Article I: On the Conditions Required for Valid Reception

91. The subject of a sacrament is its true cause, but a material cause. - The one receiving is not, as the minister is, the efficient cause which gives power to the sacraments, but the material cause, insofar as, if the one receiving or some disposition in him is lacking, there is not a subject capable of receiving the immediate effect of the sacrament, and consequently the sacrament does not have its signification and is invalid.

The subject is man as wayfarer, who alone is capable of receiving grace through a sensible sign; for Baptism it is every such man; for Confirmation and the Eucharist, one baptized; for Order, a baptized male; for Matrimony, one baptized who has the use of reason; for Penance, one baptized who has sinned; for Extreme Unction, one baptized who has sinned and is sick.

92. Principle I. For the validity of a sacrament there is required in an adult, besides capacity, the intention of receiving the sacrament, or what Christ instituted and the Church does, or what Christians receive. - The reason is that, just as no adult is justified and saved without his own consent, as the Council of Trent says, sess. 6, c. 7, so neither does he receive the means of salvation, nor is he initiated into newness of life or consecrated to God: for these things must be received by an adult in a human manner.

So the Third Council of Carthage (a. 397) and the First of Orange, can. 12 (a. 441); Innocent III, l. 3, t. 42, cap. Mai. de Bapt.; and then all theologians; the Roman Ritual; Instruction of the S.C.P.F., June 23, 1830; and decree of the Holy Office, November 28, 1900. In children this intention is supplied by the intention of Christ and of the Church.

Nor does the Council of Florence stand in the way, urging only three things: matter, form, and the intention of the minister; for the Council 1. wished only to express those things which have themselves actively toward perfecting the sacraments; - 2. it treats of those things which are necessary for all sacraments; but now the one receiving is not required for perfecting the Eucharist; likewise intention is not required in little children.

93. Principle II. The required intention is habitual, i.e., actual and not retracted; and indeed, of itself a habitual implicit intention of receiving the sacrament suffices, or of receiving what Christ instituted and the Church does, or what Christians receive. - In the subject, the intention of receiving the sacrament, or the positive consent of the will, is a condition, required for its validity, that the reception of the sacrament may be voluntary; whence:

A. On the part of the act or of the subject, a lesser intention suffices than in the minister:

1. An actual or virtual intention is not required, which has influence as a cause or active principle, and not as a mere condition: for the one receiving is not the active principle of the sacrament, but only its passive subject; whence in him there is not required an intention which would be the principle of a human action.

2. But there is required, and there suffices, an implicit habitual intention, once had and persisting in the present, as not having been retracted.

3. But a merely interpretative intention does not suffice, which is in no way had, but which would only be had if the thought occurred: namely, by which someone would will, but does not yet will.

But if at times they say that an interpretative intention in some way suffices, there is a dispute about words: they speak thus improperly, and they do not understand a merely interpretative intention concerning the future, but one presumed concerning the present, by which someone, according to his habitual knowledge and present disposition of living in a Christian manner, would explicitly ask for the sacrament if it were asked of him; - but that is an implicit habitual intention, which, on account of present conjectural signs, is presumed to be present.

They say, however, that for Penance and Matrimony a virtual intention is required, because the subject must place human acts; - but that is not required precisely in the subject, for receiving those sacraments, but for placing part of the sacramental sign, namely, the matter which the one receiving must supply, and indeed at the moment at which he supplies it: for the matter consists in human acts, for which at least a virtual intention is required.

The Eucharist, since it is permanent, is valid without the intention of the one receiving: nevertheless this is required for valid sacramental reception.

B. On the part of the object, the same intention is required as in the minister: for the subject must voluntarily receive the same thing which he ministers. It is, namely, the will of receiving the sacrament or rite as sacred, at least implicitly, for example, of receiving what Christ instituted, or what the Church does, or as Christians or Catholics receive, or of living or dying according to Christian custom; - but the sole intention of saving oneself contained in contrition does not suffice, whatever some have said.

1. For this intention is not sufficiently determined; for it is not more determined to one means of salvation, for example, Baptism or Penance, than to others, for example, ex opere operantis; indeed, if it sufficed, almost every man would have the intention of receiving Baptism: for everyone, even a Mohammedan or a Jew, even one who has never heard of Baptism, can have such an intention, and yet who can say that he has the will of embracing the Christian religion? Namely, that one has the will of saving himself, but through the Jewish or Mohammedan religion, not through the Church and the sacraments of Christ. For one who adheres to another opposed religion cannot be judged to have the implicit will of embracing the religion of Christ through Baptism. Whence through the centuries there was no custom of baptizing such persons in their last moments, as now some attempt to introduce.

Similarly, a heretic who does not admit the sacrament of Penance, indeed positively refuses to receive it, has the will of saving himself; how could it be said with any probability that by this very fact he wills to receive Penance?

2. Such an intention is not absolute, but merely conditioned concerning the future: for the will of receiving a sacrament, say Baptism, is contained in contrition only conditionally. This is only the will of observing the precepts, but is not immediately the will of Baptism; immediately it is the will of examining the religion of Christ if it is proposed, and, if it is known to be true, of receiving Baptism; whence one who has this will immediately intends to fulfill the known precepts, and would will Baptism if its obligation were known, but he does not know this and does not will it. Therefore one who has only the will of salvation cannot validly receive the sacraments.¹ With this will, indeed, one can belong to the soul of the Church through grace and charity, but not to the social body of the Church, and consequently cannot receive Baptism and, a fortiori, the other sacraments: for these are social bonds by which we are joined to the body.

¹ Hence it cannot be said with Génicot that by the Holy Office only a certain mode of acting is recommended.

Therefore, just as for conferring a sacrament a certain general intention of saving or sanctifying does not suffice, but a determined intention of sanctifying through such a determined means or sacrament is required, so for receiving a sacrament the general will of salvation does not suffice, but a determined intention of saving oneself through a determined sacrament is demanded.

3. Hence in all ecclesiastical documents there is constantly presupposed in the one receiving not only the will of salvation, but the intention of receiving the sacrament. Thus the Ritual, t. 2, c. 3, n. 1: "let him be baptized only knowingly and willingly; and in danger of death, if he is unable to ask for Baptism, it is required that he have manifested in some probable way the intention of receiving Baptism"; which words the Code repeats, can. 752, and it also requires that an adult "ask for Baptism, each one by his own movement of soul" (can. 745). In the same way the Ritual prescribes, t. 5, c. 1, n. 8: "Extreme Unction cannot be given except to a faithful person" (can. 940), and n. 11: "to the sick who, when they were in possession of their mind, asked for it at least implicitly or would probably have asked for it" (can. 943). And the Holy Office, to the question "whether a missionary can confer Baptism in the article of death upon a Mohammedan adult who in his errors is supposed to be in good faith (and therefore has the will of saving himself), if he has already lost advertence...," answered, March 30, 1898: "Concerning Mohammedans dying and already deprived of their senses, one must answer as in the decree of the Holy Office, September 18, 1850: If previously they have given signs of willing to be baptized, or in the present state by a nod or in another way have shown the same disposition, they can be baptized under condition, insofar, however, as the missionary, after considering all the circumstances of things, has thus prudently judged." From this response it is clear that the Holy Office does not esteem the contrary opinion as probable, since it is held as not to be attended to in practice.²

² So Suarez, Lugo, Noldin, Marc, Prümmer, Umberg.

94. Practical conclusions. - In practice, an implicit habitual will of receiving the sacrament is had:

1. for Baptism, in the will of receiving the Christian religion or of being a Christian and living as a Christian;

2. for Confirmation, in the will of being a perfect Christian or of living or acting as a good Christian;

3. for Viaticum and Extreme Unction, in the will of dying according to Christian custom or of not dying without the sacraments; and this also suffices for Penance, in the article of death, provided some confession of sins or manifestation of contrition has preceded.

But such a will does not suffice, and an explicit one is required:

a) for receiving Holy Communion in other circumstances, because the will of living as a Christian does not contain the will of receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist so often and at such a time;

b) for Order and Matrimony, in which a new state with new offices must be undertaken.

95. Corollaries. - From what has been said it follows that the sacrament is invalid:

1. which someone receives with a neutral intention, neither consenting nor dissenting but conducting himself negatively;

2. which someone receives in simulation, with essential fiction, for example, playfully and mockingly;

3. which is received through mere force, with the soul resisting.

On the contrary, it is validly conferred upon those sleeping, drunk, fallen into madness, deprived of the senses, who previously had the intention of receiving those things; but it is illicit unless in probable danger of death, or unless the impediment of the use of reason is perpetual.