Validity andliceity are concepts in theCatholic Church.Validity designates an action which produces the effects intended; an action which does not produce the effects intended is considered "invalid".[1][2]Liceity designates an action which has been performed legitimately; an action which has not been performed legitimately is considered "illicit".[3][4] Some actions can be illicit, but still be valid.[3][4]
Catholic canon law also lays down rules forlicit, also calledlawful, placing of the act, along with criteria to determine its validity or invalidity.Valid but illicit orvalid but illegal (Latin:valida sed illicita) is a description applied in theCatholic Church to describe either an unauthorized celebration of asacrament or an improperly placed juridic act that nevertheless has effect. Validity is presumed whenever an act is performed by a qualified person and includes those things which essentially constitute the act itself as well as the formalities and requirements imposed by law for the validity of the act.[5][6]
The1983Code of Canon Law states: "Except in a case of necessity, it is unlawful for anyone without due permission to conferbaptism outsidehis own territory, not even upon his own subjects".[7] In theLatin Church, administration of baptism is one of the functions especially entrusted to theparish priest.[8]
However, according to the sameCode, any person, even someone not baptized, can baptize, if he has the required intention. The intention required is to will to do what the Catholic Church does when she baptizes, and to apply theTrinitarian baptismal formula.[9]
In 2008, theCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) stated the baptism formulae "I baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier" and "I baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer", were invalid.[10]
In 2020, the CDF stated the formula "We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" was invalid for the purposes of conferring baptism. This made it so Matthew Hood, a Catholic priest ofDetroit who had been baptised by Mark Springer by this formula, was not considered a priest anymore (Hood was later properly baptised andordained). This 2020 statement created other difficulties, as other people from Detroit had been baptised with the same formula by Springer, and other people had received sacraments from Hood since the latter's ordination 2017.[10] Due to the same 2020 statement, another US priest, Andrés Arango, who had baptised using the same formula, had to properly baptise those he had invalidly baptised.[11]Thomas Reese and retiredsacramental theology Prof. Peter Fink have criticized the CDF statement, saying the "We" formula was valid.[10]
In theLatin Church, abishop is theordinaryminister ofconfirmation and he may licitly administer it to his own subjects everywhere and, in his own territory, even to Catholics who are not his subjects, unless their ordinary has expressly forbidden it.[12] In the Latin Catholic Church, simplepriests (presbyters) can validly and licitly confirm in some circumstances, such as when they baptize adults or receive them into the church and when there is danger of death.[13]
Priests of theEastern Catholic Churches can validly confer the sacrament on any Catholic, even a Catholic of theLatin Church, but they can do so licitly only on those who belong to their ownparticular church and on other Catholics who meet the conditions of either being their subjects or of being lawfully baptized by them, or of being in danger of death.[14]
A prime example ofvalid but illicit celebration of a sacrament would be the use of leavened wheaten bread for theEucharist in the Latin Church[15] or in certain Eastern Catholic Churches.[16] If, on the other hand,rice orrye flour are used instead of wheat, or ifbutter,honey, oreggs are added, particularly in large quantities, theMass would be invalid (transubstantiation would not occur).[17]
Likewise, wine used for the Eucharist must be valid. Invalid wine would be any wine made of non-grape fruits or wine mixed with any other substance apart from "a small quantity of water".[18]
A priest who has beenlaicized,suspended, orexcommunicated is not to sayMass, but if the Mass is said, it is considered valid but illicit.[19]
Church laws regardingconfession require that priests who are hearing confessions must have validfaculties andjurisdiction. As penance is not only a sacramental act but also one of jurisdiction, such faculties are required for both for validity and liceity.[20]
Those who are provided with the faculty of hearing confessions by reason of office or grant of a competent superior of areligious institute orsociety of apostolic life possess the same faculty everywhere by the law itself as regards members and others living day and night in the house of the institute or society. They also use the faculty licitly unless some major superior has denied it in a particular case as regards his own subjects.[21]
Confessions in which the priest does not have the faculties to hear confession, yet without good reason pretends to have them, are valid but illicit. The church supplants the faculties leading to validity of the sacrament (canon 144).
Pope Francis allowed priests of thecanonically irregularSociety of Saint Pius X to hear confessions during the Year of Mercy, in 2015 and 2016; Pope Francis extended the concession indefinitely in the apostolic letterMisericordia et Misera of 20 November 2016.[22]
Every priest can administer the sacrament ofanointing of the sick validly. The duty and the right to administer it pertains to the priest to whom the spiritual care of the person concerned is entrusted. However, any other priest may administer it instead for a good reason if he has the presumed consent of the priest who has the duty and right.[23]
All bishops are able to ordain adeacon,priest, orbishop. In the sacrament ofholy orders, avalid but illicit ordination, as the name suggests, is an ordination in which a bishop uses his valid ability to ordain someone a bishop without having first received the required authorization. The same would apply to a bishop's ordaining of a man who has not undergone and completed necessaryseminary schooling, as required by canon law. The bishop is then acting in a manner deemed illicit or illegal.[24][25]
A Latin or Eastern Catholic bishop who consecrates someone to theepiscopate without a mandate from thepope isautomaticallyexcommunicated according toCatholic canon law, even if his ordination may be considered valid. The person who receives consecration from him is also automatically excommunicated.Pope Pius XII declared that the consecration of a bishop against the express orders of the Pope may be valid but is 'gravely illicit i.e. criminal and sacrilegious'.[26] The excommunication can be lifted by only theHoly See.[27] Notable, historic examples have been the consecrations of the bishops of theOld Catholic Union of Utrecht, initially byDominique Marie Varlet.
In the 20th century, the excommunicatedCarlos Duarte Costa illicitly consecratedSalomão Barbosa Ferraz, who would later join the Roman Church without being conditionally ordained.[28]
Additionally, ArchbishopMarcel Lefebvre was automatically excommunicated for his valid but illicitordinations of four bishops for theSSPX without a papal mandate. After Lefebvre's death, theHoly See, on 21 January 2009, lifted the excommunication of the four bishops.[29][30] However, the SSPX argues that he acted under grave necessity, which the1983 canon law stipulates is an excuse to avoidautomatic excommunication in this case (canon 1323, §4).[31]
In the 21st century,Emmanuel Milingo was excommunicated for his conditional ordinations ofPeter Paul Brennan andGeorge Augustus Stallings; however, canon lawyers and Catholic university professors acknowledged their validity.[32]
Amarriage celebrated in due form but without express permission of the competent authority of the Catholic Church between a Catholic and another baptized person enrolled in a church orecclesial community not in full communion with the Catholic Church is "prohibited" (illicit) but valid.[33] On the other hand, a marriage celebrated in due form between a Catholic and an unbaptized person is invalid unlessdispensation has previously been obtained from the competent church authority.[34]
Other cases in which a marriage is both illicit and invalid are indicated in canons 1083 to 1094 of the1983Code of Canon Law.[35]
As a bishop, Milingo technically has the authority to ordain other bishops. But under church rules, only bishops authorized by the pope are considered bishops in good standing. The four consecrations are technically "valid" even if they are not "licit," according to the Rev. Philip Goyret, a professor of dogmatic theology with expertise in canon law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. That means the Vatican cannot deny the inherent authority of the newly installed bishops, even if they do not consider them in formal communion with Pope Benedict XVI. Precedence for such scenarios include the Catholic-Orthodox split in 1054 and the schism between the traditionalist followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who broke with Rome in 1988, after consecrating four priests as bishops in the Society of Pius X. "Episcopal consecrations carried out without the orders or consensus of the pontiff are valid," Goyret said.
