Chapter I. On the Nature and Effects of Extreme Unction

I. Extreme Unction is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ the Lord for conferring the salvation of the soul, or even of the body, where it is expedient for the salvation of the soul, upon the sick person in danger of life, through the unction of blessed oil and the prayer of the priest.

II. Extreme Unction is a true sacrament of the New Law, as is established from the definition of the Council of Trent, sess. 14, can. 1, on Extreme Unction, where it is thus said: "If anyone shall have said that Extreme Unction is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord and promulgated by blessed James the Apostle, but only a rite received from the Fathers, or a human fiction, let him be anathema." - Cf. De Augustinis, Thesis 1, p. 354.

III. The effects of the sacrament of Extreme Unction are: 1°. sanctifying grace with the actual graces proper to the sacrament, which wondrously help toward recreating the sick person and strengthening him against the temptations of the devil; 2°. remission of all sins, both venial and also mortal, and indeed not by accident, but of itself, namely by force of its secondary institution, if the sick person has inculpably remained in the state of sin, provided he has elicited true attrition; 3°. the wiping away of the remains of sin, which are not only the penalties owed to sins but also anxieties of soul, weaknesses, languor toward good, dullness, fear, and other similar things which are contracted from sins; 4°. restoration sometimes of the health of the body, if it is expedient for the salvation of the soul; and consequently they err basely who do not receive this sacrament except when the disease has so prevailed that now they cannot be healed without a miracle. Therefore it can be said that this sacrament is, as it were, the complement of penance, and is referred to it in almost the same way as Confirmation is referred to Baptism. - Cf. Lehmkuhl, nn. 565 and 568.

The sacrament of Extreme Unction must be conferred through sacred unctions, with oil of olives duly blessed being employed, and through the words prescribed in the ritual books approved by the Church (Can. 937).