As a young priest, I was shocked, shocked I say, to find out that if I did not have the permission of the proper pastor of the parish where a wedding was taking place, to witness the Sacrament of Marriage, that that marriage would not only be illicit due to me not getting the permission or the pastor not giving it, but also invalid!
The same is true for the validity of the Sacrament of Penance. A priest must have faculties to hear valid confessions. Some priests, due to a variety of reasons, are not given faculties to hear confessions in some dioceses. It is the local bishop who gives the faculties.
Thus, all the clergy of the FSSPX to include their old bishops and new bishops are excommunicated and no marriage they witness or any Confession they hear are valid—they are not just illicit but invalid!
I believe, though, in the event of an emergency where a Catholic is near death or is dying and no other priest is available, even an excommunicated bishop or priest could validly hear that person’s Confession.
This applies to priests who have been laicized and validly married in the Church or not married, they too can hear Confessions in the event of this kind of emergency and also offer other aspects of the Last Rites, such as the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and final prayers.
What puzzles me, though, is that the Masses the FSSPX are offering after having been excommunicated are still considered valid although illicit.
Can anyone explain to me, a most humble priest-blogger, why invalidity doesn’t apply the the celebration of the Mass but it does to Marriage and Confession?
—Confused on Hilton Head Island
2 comments:
Because you all see marriage and confession as requiring jurisdiction for validity; whereas, jurisdiction isn’t required for the Eucharist.
It makes sense to me that confession requires jurisdiction, but I’m not sure the reason marriage does. I believe that, historically, not all priests were given from their bishop the permission to hear confessions (this is actually still the case in Greek Orthodoxy and maybe other Orthodox churches). Not all priests would hear confessions because not all priests were spiritually mature enough to be spiritual fathers in that sense.
I’d guess that the reason marriage requires jurisdiction has to do with the fact that part of the way it was sacramentalized had to do with maintaining order in the empire so there was some recording/verification process that necessitated making it broader than the local parish.
Marriage has social and, in the olden days, political consequences in ways that confession does not. Marriage requires record-keeping, whereas confession does not. In order to maintain order, dispensations/permissions are in order for witnessing marriages.
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