§ 4. On The Certitude Of Matter And Form

18. Principle: Outside a case of urgent spiritual necessity, it is a grave sin to employ matter that is not morally certain.⁵³

Explanation. Since the validity of the sacraments depends upon matter and form, there is a grave obligation to employ certain and prescribed matter and form in conferring the sacraments. Therefore, whenever there is question of matter and form, and consequently of the validity of the sacraments, it is not lawful to follow even the more probable opinion, or to employ doubtful form or matter. The reason is that otherwise the sacrament would be frivolously exposed to the danger of nullity, which indeed would inflict grave irreverence upon God. Hence the following proposition was condemned by Innocent XI: "It is not illicit in conferring the sacraments to follow a probable opinion concerning the validity of the sacrament, the safer opinion being abandoned, unless law, agreement, or danger of incurring grave harm forbids it. Hence a merely probable opinion is not to be employed in the conferral of baptism, priestly or episcopal order."⁵⁴

I said, however: outside a case of urgent spiritual necessity. For the sacraments are for men, not men for the sacraments. Therefore, it must be presumed that Christ the Lord, on account of His infinite charity toward us, wills that provision be made for the salvation of men even with danger of the nullity of the sacrament, when this cannot be done otherwise. Hence, for example, when clean water is lacking, baptism can, and indeed must, be administered with coffee to a child about to die; sacramental absolution can be imparted to a dying man deprived of his senses, even if the priest doubts his disposition and even whether he received baptism. The same holds for extreme unction, which can licitly be administered with chrism (when the oil of the sick is lacking), when the dying man, perhaps existing in mortal sin, cannot receive the sacrament of penance. In a word: whenever even the least probability is present that a sacrament can be administered validly, it can and must be administered (conditionally), if otherwise the man is in urgent danger of eternal salvation. Outside urgent necessity, however, it is not lawful to administer the sacraments in this manner. Hence a priest cannot consecrate doubtful matter in order to give Communion to a dying man, since he can be saved even without Communion.

How a confessor ought to act if he doubts the sufficient contrition of the penitent, see below in the treatise on penance.

⁵³ Cf. St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor. l. 6, n. 29.

⁵⁴ Denz., n. 1151. Cf. the explanation of this condemned proposition in Concina, De sacr. in gen. l. 1, diss. unic., c. 1, where it is also asserted that this condemned proposition was defended by more than seventy probabilists.