Rome Newsroom, Feb 3, 2024 / 09:21 am (CNA).
The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) released a note on Saturday on discerning the validity of the sacraments.
The new document signed by Pope Francis and DDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández is titled “Gestis Verbisque,” or “Deeds and Words.”
Fernández wrote in his introduction to the text that the note on the sacraments was written “to help bishops in their task as promoters and custodians of the liturgical life of the particular Churches entrusted to them.”
“The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith intends to offer in this Note some elements of a doctrinal nature with regard to discernment on the validity of the celebration of the Sacraments, paying attention also to some disciplinary and pastoral implications,” he wrote.
The 11-page text published only in Italian on Feb. 3 reiterates that for all sacraments in the Catholic Church, the “observance of both matter and form has always been required for the validity of the celebration.”
“Both matter and form, summarized in the Code of Canon Law, are established in the liturgical books promulgated by the competent authority, which must therefore be faithfully observed, without ‘adding, removing or changing anything,’” it says.
The document adds that arbitrary changes to either matter or form “jeopardize the effective bestowal of sacramental grace, to the obvious detriment of the faithful” and that the “severity and invalidating force” of such changes. “must be ascertained on a case-by-case basis.”
“Gestis Verbisque” frequently refers to the dicastery’s 2020 doctrinal note on the modification of the sacramental formula of baptism, which clarified that changing the words to the baptismal formula to “we baptize you” invalidated the baptism, requiring anyone who had been baptized with this formula to be considered as not yet having received the sacrament.
Fernández writes that in 2022 cardinals and bishops taking part in the DDF’s January plenary assembly had already expressed concern about “the multiplication of situations in which they were forced to note the invalidity of the Sacraments celebrated.”
Specific examples, listed by the cardinal, include using “I baptize you in the name of the Creator …” or “In the name of your father and mother … we baptize you,” instead of the established baptismal formula.
“While in other areas of the Church’s pastoral action there is ample room for creativity, such inventiveness in the context of the celebration of the Sacraments turns rather into a ‘manipulative will’ and therefore cannot be invoked,” the cardinal prefect said.
“We ministers are therefore required to have the strength to overcome the temptation to feel like owners of the Church,” Fernández added.
The cardinal later commented that when the priest acts “in persona Christi capitis,” it does not mean that the priest is “the boss” with the ability to exercise arbitrary power, but that Christ alone is “‘the head of the body, the Church,’” citing Colossians 1:18.
“It seems increasingly urgent to mature an art of celebrating that, keeping at a distance as much from rigid rubricism as from unbridled imagination, leads to a discipline to be respected, precisely in order to be authentic disciples,” Fernández said.
Pope Francis approved the text of the DDF note during a private audience with Fernández on Jan. 31 after the note was discussed and unanimously approved by the cardinals and bishops who attended the dicastery’s recent January plenary assembly.
Fernández and Monsignor Armando Matteo, the secretary for the dicastery’s doctrinal section, signed the note on Feb. 2, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.
“Precisely by constituting the Church as his Mystical Body, Christ makes believers partakers of his own life, uniting them to his death and resurrection in a real and mysterious way through the sacraments,” the note says.
“Indeed, the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit acts in the faithful through sacramental signs, making them living stones of a spiritual edifice, founded on the cornerstone that is Christ the Lord, and constituting them as a priestly people, partakers of the one priesthood of Christ.”
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Right after allowing Anglican ‘Mass’ in Catholic basilica. The Church is in the hands of demons.
Yeah, uh, demons are insisting people stop messing with and thus preventing the bestowal of grace specific to … the Sacraments. That makes sense.
Personally Robert I will not be convinced that the Pachamama Vatican lawn worship, the Pachamama St Peter’s Basilica enshrinement ceremony, cardinals dancing and chanting carrying the idolatrous effigy into the sanctuary has not had dire daemonic repercussions.
Although it is a perfectly clear and required document on the validity of the sacraments in respect to some, who ‘create’ their own meaning of both the words of consecration during the Mass and the conferring of other sacraments, after 11 years of dilution of the power of the sacraments by suggestion and duplicity the DDF is apparently following the exact pattern of following some scandalous statement with pristine orthodoxy. Sort of like following being beaten with soothing music and a favorite dish. The mind’s apprehensive faculty eventually becomes numbed and incapable of moral discernment.
That is certainly the pattern.
Sick, those who cannot accept he is upholding the Faith as he is required. Stop playing teams and be faithful disciples. Uou should be rejoicing!
Reconciliation after an injury, doesn’t come because the person gives evidence that they aren’t completely depraved, but because they repent of and work to reform the specific sinfulness that caused the injury.
One might rejoice over finding that a Protestant isn’t completely wrong about the Faith. Finding out that a *Cardinal* has managed to say something that about the Faith that is neither wrong, nor misleading, (with help from an entire Dicastery available) nor hyper-sexualized, seems like it should be expected. The fact that it cannot be, is no reason to rejoice.
A covering gesture that merely states a few obvious points that should not be necessary were the Church not hemorrhaging from the same sources that refuses to acknowledge their critical wounding, which has wounded the whole of humanity, not a mere idiosyncratic internal error. Given the history of duplicity of these two men, one can rationally expect an upcoming assault on sacramental orthodoxy and shameful indifference from their acolytes.
Yes, it is a typical pattern of emotional abuse: abuse – normality – abuse – normality etc. The more people will recognize that pattern the better is for them and for the Church.
I see another thing here: in effect, there are two Churches now, one is true and another is fake (a shadow). The fake one endorses all those “blessings”, Synodality, perverse mysticism and so on. The true one is trying to stick to the revealed truth. The fake Church cannot exist without the true one (because it needs a credibility of the true Church, it needs her very Body to parasitize on it) though so it is in her interest to keep the true Church around. Those two Churches will continue to exist under the same roof.
Hence Fernandez, after throwing the necessary food (‘FS’) into the fake Church to grow her, now throws something suitable into the true Church. It is very much akin to a narcissistic abuser who occasionally interrupts his abuse with “love bombing” to the victim would perk up a bit and continue providing to an abuser with emotional resources.
When speaking above of an emotional abuse in a toxic family I forgot to mention a crucial role (for perpetuating a circle of abuse) of “good-willing explainers” i.e. those who keep telling the victim “He is not bad, look, he gave you such a nice present, don’t cause unpleasantries in your family” and so on. (Note that they blame a victim for “unpleasantness” and not an abuser). In a case with the Church, the words are usually “You are bad Catholics, you only see bad things, you create disunity” thus attacking those who point the wrong instead of engaging in a rational discussion about that wrong.
There is a way to verify whether an abuser is “good” so the victim should “trust him”. If an abuser repented his actions and did reparation then yes, he is moving towards good and a victim may cautiously trust him (if she so desires). But if an abuser did none of the sort but bought her flowers then no – because there is no reason to believe that he changed. Analogically, if ‘FS’ was cancelled/condemned, those responsible for it and other scandalous things repented and did reparations then the faithful would have a reason to rejoice and to begin trusting again. As long as nothing of that has been done = the past abuse is not addressed and its consequences have not been repaired then the faithful would be very unwise “to trust” and to rejoice.
Fernandez is the very last person on the face of the earth to be chiding others for an “unbridled imagination.” Pot and kettle going on here, a la “mystical orgasms.”
I suspect this is put out there to build some sort of credibility following the FS fiasco.
Go home, Your Eminence.
I meant to reply this person, regarding those who cannot stop their partisan behavior long enough to recognize the DDF, Fernandez, and/or Francis doing their job and celebrating it. But I guess it applies to almost every comment here.
This is a papacy that has played foot-loose with the Sacrament of Marriage and now it wants to shore up the entire sacramental system because some ministers are coming up with personal interpretations of the various rites. Ironic, indeed.
“Shore up? Foot lose”? Explain.
The sacrement of matrimony was “shored up” with annulments, regaining your Catholc faith after a divorce. A marriage that has absorbed too much pain of mental and physical abuse and suffering will cease to exist.
My new wife suffered 30 years of torture from a criminal gambler who took the family into bankruptsy. Thank God she and her four chidren survived.
US Conference of Catholic Bishops: “declaration of nullity when there is no longer any hope of reconciliation of the spouses”. The only relief is when a couple divorces, they must remarry in the Church. We could not because they were not divorced since he refused. The children from such a seemingly, impossible to get divorce will have lingering issues. Dad is still admired.
Thank God for Gail. She is not only my wife, she is my life.
Sorry, Fernandez. Not listening anymore.
Throw the dogs a bone after creating a global scandal with “Fiducia Supplicans”?
They have no credence. I would not take the advice of Bergoglio or Fernandez on how to exit a paper bag. I’ll abide by the orthodox teaching provided over two thousand years in the perennial magisterium. No one requires any counsel from manipulative deceivers toying with the minds of the faithful.
We witness the collapse of the two voices for freedom in Western Civilization. The Catholic Church is in retreat from authentic faith and the United States — with the grotesque leadership of many post-conciliar Catholics — abandons its role in insuring the liberty of the globe.
Its far beyond time to wake up. Church and State are in the hands of atheist Fascists.
It used to be trendy to baptize “In the Name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier” to replace those offensive terms “Father” and “Son.” After a non-Catholic friend witnessed such a ceremony in the ’80s, I suggested that she might baptize the infant herself with the correct form, if she could get the child alone by a faucet. I don’t know if she ever did. But there must be quite a number of Catholics in that area who were never properly baptized–and don’t know that.
This “note” from the DDF is nothing more than what the military calls a DIVERSIONARY TACTIC. A transparent move to distract our attention from “Fiducia Supplicans” and their continuing and resolute defense of same!
This is a bone for faithful Catholics – stating nothing more than obvious Church teachings which Pope Francis’s Vatican will studiously continue to sidestep or ingore, as has been their modus operandi from the start. All while they continue with their chief military objective – the wreckovation of the Catholic Church!
This might be a side issue, but I’m throwing it out here: Unsurprisingly, the document just HAD to make that remark about “keeping at a distance…from rigid rubricism.” There’s those two dirty “R” words, again! The same snark from the current Vatican leadership, repeating this hackneyed canard– a “rigidity” which by and large doesn’t even really exist in the post-Conciliar liturgy. (Remember why “Read the black, do the red” has been such a big deal for the last half-century?) Ironic…the very thing they are complaining about as far as being “creative” with celebrating the sacraments (whatever that means) is, in fact, kept in check by being OBSERVANT (= rigid) yet being within the bounds entails a certain degree of real standardization (= rigidity), doesn’t it?
It’s frankly scandalous when faithful Catholics are reduced to placing the Vatican in the same category as the US Federal government i.e. you can’t trust a word they say.
“It’s frankly scandalous when faithful Catholics are reduced to placing the Vatican in the same category as the US Federal government i.e. you can’t trust a word they say.”
Yes it is scandalous and you must consider the fact that those Baptized Catholics in the U.S. government calling for “ the new catholic springtime” are the same group of catholics who deny that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage and thus The Author Of our unalienable Right to Life, to Liberty, and, to The Pursuit of Happiness, the purpose of which can only be, what God intended, because they desire to change both The Letter And Spirit Of The Law, and thus The Letter And Spirit Of The Constitution , by rendering onto Caesar or themselves, what Has Always, and Will Always belong to God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity.
When you render onto Caesar, what belongs to God, anything can become permissible, including the destruction of an innocent beloved son or daughter, residing in their mother’s womb.
Woe to us!
As The Veil is being lifted, the atheist materialist overpopulation alarmist globalist are being exposed, including those who are attempting to make it appear as though they are part of The One Body of Christ, which is not possible, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.
I missed this. Being put together, it is quite remarkable:
#1 “Both matter and form, summarized in the Code of Canon Law, are established in the liturgical books promulgated by the competent authority, which must therefore be faithfully observed, without ‘adding, removing or changing anything,’”
and
#2 “It seems increasingly urgent to mature an art of celebrating that, keeping at a distance as much from rigid rubricism as from unbridled imagination, leads to a discipline to be respected, precisely in order to be authentic disciples,”
Well, the person cannot help two express two contrary spirits in one message:
#1 – he states what is correct and expected of him: do that “without ‘adding, removing or changing anything”
#2 – he creates a room for his own rules urging the faithful to keep “at a distance as much from rigid rubricism as from unbridled imagination”. Note how the masterfully added “unbridled imagination” softens the absurdity of condemning “rigid rubricism” after advising to embrace that very “rigid rubricism” = “without ‘adding, removing or changing anything”.
It is the same duplicity that ‘FS’ has “we do not change the Church’s teaching” – “we order to bless homosexual couples”. One cancels another. I will also add that there is a sense of emptiness behind the latter document, as if it was crafted automatically.
Pulling it down to where it belongs i.e. a toxic family’s constellation: a narcissistic parent as a rule has his own set of rules, often contradictory which he exercised as it suits him. He creates chaos without which he cannot live. Instead of upholding the moral law as something above him, such a person uses it as a mere tool of his to control others and never obeys it himself. He is the only law-giver there.
Those in the Vatican and in local churches who preach anti-rigidity do this only for one reason: to obtain a license to rule as they wish, without obeying the objective rules created by the Church. It is like a bad parent who corrupts their own children with all-permissiveness so they could be “loved” and manipulate children as it suits them.
PS When I first saw the title “Vatican doctrine office releases note on discerning the validity of the sacraments” I thought that the Vatican is reassuring the faithful that Eucharist is still the Body and Blood, even after ‘FS”. Probably because it was what I have been thinking about since ‘FS’.
I used to go to Mass every second day. I cannot live without Holy Communion. Since ‘FS’ I have been just a few times, overcoming myself. Last time I did not want to go, forced myself and felt totally numb. I cannot help but wonder if it is good to receive Holy Communion while being very aware of the covert heresy hanging over the Church, so to speak. If I was worshiping with a congregation which publicly rejected ‘FS’ I would not have such a dilemma.
My problem then is of an inner conflict, of my desire to receive Our Lord and of my emotional inability to do so. To shut down my correct emotions is wrong; to stay without Christ is also bad. By the way, I perceive ‘FS’ to be a double bind for a believer’s psyche because it creates a dilemma that breaks that psyche: “come to the Church which accepts a heresy and receive Christ”; Christ thus is used as a tool. This is the fruit of ‘FS’ and of similar things. “By their fruits…”
We, the faithful, should have the minimal rights: to be able to come to Mass and worship and receive the Lord without lies, twists and convert heresies making it a torture if not impossible. Those covert lies are a form of emotional abuse and emotional abuse is not compatible with Christ. In fact they do something to the Eucharist, via a violation of the psyche of the faithful.