When is a Sacrament Not Valid?

The Vatican Offers Incomplete Guidance

During the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Diocletian early in the 4th century, Christians in North Africa were required to hand over the Bible and other religious texts to imperial authorities to be burned. Although in other parts of the empire Christians faced even more severe persecution—the burning of churches, imprisonment of bishops and priests, and forced veneration of the pagan gods on pain of execution—the experience in North Africa was nevertheless traumatic. In its aftermath, those Christian leaders who had cooperated in handing over the Scriptures were labeled traditores, a term which in Latin means “those who handed over,” but which came to have a connotation more like our modern English word “traitor.”

Some Christians went so far as to argue that those bishops and priests who had handed over the Scriptures were no longer fit to lead the Church and administer the sacraments. They considered sacraments administered by these bishops and priests invalid. Not recognizing the authority of bishops who had been traditores and those who had been ordained by them, these Christians consecrated their own rival group of bishops, among them Donatus Magnus, from whom the group took their name—the Donatists.

Although traditores were required to undergo a long period of penance before they could be reconciled with the Church, the Donatists did not believe this was sufficient. Their critics pointed to some serious practical and theological difficulties with the Donatist position. For one, if the validity and efficaciousness of the sacraments depends on the moral worth of the celebrant, then no one can really be sure they have validly received a sacrament: Christians cannot be sure they’ve been validly baptized, couples can’t be sure they are validly married, priests can’t be sure they are actually ordained, and so on. The Donatist position also seems to presuppose that the efficaciousness of the sacraments derives from some personal, spiritual quality of the celebrant. Their critics, most notably Augustine, countered that the sacraments are both the ongoing work of Christ Himself and the work of the Church, Christ’s Body, and so their validity and efficaciousness depends on their origins with Christ, not on the spiritual power of the celebrant. In technical terms, the sacraments are effective ex opere operato, that is, “by the work worked,” rather than ex opere operantis, or “by the work of the one working.”

A logical follow-up question, however, is how one knows when the work has in fact been worked, or when a sacrament has been validly performed? Augustine began to consider this question in his polemics against the Donatists, but a more developed answer came centuries later from the medieval scholastics. Over the centuries, various liturgical rites had developed, including variations in the liturgical texts and even diverging practices, such as the use of leavened bread in the Eucharist in the East and unleavened bread in the West. It was natural to consider what was essential to the performance of the sacraments and when variations might render them invalid.

The scholastics began to speak of the matter and form of each of the seven sacraments, “matter” referring to the outward signs used in the sacrament, including material things like water, bread, wine, and oil, as well as to the words spoken in the celebration of the sacrament, and “form” referring to the words of the sacrament in regard to their meaning. St. Thomas Aquinas provided a classic formulation of this way of thinking (in his Summa Theologiae, III, q. 60, aa. 5-8). For example, he concluded that there can be legitimate variations in the wording of the sacramental rites as long as they don’t change the substantial form of its meaning. He likewise added that for a sacrament to be valid, the minister must intend to do what the Church does in the sacrament, but in most cases, this is expressed through using the proper matter and form (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 64, a. 8).

---

(Photo: Josh Applegate, Unsplash)

On January 31, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) issued a note, Gestis Verbisque, that draws on this tradition of theological reflection on the sacraments to respond to a pressing contemporary pastoral problem (to date, the document has only been released in Italian). Since the Second Vatican Council, many priests and deacons have made a habit of departing from the rubrics for the celebration of the sacraments, for example, altering the words of the Eucharistic Prayer or the baptismal formula, or in more radical cases even changing the species (i.e., the material elements, bread and wine) used in the Eucharist (for example, Gerard O’Connell, writing at America, notes that the Vatican has received reports of a priest using honey and baking soda to make the wafers used in communion rather than flour and water). These departures from the required rubrics have been a concern for Church authorities and those seeking greater reverence in the Church’s liturgy for some time. In fact, Gestis Verbisque comes on the heels of a 2020 statement from the DDF judging that baptisms conducted with the formula “We baptize you…,” with the “we” referring to the faithful present at the baptism, rather than the required “I baptize you…,” are invalid. Gestis Verbisque, in a more general way, reminds ministers that the sacraments are the work of the Church rather than an expression of their personal faith or theology. It likewise points out that departing from the matter or form of the sacraments in some essential way can render them invalid.