Our marriage was performed by a priest who was later revealed to be a serial pervert and was laicized. The efficacy of the Sacrament is fortunately not contingent upon the priest’s spiritual condition.
When a sacrament is celebrated according to the norms of the Church and in faith, we believe that it confers the grace it signifies. While a human being is the minister of the sacrament, Christ Himself is the one who is at work: He baptizes, He confirms, He absolves, He changes the bread and wine into His Body and Blood, He unites a couple in marriage, He ordains, and He anoints. Acting in His sacraments, Christ communicates the grace– that sharing in the divine life and love of God– offered through each sacrament. (Confer the Catechism, #1127-28.)
Therefore, the Church has taught that the sacraments act ex opere operato, that is “by the very fact of the action’s being performed.” The efficacy of the sacrament does not depend upon the human minister– whether a bishop, priest, deacon, or layperson– being free of mortal sin and thereby in a state of grace. Here then is the distinction between Christ who instituted the sacraments and acts through them to communicate His grace, and the human person who acts as Christ’s minister in performing the sacrament.
Thank you.
So can a priest in grave sin absolve another priest of a grave sin?
First glance at caption thought catastophic topic was on climate not about Kasper’s climactic proposals of changes of observance to a serious social condition created too often by a socialist driven society emphasis on eaze and pleasure. Rather than commitment to the ideal.