Also, if a person is about to die, it is valid for a laicized priest to hear his Confession and give him Anointing of the Sick and the other Last Rites. Whether he’s a priest given permission to leave, or one who’s lost all his faculties because he’s done horrible things, he doesn’t lose those “emergency powers.” Basically, that’s not to his benefit but for the sake of the dying person.
All the same, in the rare cases when it happens, it’s a big demonstration that God means it when He says, “You are a priest forever.”
