Article IV: On Those to Whom the Sacraments Are to Be Ministered

St. Thomas III, q. 80, a. 6; q. 81, a. 2.

86. The office of ministering the sacraments in one who has the care of souls. - Those who have the care of souls, i.e., who by office or by a special title of jurisdiction, whether ordinary (a bishop, prelate of a religion, pastor, and those who are after the manner of a pastor), or delegated (pastors' coadjutors and assistant vicars, according to can. 476, § 6), ought to feed some part of the sheepfold of Christ, are bound under grave obligation from justice, by reason of office, contract, stipend, etc., to minister the sacraments to their subjects. In particular:

1. They are bound under grave obligation regularly to minister the sacraments personally to their subjects as often as they reasonably ask, even for a cause of devotion (can. 467, § 1 and 892, § 1); - unless they themselves are legitimately impeded, or can, without inconvenience to the subjects, minister them through others: yet to deny them sometimes, of itself, is not mortal, because ordinarily the harm can easily be repaired.

Hence a pastor sins gravely who habitually or by custom: a) is slow and difficult in hearing confessions, especially of the sick; or b) takes it ill if some communicate during the week, and makes them wait a long time and thus turns them away from Communion; or c) refuses to carry the Eucharist to the sick, even outside danger of death.

2. In grave necessity, and a fortiori in extreme necessity, they are bound, even with evident danger to life, to minister the necessary sacraments, namely Baptism and Penance (S.C.C., October 12, 1576), and, if they can with the same danger, the Eucharist and Extreme Unction; but if sufficient certitude concerning Penance is not had, they ought to minister Extreme Unction, which would be necessary per accidens.

Yet a pastor can entrust the ministration to others, unless he is expressly and by name required; but he cannot depart from the flock in a time of common danger, for example, plague (S.C.C., December 6, 1576).

3. In common necessity they are bound to minister the Eucharist and Extreme Unction even with grave inconvenience.

87. The obligation of ministering the sacraments in a simple priest. - Other priests, not from justice, but, when those who have the care of souls are lacking, from charity, are bound to minister the sacraments. And indeed:

1. in common necessity, under light obligation, if they can do it without inconvenience;

2. in grave necessity of a neighbor, under grave obligation, with inconvenience not very great;

3. in extreme necessity of a neighbor, or grave necessity of the community, they are bound to minister even with danger of life, provided there is a founded hope of helping and there is not another who may help.

Hence you are not bound, in order to baptize or absolve someone, certainly to expose your life, if you probably must perish before you can carry out your office, as if a little child not yet baptized must morally certainly be suffocated in the flames before you can reach him, because no one is bound to a useless work, or to one prudently presumed such, with grave harm to himself; - or if you probably presume that he is baptized or is not in the state of sin, or also that he can easily help himself through an act of contrition; - or if you, existing in mortal sin, doubt concerning your own contrition; - or if, by your death, the salvation of several others would be endangered.

88. The obligation of denying the sacraments. - Since conditions and dispositions are required for receiving the sacraments validly and licitly, there follows in the minister an obligation not to minister them to the incapable or unworthy. For this of itself is the grave sin of sacrilege insofar as a sacred thing is exposed to profanation, according to Mt. VII, 6: Do not give what is holy to dogs; of infidelity insofar as the minister acts against the office of a good dispenser; and of scandal or cooperation in grave sin. Yet per accidens it is licit on account of a most grave cause, because by an action not evil it is licit to cooperate in another's sin, in order to avoid a greater evil (I, n. 489), namely, to avoid scandal, or the unjust defamation of the one asking, or the illegitimate use of knowledge acquired in sacramental confession.

Hence there arises an obligation of knowing in some way the state of the recipient; and indeed:

1. If there is question of sacraments in whose administration the priest is as a judge, he is bound to inquire concerning the fitness and worthiness of the recipient and to judge from positive indications. Thus especially:

a) in the sacrament of Penance, greater certitude of the dispositions of the recipient is required before the others, since there the minister is truly a judge;

b) in Order, inquiry must be made concerning the knowledge and probity of the recipient, which especially regards the common good of the Church;

c) in Matrimony the pastor is bound to inquire concerning impediments and sufficient instruction;

d) in the Baptism of adults inquiry must be made concerning faith and the purpose of Christian life.

2. For the other sacraments, Confirmation, Eucharist, Extreme Unction, the priest is not bound positively to judge concerning the disposition of the recipient; any faithful person, when he outwardly asks reverently, is presumed worthy, unless the contrary is established.

89. Rules to be observed in denying the sacraments. - A. The sacraments generally are to be denied:

1. to the incapable or unfit, who, namely, cannot validly receive them, or an adult who does not will to receive them, because in the case there would truly be a simulation of the sacrament, and therefore an abuse of a sacred thing intrinsically evil: thus if someone wished to confer Baptism upon one already baptized or upon one who does not wish to be baptized. But if there is doubt concerning capacity in a case of necessity, let the sacrament be ministered under condition;

2. to a public sinner, for example, one excommunicated by name or notoriously existing in mortal sin, whether he asks publicly or secretly, unless he appears amended with due dispositions; there is excepted, for the sacraments of necessity, the moment of death if he is deprived of the senses and there is at least some probability of due disposition;

3. likewise to a secret sinner secretly asking, provided the minister knows the sin otherwise than from confession, for otherwise the sinner cannot even be admonished outside confession.

B. On the contrary, to a secret sinner publicly asking, or to a public sinner asking in a place where he is not recognized as such and is not foreseen soon to be recognized, if he cannot be passed over without scandal or defamation, Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, and Extreme Unction are to be granted;¹ unless he wishes to receive the Eucharist for positively dishonoring it: for then he is to be repelled as an unjust aggressor of the honor due to the sacrament. But absolution is given secretly, and Order is not given to all; whence they are to be denied to the indisposed.

¹ The aforesaid rules are handed down in the Code of Law, for the Eucharist, can. 855.

But if the sinner asks when only certain little children are present, or those who know the sinner, he is judged to ask secretly, unless they are going to divulge the matter.

According to can. 2197, a delict is public if it has already been divulged, or has happened or is situated in such circumstances that it can and ought prudently to be judged that it will easily be divulged, whether it is notorious with notoriety of law after the sentence of a competent judge or the confession of the delinquent made in court, or with notoriety of fact, when the delict is publicly known and committed in such circumstances that it can be hidden by no evasion and excused by no suffrage of law. Moreover, it can be public either absolutely, if the delict is known quite commonly, or relatively, if it is known by many and those present or by the greater part, without yet having reached the common knowledge of the crowd.

From can. 855, "the publicly unworthy are the excommunicated, the interdicted, and the manifestly infamous," such as publicly known prostitutes or concubinaries, "unless their repentance and amendment is established and they have first satisfied public scandal." To these are to be equated heretics and schismatics, even those erring in good faith, to whom, according to can. 732, "it is forbidden to minister the sacraments... unless first, having rejected their errors, they have been reconciled to the Church."

In doubt concerning the publicity of the delict, the sacrament is rather to be given to one asking openly; in doubt concerning amendment or the retraction of a certainly public delict, or concerning scandal removed, it is rather to be deferred.

Where the unworthiness arises from crime alone, apart from scandal to be removed, it suffices that the sinner be publicly confessed, so that his repentance will soon be divulged. But if amendment or satisfaction or retraction must be made to remove scandal, regularly the scandal must first be removed by removal of the occasion or public retraction, or at least one exhibited in such a way that it can soon be made known; - unless, however, the sinner asks secretly, or scandal can be forestalled in another way.

90. Observations. - 1. To avoid the sacrilege of unworthy reception, it is not licit to simulate the ministration of a sacrament, which is a greater sin, as being a pure sacrilegious lie. To simulate a sacrament is externally to act as if it were a sacrament, so that the absence of the sacrament cannot become known. Whence simulation of a sacrament is the fictitious placing of a rite or apparently sacramental action, so that externally it is signified that a sacrament is being confected or ministered, which nevertheless is invalid because of a hidden defect; because in confecting or ministering the sacrament, at least something essential is changed or omitted, namely, matter or form or due intention. Thus, for example, to minister matter and form without intention, or so to pronounce the words of absolution, to celebrate Mass by consecrating water or by omitting the words of consecration, which also includes danger of material idolatry. Simulation of a sacrament is never licit; whence proposition 29 was condemned by Innocent XI: "Pressing grave fear is a just cause of simulating the administration of the sacraments."

Dissimulation or concealment differs from simulation of a sacrament, not indeed of the sacrament but of the denied sacrament. This consists in doing externally something other than a sacrament, which has a certain likeness with it; whence it is the substitution of another rite for the sacramental rite, or the placing of a non-sacramental action, by which neither the external appearance of a sacrament is present nor does it seem that a sacrament is confected or ministered, but nevertheless the denial of this can be hidden from those standing by. Thus, for example, to give a blessing in place of absolution, at least if the penitent is not deceived thereby; to say the formula of communion, "The Body of the Lord," etc., and pass over the consenting sinner; to go to the confessor or enter the confessional. Now, sometimes, when a just cause is present, it is licit to dissimulate the denial of a sacrament, not indeed directly so that one's neighbor may be deceived, but so that the truth may be hidden.

Let it be noted that matrimony, because it follows the nature of a contract, is licitly contracted fictitiously on account of grave fear: this is not simulation of a sacrament, because matrimony extorted by fear cannot be a valid sacrament; indeed it is not even true simulation of a contract, because from the circumstances the fiction can be understood by all. Whence it is only dissimulation of denied consent.

2. To minister a sacrament to an unworthy person, who asks it by threatening death or an equivalent evil, is certainly illicit if it is asked in hatred of the faith or contempt of religion; and also more probably if for another reason: for such asking is positively injurious to the sacrament and, as it were, an invasion of the honor and reverence due to the sacrament, with which the minister by yielding would proximately cooperate; and from this evil only mediately would there follow the good effect, namely, escape from death.