Today I was talking with one of the Catholic Answers apologists about a sacramental situation in a particular parish where a priest is performing a bizarre form of penance service. The apologist wanted to know if the absolutions the priest was performing on the laity were valid.
After carefully reviewing the facts of the case, I told the apologist that, although there was a manifest grave violation of Church law, the absolutions were nevertheless probably valid.
Elaborating, I went on to pose an analogy that I sometimes use. You know how kids have a tendency to break toys, especially boys? That’s why Tonka Trucks as made as tough as they are. They’re very hard for children to break accidentally, even when subjected to rough play. Something like that is the case with adults, too. God knows that if humans can foul something up, they will, and so in entrusting the sacraments to us as means of our salvation, he made the requirements for their valid celebration rather minimal.
Because of the importance of the sacraments, people often worry unnecessarily about whether minor defects in the celebration of the rites render them invalid, but the truth is that God made the sacraments hard to break. It takes something absolutely horrendous to truly invalidate a sacrament.
That’s not to say it can’t be done.
THIS PARISH IN AUSTRALIA HAS BEEN PERFORMING INVALID BAPTISM FOR YEARS.
Hundreds of them.
They’ve been baptizing people in the name of "the Creator, the Liberator, and the Sustainer," and that’s not a valid formula for baptism.
It is especially disastrous sacrament to get wrong, because baptism is the gateway to the remaining sacraments.
The criminal priests who were pastorally irresponsible enough to do a thing such as this, which is so abominable that it goes beyond the ability of polite language to adequately characterize, have created an enormous mess and deserve to be slapped with the most severe sanctions that canon law can provide. In fact, if I were one of the involved parties I would be inclined to slap them with more than ecclesiastical sanctions.
I would be inclined to slap them–repeatedly–with my hands and fists.
Moneychangers of this sort need to be driven from the Temple with whips. The desecration they have wrought on the sacraments and on hundreds of individuals is beyond belief.
CANONIST ED PETERS GIVES AN ANALYSIS OF JUST HOW HUGE A MESS THESE EXECRABLE VIPERS HAVE CREATED.
What amazes me is how the problem could go uncorrected for so long. It is hard to imagine that the Australian faithful are so abominably catechized that in all the years the desecration has been going on nobody would recognize such a grossly defective baptismal formula as problematic and report it.
No matter how bad things have been down there since Vatican II, I assume that at least some of the Australian faithful are old enough that they were learned on whatever their nation’s equivalent of the Baltimore Catechism was (perhaps the Penny Catechism) and thus knew enough to spot the problem at their grandchildren’s baptisms.
It seems that there are four options:
1) Australian Catholics really are such total ignoramuses that that nobody spotted the problem (and I don’t buy that for a second),
2) Australians Catholics are evil and like it when they knowingly witnessing sacrilege (that’s also a dog that won’t hunt),
3) Australian Catholics are so uncommonly pusillanimous that none of them had the chutzpah to report the problem (and I don’t buy that either, what with Australians being descended from folks courageous enough that they refused to stay within the bounds of the law), or
4) Some Australian Catholics did spot the problem and did disapprove of it and did report it and someone in a position of authority (possibly several someones) turned a deaf ear to their pleas.
My money is on option #4.
If that one’s the case, that person or those persons need to be outed for the pastoral good of the community and also slapped with severe ecclesiastical sanctions as willing co-conspirators covering up the canonical crimes of the abominable Judases who desecrated the sacrament of baptism hundreds of times and thus led to the other sacraments being desecrated thousands of times.
(There! And I managed to get through all that without using the word "b*st*rds.")
Almost as serious as this is, there’s also the attitudes and beliefs of the laity in this parish that have been seriously warped. Quotes from people who have had their children ‘baptized’ by Fr. Kennedy exhibit the exact same “oh, what’s the big deal?” attitude that the priest shows. They have been led seriously astray in a fundamental way, and in so far as many do NOT seek valid baptisms under the mistaken belief that it’s unnecessary (‘it’s just those right-wing Biblical literalists, after all’), the implications of how this priest has led his flock astray will reverberate for generations.
Indeed, I’ll bet that many Catholics in the U.S., and perhaps some occasional readers of your blog, share the indifference I’ve read coming from this Australian parish.
I’m agreeing with Cornelius and opting for option 1.5 in cahootz with option 4: A great number of Catholics are a dangerous combination of ignorant and apethetic.
Opportunities for evangelization, prayer and penance abound.
I applaud your restraint Jimmy, you can be one intense fellow, we need your zeal 🙂
Holy cow!
What if some of these invalidly baptized children went on to invalidly become priests, and then bishops, and then ordained other priests and bishops, also invalidly!
The whole Apostolic Sucession could get screwed! Or at least a huge segment of it!!!
1. The flagrancy of the baptismal violations gives grounds to investigate the “form” used by these priests in other sacraments. 2. It stretches credulity to think this has been going on for a decade and the diocese knew nothing about it. I wonder what triggered this official action, such as it is, now.
Jimmy,
Your 1-2-3-4 analysis is utterly devastating. Your comments deserve to be read at the highest levels. Anyone who reads you who has any ability to pass on your comments to anyone with any kind of relevant pastoral authority ought to do so….
Doesn’t the fact that the Baptism was invalid invalidate all other subsequent Sacrements that a person might have received? If so, how many invalid marriages, communions, confessions, consecrations, and annointings have there been? This could really be scarrier than the linked article let on.
Thank you Jimmy for analyzing this for us.
Jeremy: it’s there. the exact question you raise, i do discuss it. the update went up a few hours ago…ok?
Jimmy,
It seems that the most horrendous question has not yet been addressed. What of parishioners who have died in this state? Since they are unbaptized, though unwittingly, are they cut off from the grace of God and damned by the negligence of these priests?
John,
I’m not certain, but I would believe that the persons who died in this state would be treated as if the sacraments they received (or attempted to receive) had been valid. If it was no fault of their own that the sacraments were not validly given then they went on receiving the Eucharist and other sacraments in good conscience.
I believe that those who had invalidly administered the sacraments and those that don’t validly receive the sacraments now that the problem has come to light are the only ones that need to watch out.
I may be wrong…God have mercy on all those involved.
Brian
Baptism of desire . . . .
From what I have experienced with Australians, a little of 3 could also be at play here. Australians have a very very low attitude of complaining (which they call “whinging” — to the point where, in a movie theater with a broken projector, everyone stays put in their seats. One American finally gets up and complains that the movie cannot be seen. I know that is only anecdotal, but there are other stories: “If it’s good enough for the sheep, it’s good enough for you!” I can see how, in a Christian, and especially Catholic community that virtue of “offering it up” can be perverted.
As for the priests, I am reminded of Ezekiel 3:18 where it gives a pretty clear picture that THEY will be held responsible for their lack of prudence in a way that is scary.
So ironic to think the baptisms they performed in “Catholic” church were less valid than the one I received as a boy in Baptist church.
And where did they go to seminary? St. Barney the Dinosaur? There may be more to Eric’s point — there is a possibility that what we are seeing is a surfacing of an older line of invalid priests. In other words, what if what we are seeing is not the potential beginning of the corruption of apostolic succession, but the latest iteration in a long “tradition”? God forbid.
Speaking as a Protestant (with a shorter list of sacraments), I’d be interested in hearing how this priest came up with this new formulation in the first place. You have to wonder where these terms came from.
One can claim that “creator” is Biblical, but it seems to deny Christ’s activity in the creation of the universe.
When I hear “liberator,” I shudder. The term sounds very modern, in a “progressive” sort of way. While I’ve spent much of the last month arguing that it is possible to be a Christian and a political liberal, I do have to acknowledge that a large portion of the political liberal movement is decidedly secular or otherwise anti-Christian.
And now we come to “sustainer.” Frankly, that’s worse than “power.” It sounds like a good cup of hot coffee, not a Person who works inside of the Body of Christ to change the world.
hello, I live in Brisbane, Australia where all the trouble is. While I’m not familiar with St Mary’s, (I attend a happily orthodox parish) I recognise the attitudes as mentioned above of “what does it matter?” and “don’t make a fuss”
Unforetunately the reaction of some bishops, priests and religious has been not condemnation of what has been going on, but instead condemnation of ‘right-wing spies’ who reported it, who are allegedly usurping the role of the clergy by going over their heads.
But it’s not all bad news as we do have quite a few vibrant, orthodox young Catholics here, and some latin masses and Charismatic Catholic groups. The liberals will either die out, or schism, and perhaps maybe they will then all merge into the Uniting-Anglican-Unitarian-Universalist church.
Quote: I would be inclined to slap them–repeatedly–with my hands and fists.
I find the above more disturbing than anything else I’ve read on this thread.
James
Quote: I would be inclined to slap them–repeatedly–with my hands and fists.
I find the above more disturbing than anything else I’ve read on this thread.
James