Defective ministerial intention CAN invalidate ordinations
Is it true or false that sacraments—including the rites of holy orders—can hardly ever be rendered invalid due to defect of intention? Cardinal Gasparri explains.
Editors’ Notes
The following text is taken from Cardinal Pietro Gasparri’s Tractatus Canonicus de Sacra Ordinatione, Vol. II. It deals with the intention needed in the minister conferring holy orders.
Gasparri was the Vatican’s Secretary of State under Benedixt XV and Pius XI, and was largely responsible for the production of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. He was also responsible for extensive treatises on the sacraments.
Ministerial intention
The issue of sacramental intention has been a source of confusion over the centuries, with a few different schools of thought. This confusion continues in our own day, especially in relation to the new rites of the sacraments issued following Vatican II.
One particular difficulty arises from the question of whether, when and why a minister might be said not to have the sufficient intention to do what the Church does.
For example, an heretical minister (or just a confused Catholic minister) may have a “general Christian intention” to do what the Church does, but simultaneously hold erroneous ideas about what it is that the Church does. Does he, or does he not have a sufficient intention to confer the given sacrament validly?
Gasparri’s text is crucial for understanding this debate—especially given that many investigations into sacramental validity presume the use of correct matter and form, and are taken to turn around ministerial intention.
While we may think that it is gratuitous to assume that correct matter and form have been used in various cases, it is important that we have a clear view on what should be considered in an investigation into ministerial intention.
Simultaneous contrary intentions
Some try to resolve this problem with the following ideas:
When someone has two positive contrary intentions, one will necessarily predominate and condition the other.
That in almost all cases, the “general Christian intention” (to do what the Church does, whatever that is) will be predominant; and that any intention positively contrary to what the Church actually does will be conditional on it. As such, the “general Christian intention” should be interpreted as predominant, and therefore overriding the contrary.
In so far as one of two contrary intentions might in fact be conditional on the other, this statement of principle would seem to be correct.
However, if this solution is what we should apply in all cases of simultaneous contrary intentions, it would seem almost impossible for a sacrament to be invalidated by defect of intention.
And yet we know that this happens, because it is often the subject of questions about sacramental validity. For example:
Even if a non-Catholic baptism is administered correctly with regards to matter and form, it can be invalid due to defect of intention
Putative marriages are often declared to be null on the basis of defect of intention
Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican orders to be invalid on the basis of both defect of form and, separately, defect of intention.
In our current ecclesial situation, traditionalist groups like the SSPX sometimes investigate the ordinations of those who putatively received holy orders in the new rites—and these investigations focus on defects in the administration of matter and form, and for defects in intention.
So what exactly constitutes a defect of intention, sufficient to give rise to prudent doubt?
Principle of positive exclusion
In his work Anglican Orders and Defect of Intention, Francis Clark SJ argues decisively against the above as a previously discussed solution to the problem of simultaneous contrary intentions.
First, he notes the established principle that “concomitant error”, even if openly manifested, does not invalidate a sacrament so long as it remains merely an intellectual error, rather than forming part of an explicit act of the will.1
Second, Clark distinguishes between different types of intentions which are positively contrary to that which the Church actually does.
On the one hand, a minister may positively exclude an element of the sacrament which is secondary, and not in itself essential. For example, an heretical minister of baptism may positively exclude an intention to bestow grace on the recipient.
This case is resolved as follows: it is well-known that a baptism conferred on an adult outside the Church will be unfruitful (in the sense of not bestowing grace) but nonetheless can still be valid (in the sense of imposing a character, imparting the principle by which grace will be bestowed when the obstacle is removed, etc.) Therefore, this intention (not to bestow grace, to exclude bestowing grace) will not invalidate the sacrament of baptism, nor will it actually prevent the bestowal of this positively excluded secondary effects (all other things being equal—for instance, in an infant).
Clark distinguishes such a case from the positive exclusion of an essential and primary effect of the sacrament:
The case is quite different, however, if the intention is to exclude not only the secondary grace-effect, but even the primary sacrament-effect, that is, not only the flow of sacramental causality, but the very source itself. (To use another scholastic distinction, we may regard the former as the effectus formalis secundarius of the minister’s act, but the latter as the effectus formalis primarius, which cannot be separated from the sacrament.)
An intention to exclude the former would not necessarily override and nullify a general ‘Christian’ intention, as the absence of that effect is not incompatible with the validity of the sacrament; but an intention to exclude the latter would do so, since to exclude that ‘effect’ is to strike at the very essence of the sacrament.2
He explains further elsewhere:
It is one thing to have an erroneous belief, and so to lack a fully explicit intention to produce the essential effect of the sacrament; such a state of mind may be reconciled with a sufficient general sacramental intention. But it is another and very different thing to form a positive intention opposed to something that is essential to the sacrament; for that cannot be reconciled with a sufficient sacramental intention.3
With this principle in view, the idea of seeking out the predominant intention, or interpreting one as per se conditional on the other, are rendered unnecessary. While the presence of a positive contrary inention should be manifested and not simply presumed, two contrary intentions (one to do what the Church does, and the other to exclude an essential, primary effect of the sacrament) will nullify each other, without any need to weigh up which was predominant, or to introduce the discredited idea of an interpretative intention.
Authorities for this ‘principle of positive exclusion’
One source frequently cited for this principle is Gasparri’s Tractatus Canonicus de Matrimonio. Clark states that this work “was to become a locus classicus quoted dozens of times in Rota decisions.” Here is a translation of the relevant section:
If one contracting [a marriage] indeed has the intention of contracting marriage but simultaneously holds an explicit and positive intention of not obliging themselves in some manner… clearly, in this case, there are two positive and contrary acts of the will; for the contracting party both wills the marriage, because he wishes to contract it, and simultaneously does not will it, by excluding that right or an essential property thereof.
This latter act of the will destroys the former or, if you prefer, these two contrary positive acts of the will cancel each other out, and thus, he wills nothing.4
In his tract on the Holy Eucharist, Gasparri applied this principle to the requisite intention in the Mass:
The consecration would be invalid if the consecrating priest, while intending to do in the consecration what the Church does, should at the same time by a positive act say mentally ‘But I do not wish by these words of mine to offer sacrifice, to confer a sacrament,’ etc., because in that case there would be in the mind of the priest two positive and contrary acts of will, of which the latter destroys the former, or rather which mutually cancel out, and therefore the priest does not really will to do in the consecration what the Church does.5
Clark also quotes de Lugo making the same point about the exclusion of an intention to offer sacrifice:
Now in a case in which the two intentions were simultaneous, if, for instance, someone, misled by error, willed to consecrate the Eucharist and at the same time not to offer sacrifice, and he willed both objects equally, and had an equal desire for both, I should say that the sacrament would not be effected, because the will is intending at the same time to bring about something that is impossible. Wherefore, just as if by one and the same intention it willed those two contrary objects, that is to consecrate the Eucharist without a sacrifice, it would produce no effect, because it would be embracing an impossible object, so also it seems that we should say the same about a man who wills them simultaneously by two equal intentions. And the same must be said, it seems, even if one intention came after the other, provided that both had an influence on the act… For if both are operative in my performing my present action, both are present virtualiter, and I am judged to act with both ends in view.6
De Lugo and Gasparri’s words are quite disturbing, given the notorious currents in the Novus Ordo milieu, both about the Mass as a sacrifice and the priest as a sacrificing priest.
For example, Abbé Henri Mouraux referred several times to the words of Mgr Jean Vilnet of Saint-Dié, sometime President of the French Bishops’ Conference:
Ordination of the priest does not transmit the priesthood but simply the transmission of mission.7
Archbishop Lefebvre himself noticed the same phenomenon and possible consequence:
[R]egarding some of the priests ordained in recent years: are they true priests at all? Put it another way, are their ordinations valid?
The same doubt overhangs other sacraments.
It applies to certain ordinations of bishops such as that which took place in Brussels in the summer of 1982 when the consecrating bishop said to the ordinand ‘Be an apostle like Gandhi, Helder Camara, and Mahomet!’
Can we reconcile these references, at least as regards Gandhi and Mahomet, with the evident intention of doing what the Church intends?8
Returning to Gasparri and de Lugo, Clark comments on the issue of simultaneity and equality raised above:
‘Equality’ in this context only has a practical meaning if taken in Gasparri’s sense—namely, that the two intentions are ‘equally positive’: in the same way that any two living men are ‘equally alive’, or any two mortal sins are ‘equally mortal’. In any case, De Lugo’s further affirmation, ‘si eadem intentione vellet illa duo contraria… nihil efficeret, quia includeret aliquid impossibile…’ shows that his understanding of the principle is essentially the same as Gasparri’s.9
What is the status of this principle?
Rome has consistently followed this “principle of positive exclusion” in cases relating to the validity of the sacraments.
It is enshrined in Canon 1086 §2 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, with reference to the sacrament of marriage. In Chapter VII, Clark provides a wide range of decrees from Rome using this principle to judge both validity and invalidity, whether of baptism or of marriage; such decrees also often refer specifically to de Lugo and Gasparri. It forms the basis of one line of argument in Pope Leo XIII’s Apostolicae Curae against the validity of Anglican orders.
The operative idea behind this principle is that certain types of positive contrary intention do not “override” a simultaneous “general Christian intention,” but rather nullify it (or rather, the simultaneous intentions nullify each other). This is important because the idea of one intention “overriding” another simultaneous intention seems linked to an interminably confusion requirement to discern, in the facts of a given case, which intention predominated and conditioned the other.
In other words, if someone is compelled to investigate the validity of a particular sacrament (whether of baptism, confirmation marriage or of holy orders), then a conclusion of invalidity or of doubt will not depend on proving that a positive contrary intention was predominating. Instead, the investigator simply has to discern the presence of an intention contrary to an essential and primary effect of the sacrament.
This is a considerably lower bar than is sometimes thought.
Concluding thoughts
There must be evidence of the positive exclusion discussed here; it cannot be presumed—when the minister is using a rite received and approved by the Church. This is why Pope Leo XIII wrote, in Apostolicae Curae:
The Church does not judge about the mind and intention, in so far as it is something by its nature internal; but in so far as it is manifested externally she is bound to judge concerning it.
A person who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do (intendisse) what the Church does. On this principle rests the doctrine that a Sacrament is truly conferred by the ministry of one who is a heretic or unbaptized, provided the Catholic rite be employed.
On the other hand, if the rite be changed, with the manifest intention of introducing another rite not approved by the Church and of rejecting what the Church does, and what, by the institution of Christ, belongs to the nature of the Sacrament, then it is clear that not only is the necessary intention wanting to the Sacrament, but that the intention is adverse to and destructive of the Sacrament.10
On the other hand, the authors and signatories of the so-called Ottaviani Intervention, explicitly stated that a sufficient intention could not be presumed by simple fact of the correct and serious use of the rite:
As they are set in the Novus Ordo Mass, the words of the Consecration may be valid according to the intention of the priest, but they can also be invalid; the words no longer have the same force, or more precisely, their force is no longer in virtue of their own meaning (the modus significandi) which they have in the Roman Canon of the Missal of St. Pius V.
In the near future, will the Consecration be valid when done by priests who have not received the traditional training and who rely on the Novus Ordo Mass and its General Instruction for “doing what the Church does”? It is a matter of legitimate doubt.11
The reason that it is “a matter of legitimate doubt” is that—as we have discussed elsewhere at length, and as stated by Archbishop Lefebvre, Fr Alvaró Calderón SSPX and the SSPX’s study The Problem of the Liturgical Reform—the Novus Ordo sacramental rites do not come to us from the Church, with her approval and sanction.
This conclusion gives rise to serious problems in relation to the changed matter and form in some of the new sacramental rites.
Further, the inability to presume due intention in these rites becomes even more problematic when we consider the examples raised by Lefebvre and Mouraux above. The problem is this: given the rampant heterodoxy and rejection of the traditional teaching of the Church on the sacrifice of the Mass, can we presume that, while using new rites which also manifest a rejection of this teaching, the ministers’ errors remained concomitant, and never found its way into the will and intentions of these ordaining bishops?
Lefebvre did not presume such a thing. This is why he wrote in 1988:
I agree with your desire to reordain conditionnaly [sic] these priests, and I have done this reordination many times. All sacraments from the modernists bishops or priests are doubtfull now. [sic]
The changes are increasing and their intentions are no more catholics [sic].12
In some ways, given that Lefebvre is so obviously correct in this text, investigations into the ministerial intention seem unnecessarily burdensome. This is especially so given that an investigation into the orders of a priest ordained in 2024 would need to verify each stage of his lineage, going back to 1968.
This impracticality, coupled with a lack of certainty about rites which do not come from the Church, which have nonetheless been changed in their essentials, is why it would seem that:
Doubt about the new rites, especially those changed in their essentials, is in possession
Avoidance of such doubtful sacraments is a duty incumbent on all Catholics
A systematic policy of conditional ordination is the proportionate solution.
In a later piece, we will consider Gasparri’s application of this principle in relation to Anglican orders, and the positive exclusion of an essential and primary effect of priestly ordination.
In the meantime, here is his presentation of the principle of positive exclusion (nn. 966-8) and the wider topic of the sacramental intention necessary for conferring holy orders.
Wondering why all this matters? See below for what’s at stake:
Concerning the Minister’s Intention
Tractatus Canonicus de Sacra Ordinatione, Vol. II
Cardinal Pietro Gasparri
Delhomme et Briguet, Paris, 189413
What sort of intentions are sufficient for validity?
966. In the preceding section, we determined who is the minister of sacred ordination. Now, discussing the minister’s intention, we recall that for the validity of any sacrament, it is necessary that the minister conferring it has at least the intention of doing what the Church does—that is, the Church of Christ, which is the Roman Church. This was clearly defined by the Council of Trent against the Protestants:
“If anyone says that, when ministers perform and confer the sacraments, it is not necessary for them to have at least the intention of doing what the Church does, let him be anathema.”14
The same teaching is found in the instruction to the Armenians by Pope Eugene IV.15
Ambrosius Catharinus, in his treatise De intentione ministri, argued that it is sufficient for the validity of the sacrament that the minister seriously performs the external sacramental rite; even if, while performing the rite, in his heart he positively intends not to do what the Church does. This doctrine has been generally rejected and appears to have been directly condemned by Pope Alexander VIII in the following proposition:
“Baptism is valid when conferred by a minister who observes all the external rite and form of baptizing but within his heart resolves, I do not intend what the Church does. [Condemned.]”16
For the sacrament to be valid, therefore, it is required that the minister seriously performs the external sacramental rite and, moreover, simultaneously wills, in performing this rite, at least to do what the Church does. Such an intention may be implicit, as when one wills to do what a schismatic or heretical Church does, if that Church validly administers the sacrament.
Similarly, a virtual intention suffices; an actual intention is not required, meaning the sacrament remains valid even if the minister is entirely and deliberately distracted during the sacramental act.
However, a merely habitual intention, and much less an interpretative one, is insufficient.
How this is applied to the ordination
967. Applying this doctrine to sacred ordination, it follows that an ordination, being a sacrament, is by divine law invalid if the minister, while conferring it, does not at least implicitly or virtually intend to do what the Church does—even if he seriously performs the external rite.
This holds true even for ordinations that are of merely ecclesiastical institution (such as first tonsure) because the Church, has imitated the structure of divine law in instituting them, even though she could have established them differently.
However, for the validity of ordination, it is not required that the minister explicitly or positively intends to carry out a sacrament, a sacred rite, or to confer the power of orders, etc., as long as he does not actively exclude these intentions. All of these are implicitly included in the general intention to do what the Church of Christ does.
Thus, the Council of Trent, in the aforementioned canon, demands at least the intention of doing what the Church does, indicating the minimum necessary for sacramental validity; even though it is desirable for the minister to have a more specific intention.
Simultaneous intentions vs concomitant error
968. From the foregoing, it follows that the ordination is valid if the minister intends to do what the Church of Christ does, even if he simultaneously believes that the rite is not a sacrament, is not a sacred rite, does not confer power, and that the Roman Church is not the true Church of Christ, etc.,—provided that he does not explicitly say, by a positive act of will:
“I do not want [nolo] to administer a sacrament, perform a sacred rite, confer power, or do what the Roman Church does, etc.”
Indeed, in this case [where the minister does not say nolo facere], there is still a single act of will—namely, the intention to do what the Church of Christ does—which is not destroyed by the concomitant error, as discussed above.
On the other hand, an ordination would be entirely null if, while intending to do what the Church of Christ does, the minister also, through a positive and explicit act of will, simultaneously intends not to confer the sacrament, perform a sacred rite, do what the Roman Church does, confer the power of orders, or imprint the character, and so forth. For in this case, there would be two positive and contrary acts of will, the latter of which destroys the former, or they mutually cancel each other out, and therefore the minister truly does not intend to do what the Church of Christ does.17
But what if the minister does not have an explicit and positive act of will against conferring a sacrament, or a sacred rite, or doing what the Roman Church does, but would have had such a contrary intention, if he had thought about it?
We reply that the ordination is valid, because such an interpretative will does not actually exist in reality; and therefore we fall back on the initial case of a single act of the will—to do what the Church does.
This is a members-only post for those who support us with monthly or annual subscriptions. It’s a part of our series The Roman Liturgy on the liturgy, and reasons for hope amidst the crisis in the Church.
Our work takes a lot of time and energy. Please consider subscribing if you like it.
Here’s why you should take out a membership of The WM Review today:
Help us continue building the case for a restrained, theological approach to the crisis in the Church
Support an eclectic and sometimes eccentric variety of content
Provide FREE membership to clergy/seminarians (subscribe and reply to the email if this applies to you.)
A small monthly membership really helps us keep The WM Review going. Can you chip in today?