Chapter II: On the Minister of Confirmation

1497. I. The ORDINARY minister of Confirmation is the Bishop alone. It is of faith, against Photius, the modern Greeks, etc., as is established from Trent, sess. 7, can. 3, on Confirmation: "If anyone shall say that the ordinary minister of holy Confirmation is not the Bishop alone, but any simple priest whatsoever: let him be anathema." Yet:

II. A simple priest can be the EXTRAORDINARY minister of Confirmation from the concession of the Supreme Pontiff. This is established from the Decree to the Armenians, where Eugene IV thus says: "Yet it is read that sometimes, by dispensation of the Apostolic See, from a reasonable and very urgent cause, a simple priest, with chrism made by a Bishop, has administered this Sacrament of Confirmation." It is also established from the practice and authority of several Pontiffs, especially Benedict XIV, who by the Bull Eo quamvis tempore granted that missionary priests give Confirmation to the Copts in a case of necessity.⁸ Moreover, presbyters of the Greek Church, from custom, anoint children with sacred chrism immediately after Baptism has been conferred, which is not reprobated by the Supreme Pontiffs. Whence it must be said that priests through Ordination receive this power incompletely and inchoatively, and that it is made complete and perfected through delegation of the Supreme Pontiff, whether express, as is required among Latins, or tacit, as is conceded from prudence among the Greeks.⁹

We have said from the concession of the Supreme Pontiff; for neither for the liceity nor for the value of the Sacrament does the delegation of the Bishop alone suffice; as Benedict XIV proves,¹⁰ who affirms that a concession of this kind is an act of that supreme power which Christ the Lord committed to His Vicar on earth.

1498. It is asked: What sin does a Bishop commit by not confirming his own, or by confirming strangers?

Resp. 1. He sins gravely by omitting, for a long space of time, for example for eight or ten years, the Confirmation of his own. The reason is that he deprives of an enormous fruit those whose good, from office, he ought to consult. Hence, unless he is excused by moral impossibility, he is held, and indeed at his own expense, to go around his diocese, at least the principal places, for conferring Confirmation. Yet since this Sacrament is not absolutely necessary, as will be said below (n. 1501), he does not seem held to confer it on those affected by plague, nor on every dying person asking for it. For grave inconvenience excuses him, as also does common practice.¹¹

Resp. 2. A Bishop confirming in a diocese not his own, whether strangers or his own subjects, without the consent of the diocesan Bishop, sins gravely and incurs suspension from Pontificals by the law itself, from Trent, sess. 6, cap. 5, de Ref. (cf. n. 1368). But if he confirms strangers in his own diocese, this is per se illicit; but, from common usage, the consent of their Bishop is presumed.¹²