baptism is optional, that is, not necessary for salvation: let him be anathema [cf. n.796 ].

Can. 6. If anyone shall say that one who is baptized cannot, even if he wishes, lose grace, however much he may sin, unless he is unwilling to believe: let him be anathema [cf. n. 808].

Can. 7. If anyone shall say that those who are baptized are by baptism itself made debtors to faith alone, and not to the observance of the whole law of Christ: let him be anathema [cf. n. 802].

Can. 8. If anyone shall say that those baptized are free from all precepts of the holy Church, which are either written or handed down, so that they are not bound to observe them, unless they of their own accord should wish to submit themselves to them: let him be anathema.

Can. 9. If anyone shall say that men are to be so recalled to the remembrance of the baptism which they have received, that they understand that all the vows which have been taken after baptism are void by virtue of the promise already made in baptism itself, as if by them they detracted from the faith which they professed, and from the baptism itself: let him be anathema.

Can. 10. If anyone shall say that all sins which are committed after baptism are either remitted or made venial by the mere remembrance and the faith of the baptism received: let him be anathema.

Can. 11. If anyone shall say that baptism truly and rightly administered must be repeated for him who has denied the faith of Christ among infidels, when he is converted to repentance: let him be anathema.

Can. 12. If anyone shall say that no one is to be baptized except at that age at which Christ was baptized, or when at the very point of death, let him be anathema.

Can. 13. If anyone shall say that infants, because they have not actual faith, after having received baptism are not to be numbered among the faithful, and therefore, when they have reached the years of discretion, are to be rebaptized, or that it is better that their baptism be omitted than that they, while not believing, by their own act be baptized in the faith of the Church alone: let him be anathema.

Can. 14. If anyone shall say that those who have been baptized in this.manner as infants, when they have grown up, are to be questioned whether they wish to ratify what the sponsors promised in their name, when they were baptized, and if they should answer that they are not willing, that they must be left to their own will, and that they are not to be forced to a Christian life in the meantime by any other penalty, except that they be excluded from the reception of the Eucharist and of the other sacraments until they repent: let him be anathema.

Can. I. If anyone shall say that the confirmation of those baptized is an empty ceremony and not rather a true and proper sacrament, or that in former times it was nothing more than a kind of catechism, by which those approaching adolescence gave an account of their faith before the Church: let him be anathema.

Can. 2. If anyone shall say that they who ascribe any power to the sacred chrism of confirmation offer an outrage to the Holy Spirit: let him be anathema.

Can. 3. If anyone shall say that the ordinary minister of holy confirmation is not the bishop alone, but any simple priest: let him be anathema.