Licit and/or Valid Confessions

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In my understanding, Confession requires the faculties to hear them and absolved by the Ordinary or Superior so an illicit confession, which in this context means the priest has no faculties, is an invalid confession. Is this correct?
 
Usually, yes. However, there are cases in which the priest does not possess the requisite faculty by office or by delegation, but the faculty is supplied by the law itself to cover the situation. This would concern emergency situations where a faculty could not be granted quickly, emergency situations where a laicized priest could give absolution, or when there was error on the part of the penitent as to whether the priest had faculties. This supplied jurisdiction only applies to the faculty to hear confessions itself, and not to anything lacking in the essential nature of the sacrament, I.e. the formula being said correctly.

-ACEGC
 
KnightOfSPUD said:
In my understanding, Confession requires the faculties to hear them and absolved by the Ordinary or Superior so an illicit confession, which in this context means the priest has no faculties, is an invalid confession. Is this correct?
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Essentially that is correct. For example, SSPX priests have had all their faculties suspended so any Confessions heard by them are invalid, apart from a near death situation where no other priests are available or possibly in a case where the penitent genuinely did not know they had no faculties.
 
thistle said:
Essentially that is correct. For example, SSPX priests have had all their faculties suspended so any Confessions heard by them are invalid, apart from a near death situation where no other priests are available or possibly in a case where the penitent genuinely did not know they had no faculties.
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Remember that Pope Francis granted SSPX priests faculties to hear Confessions for the Year of Mercy, which runs to November 20, 2016.

ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-validates-sspx-confessions-for-year-of-mercy/#ixzz4EHnQ7UOJ
 
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