Words of valid sacrament

[bsaucer]

Are the words “Holy Ghost” and “Holy Spirit” interchangeable for performing a valid sacrament, such as baptism?

 

[RyanBlack]

Yes.

 

[MarkThompson]

The person saying the words should use what is written in the text provided by the Church. As far as I know, current usage has “Holy Spirit.” However, saying “Holy Ghost” instead would not make the sacrament invalid.

 

[Brendan_McCabe]

The Latin is Spiritus Sanctus, which can be translated into English in either way as Ghost is by the dictionary definition a Spirit.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

The Latin is Spiritus Sanctus, which can be translated into English in either way as Ghost is by the dictionary definition a Spirit.

Can spiritus be translated as ‘ghost’? I found this online dictionary (I can only rely on it because I am not a Latinist). I know in older Missals Spiritus Sanctus was almost invariably translated as ‘Holy Ghost’.

Certainly, statements such as “I baptise you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier” and “I baptise you in the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer” are complete nonsense and invalidate the sacrament.

 

[Damase]

Can spiritus be translated as ‘ghost’? I found this online dictionary (I can only rely on it because I am not a Latinist). I know in older Missals Spiritus Sanctus was almost invariably translated as ‘Holy Ghost’.

From what I understand, the term “Holy Ghost” in English was a sort of archaism, akin to how we use phrases like “hallowed by Thy name” which would never appear in anything resembling modern conversational English. The word “ghost” has assumed a different sense in the past centuries than it originally did. Whereas now it means “specter” or “haunting”, it used to be used much more broadly, and was the usual West Germanic word for “supernatural being.” Latin *spiritus *was thus usually translated in Old English as gast, ghost.