Second U.S. priest discovers his baptism and ordination were invalid

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This could turn quite legalistic, and has spawned unnecessary scrupulosity in my opinion.

Hopefully the CDF might clarify that an “implicit” dispensation would have been in effect, by grace of Christ/Holy Mother Church, thus rending the invalidity of the ministry nominal only- the substance still in tact.

Edit: to clarify, I have no problems with the CDF clarification.
 
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Fortunately this priest is almost brand new, so the damage to others is mitigated somewhat because he hasn’t been priesting very long.

I’m a bit confused by the end of the article suggesting that we can have more trust in God if we receive all the other sacraments regularly. If someone’s baptism is invalid, they’re not supposed to be receiving all the other sacraments, so it’s a bit of a contradiction.

I’m just glad I was baptized before Vatican II finished (actually in the period during it) and by an old school priest who wouldn’t have been changing any of the words which I would guess were in Latin.
 
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Gotta admit, I still don’t know why this is necessary - because “We” baptize makes it unclear that Christ is baptizing? But in the East we just say “[person] is baptized” - no explicit reference to Christ or any agent at all - so why are our baptisms deemed unproblematic?
 
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ReaderT said:
But in the East we just say “[person] is baptized” - no explicit reference to Christ or any agent at all.
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I’ll take the ambiguity in the Eastern form over the horrendous theology of “we” baptisms. It’s like the difference between “Tom’s legs were broken” and “Bill broke Tom’s legs”

And if there is any doubt about the Eastern form, the fact that it includes an epiclesis should make it more clear.
 
Obviously, there could be numerous priests in the same boat, but without a video of their baptism, so they are unaware, and so they are not being rebaptized. Some of them may eventually be ordained as bishops. What, if anything, is being done about the bishop aspect?
 
The Church presumes sacraments are valid unless there is significant evidence that they are not valid.

So if there’s no video or audio or other record of the words used at someone’s baptism, and no reason to think the wrong words were used (like their church didn’t routinely use wrong words), the Church will just assume the baptism was okay.
 
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In Québec parish registers (which record in chronological order all baptisms, marriages, and burials), for baptisms, the priest (singular) always refers to himself as ”we”. From the mid to late 1600’s to at least 1930, every entry (always in French) begins the same way:

Le (date written out fully in words) nous, le prêtre soussigné avons baptisé ………

Which translates to “The (date) we the undersigned priest have baptized………”

While the parish register is not necessarily proof of the words the priest used in the actual baptism, it’s curious that he would use different words to refer to himself in the the actual ritual vs. the record thereof.

I would be interested in the comments of any Québecers (particularly French speaking) on this.

Just kind of interesting.
 
Respectfully, what does this have to do with the words of baptism?

From the mid to late 1600s till 1930, the priest would have been baptizing babies with the Latin words prescribed by the Church; he wouldn’t have been changing the Latin.

As for the parish register, the “royal we” would likely have been considered more polite and deferential and therefore used in a very formal, reverential context like making a parish record. This practice is not unique to French language. But it has nothing to do with the words prescribed by the Church for baptism, which for centuries were in Latin and did not change.
 
Good point that words would’ve been spoken in Latin. I had forgotten that.
 
I’m assuming the heretical liberal wishy washy loosey goosey theology behind the change in wording, from I to we, is a factor here. Words matter because the meaning behind them matters. The East has its problems, but this isn’t one of them.
 
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