Can a priest 'living' in sin give communion?

[Johann_du_Toit]

The Council of Trent taught that the sinfulness of the celebrant has zero effect on the validity of the sacraments.

 

[Polak]

Sure, but this isn’t so much about the validity of the sacraments, but about whether the priest should be doing the communion and whether he can take communion himself, while in a state of mortal sin, particularly since as we appear to have established, he must take the communion during mass.

 

[Lifeisbeautiful3]

So a priest has to have confessed all sins every day to be eligible to receive communion. This may be the best reason I’ve seen yet for modest dress in church, lest the priest accidentally sees some cleavage on an inappropriately dressed woman and thinks something he shouldn’t.

 

[Polak]

I don’t think so either and it would be inconvenient for parishioners, but I suppose it could be one of the options in a desperate situation.

Let’s say a mass is due to start at 12.00 and the priest needs to confess. He knows a fellow priest is going to be there at about 12.15. He might then tell parishioners who turn up that the mass is going to be delayed by half an hour because of a ‘situation’ or emergency, that he doesn’t need to go into too much. They would find it odd but would probably be happy to wait.

Or in a more extreme case, if the mass was supposed to start at 12.00 and he knows a fellow priest who could confess him is going to be there at 15.00, he might postpone the mass to the evening. Again, very inconvenient for the parishioners, but might be possible to do if the parish isn’t that large. Harder if you have a few hundred people turn up to the 12.00 mass.

Again it’s an unusual situation and an unlikely scenario, but it would be one way around the priest having to take communion while in sin.

So a priest has to have confessed all sins every day to be eligible to receive communion. This may be the best reason I’ve seen yet for modest dress in church, lest the priest accidentally sees some cleavage on an inappropriately dressed woman and thinks something he shouldn’t.

I think that this would be a venial sin and he would not have to have confessed that to receive communion.

 

[OddBird]

Let’s say a mass is due to start at 12.00 and the priest needs to confess. He knows a fellow priest is going to be there at about 12.15. He might then tell parishioners who turn up that the mass is going to be delayed by half an hour because of a ‘situation’ or emergency, that he doesn’t need to go into too much. They would find it odd but would probably be happy to wait.

Or in a more extreme case, if the mass was supposed to start at 12.00 and he knows a fellow priest who could confess him is going to be there at 15.00, he might postpone the mass to the evening. Again, very inconvenient for the parishioners, but might be possible to do if the parish isn’t that large. Harder if you have a few hundred people turn up to the 12.00 mass.

I’m not sure how that would play out in parishes where there are multiple Masses (and celebrants) every Sunday – particularly in these Covid times where, where I live at least, everything has to be sanitized between Masses, which takes some time (30 to 45 minutes in my parish) and mobilizes a volunteers’ crew.

I’d be willing to bet that if the local priests did this, people would start going elsewhere with reliable Mass times – families with little kids, for example, or myself, who usually can make it to only a single one of the various Mass times (and not always the same) on a typical Sunday.

The provision made by Canon Law seems the most reasonable way out to me.

 

[AlbMagno]

He knows a fellow priest is going to be there at about 12.15

This doesn’t too happen often in Parishes with just one Priest. In that cases, the Priest will almost 8/10 times have to travel to the nearest neighbour Parish to find another Priest.

 

[InThePew]

Wouldn’t that be pretty much the only legitimate, grave enough reason? Are there other reasons that would fall under this category?

Pretty much. Celebrating mass for the faithful would presumably include fulfilling the canonical obligation on a pastor to offer mass on Sunday’s for his congregation.

So if I have understood correctly @InThePew, the priest must consume the body and blood for the mass to be complete, and the only reason he would be allowed to consume them during a mass in a state of mortal sin, is if he has no possibility to confess before the mass.

Essentially, yes.

I suppose another way to deal with the situation might be to push the mass back a few hours, if the priest knows he would be able to confess if this was done.

That’s pretty much not going to happen given the difficulty and confusion of trying to reschedule a mass a pretty much no notice (not to mention finding a confessor). The good of the faithful is more important.

 

[OraLabora]

In the 23 years I’ve been back in the Church, I have only seen Mass delayed twice.

In the first case, the priest was called out to perform an emergency baptism on a newborn not expected to survive the hour. He arrived about 10 min late, choked up with emotion, and had trouble regaining his composure.

The second time was on Epiphany. The priest had two Masses to celebrate that day across the county. They were very tightly scheduled, there was a blizzard, and the roads were a mess. He also forgot his stole and chasuble at the previous church.

Both cases are completely understandable, especially given our shortage of priests.

I can’t imagine Mass being delayed for anything other than similar reasons.