According to Fr. John Hardon, “All the graces that anyone receives
from God are channeled through the Catholic Church. Those who are baptized have
a special right to these graces to which no one else has a claim.”[1] The
sacrament of baptism establishes a right to further graces. However, no one has
a right to the first grace (namely, baptism) without destroying the gratuitous
nature of grace. The gratuity of grace remains with respect to the other
sacraments because at its root, the first grace, namely, Baptism remains
undeserved at the root.
Once an individual has been
constituted a person in the church through baptism, he acquires certain divine
rights to the sacraments. Some have suggested that these rights are merely
ecclesiastical in nature, however, canonist Fr. Charles Augustine argues
otherwise. In his commentary on the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Fr. Augustine
writes,
Every baptized person is by divine right entitled to receive
Holy Communion, because Baptism has bestowed this right upon him. The
obligation to receive Holy Communion rests, not on its absolute necessity for
salvation (necessitate medii), but on the divine precept contained in the words
of our Lord: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you shall not have
life in you.[2]
Likewise,
dogmatic theologian Joseph Pohle writes,
From the days of primitive Christianity the Church has
insisted that the faithful are by divine right obliged to confess their sins in
order to obtain forgiveness. Such belief and practice indicate that confession
cannot be of purely ecclesiastical origin, but must be a divine institution.[3]
According to 18th century
Bishop
James Lanigan, “No superior can ever dispense, in
things of divine right, without a just, sufficient, and well founded reason for
doing so.”[4] Using the example
of the near universal suspension of sacraments during the Coronavirus epidemic,
where the health of the community is at risk, I think this would serves as a
sufficient cause for the suspension of the Mass.
One might question the prudence of suspending baptism and confession, but one
cannot legitimately argue that it is against divine law to temporarily suspend
the sacraments for just and grave reasons. Canon 87 of the 1983 code of canon law
already makes the provision that bishops have the authority to dispense the
faithful from their obligation to attend Mass as long as there is grave reason
for doing so. This is despite the fact that the faithful have a divine right to
the Eucharist.
According to dogmatic theologian
Joseph Pohle, “A Sacrament is necessary for salvation either as a means or by way
of precept.”[5] Only
baptism and confession of mortal sins are a necessity of means. The phrase
necessity of means simply means that salvation cannot be obtained without them.
However, it is important to distinguish between absolute and relative necessity
of means. Baptism is a relative necessity of means because salvation can be
obtained without physical baptism. This is clearly taught by the Council of
Trent in several places. In its 6th Session, the Council says that
after the promulgation of the Gospel, no one can pass from bondage to sin to a
state of grace without the "water of regeneration or the desire thereof.”
(Seesion VI, Chapter 4). Likewise, the fourth canon of the 7th
Session says,
If
anyone says, that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto
salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire
thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification;
though all (the sacraments) are not indeed necessary for every individual; let
him be anathema.
According to Jesuit theologian Joseph Aldama,
The desire for baptism can be explicit or implicitt. It will
be explicit in the case in which, for example a catechumen, sincerely and
ardently desiring baptism, dies before he is actually baptized. It is implicit
when it is included in an act of charity with a general desire of doing whatever
God requires for salvation.[6]
He continues,
The desire of baptism must be joined to an act of charity,
because this is the means necessary for justification without the sacrament, or
ex opera operantis (from the work of the performer). The act of charity
supposes the will to take the means necessary for salvation, and therefore it
includes an explicit or implicit desire of baptism, and it does not justify independently
of this desire. Therefore there are not two ways (baptism and charity), but
only one: real baptism or baptism of desire.[7]
It is within this theological framework,
that bishops have the authority to suspend the sacraments for grave cause. The
practice of delaying communion and confirmation in the Latin Church also argues
in favor of this view. In the early church, confession itself was only
performed once in a person’s life, usually towards the end of one’s life. As long as the grave cause remains and there
isn’t a prohibition to receiving the sacraments in the case of the danger of
death, then the rights of the faithful haven’t been violated.
[1] https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/the-sacraments-of-baptism-and-confirmation.html
[2] Charles Augustine, “A Commentary on the New Code of Canon
Law,” Book III, Volume IV (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder Book Co., 1921), 225.
[3] Joseph
Pohle, The Sacraments: Penance, Volume X, edited by Arthur Pruss (St.
Louis, Mo: B. Herder, 1917), 195.
[4] James Lanigan, “Catechetical Conferences on Penance,” (Printed by John Coyne, 24,
Cooke St, 1 January 1830), 143.
[5] Joseph Pohle, The Sacraments: Extreme Unction, Holy
Orders, Matrimony, Volume XI, edited by Arthur Pruss (St. Louis, Mo: B.
Herder, 1917), 35.
[6] Joseph Aldama,
Severino Gonzalez, Francis Sola, and Joseph Sagues, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IVA (On the Sacraments in General)
translated by Kenneth Baker (Keep the Faith Inc., 2015), 166.
[7] Ibid.
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