In discussing sacramental problems, you might hear the terms “invalid” and “illicit”. They sound like they mean the same thing — a sacrament gone wrong. But the two words have distinct meanings, and cannot be used interchangeably:
Illicit means, roughly, “illegal”. In the case of a sacrament, it means performed in a way that is not permitted by the rules or laws of the Church.
Invalid means it just didn’t happen at all. No sacrament took place.
But how can something be illicit but still valid? Or invalid but not illicit? It helps to think about salad.
Sacraments are like salad — within limits, you can add or leave out certain parts and still have a salad, or a sacrament. (There is far more flexibility for salad than for sacraments.) And like sacraments, for the most part, we just know a salad when we see it, and unless there’s a consistent problem, no one tries to legislate salads too closely. Still, you can have a salad that is illicit, invalid, or both. Here are some examples of each case:
Licit and valid salad: Lettuce, tomatoes, blue cheese dressing.
Illicit but valid salad: Lettuce, tomatoes, blue cheese dressing, marijauna. It’s a real salad. But it’s an illegal salad. Neither the cops nor your DRE will be amused.
Licit but invalid salad: Nuts, bolts, sheet metal. Perfectly legal, but your guests will still be hungry, no matter how artfully you arrange your piece parts to look exactly like a real salad.
Illicit and invalid salad: Nuts, bolts and sheet metal from that car you stole last week. (Hint: Get yourself to a valid sacrament of confession.)
Sacraments follow the same pattern. A valid baptism requires water, the use of the trinitarian formula (“I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”), and the intent to baptize. If you decide to skip the Church and baptize all your kids in the creek out back, under non-emergency circumstances, it’s probably an illicit baptism*, but it isn’t invalid. The kids are still baptized.
Try to baptize the kids with Coca-Cola? It’s both illicit and invalid. Have a person dressed as a priest reenact a baptism scene for a movie, following exactly the procedures used in the Rite of Baptism? Or dressed as a nurse, reenacting a valid emergency baptism at a hospital? It’s not illicit, but it’s not a baptism, either — you aren’t trying to baptize, you’re trying to film a scene for a movie. An atheist actor having no desire to join the Church could not accidentally be baptized because he took a role in a film and the character he played was baptized.
If you can keep straight the difference between invalid and illicit, you can then analyze any sacrament. Don’t do it on the internet, you’ll drive people crazy. But when you run across these terms in real life — perhaps when consulting your priest about a thorny marriage situation — staying calm and keeping your facts straight makes all the difference in knowing what you need to do next.
*Consult a canon lawyer for the particulars of your situation. Or just call your local parish and have it done the normal way, eh?
Jennifer,
I really liked your post. Thanks for breaking it down!
Isn’t it more precise to say that a valid baptism requires the “intent to do what the Catholic Church does when She baptizes?”
Saying “the intent to baptize” leaves open the possibility of an intent which includes a profound misunderstanding of what baptism means. This is, IIRC, why the Church confirmed that baptisms occurring in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) are not to be considered valid.
(More on that here –> http://www.zenit.org/article-1975?l=english )
Bearing – you are right, that is the more precise terminology. I was contrasting specifically situations where there’s no intent to baptize at all, but when, for various reasons good or ill, you might go through the motions of performing a baptism. (Ie to train someone, to act it out for a performance, or for the bad reason of mocking the Church.)
That said, the “intent to do what the Church does” is a fairly broad understanding, ie a Baptist baptism using the trinitarian formula is valid even though the teaching of the Baptist church differs from the Catholic understanding of exactly what baptism does and what role it plays in the life of the believer. Or a nurse with no understanding of baptism other than “It’s important to this Catholic mother that I do this emergency baptism for her baby” would still be intending what the Church intends, even though she herself has no idea what it is the Church intends it to be, only that she’s doing what the parents asked.
All: Take a look at Bearing’s link, it is a great intro to why Mormon baptism is not sacramental (for Catholics — obviously Mormons view it as perfectly valid for their own purposes.)
Jennifer,
This for the most part is a good post, and laced with funny Catholic humour. I liked the Illicit but Valid one about the weed (they will not be pleased lol!) and the worse one (hint: GO TO CONFESSION) lol!
However, I don`t think the analogy for the Illicit but valid accurately described all situations like this in the Church. Maybe you’ve heard of the negotiations between the SSPX and the Vatican? Well they are an ultra-traditional catholic “group” that celebrates mass according to the 1962 Missal and their societies/parishes/schools run like pre-Vatican II ones did.
Their status is Valid but illicit with regard to their priests. This is because back in 88′, their then current head Lefevbre consecrated bishops without the Holy See’s approval. What they did was break Canon Laws (and something from one encyclical or apostolic something ….) and that earned them Valid but illicit status. The priests can validly confect the Eucharist and do use a valid form of the Roman Rite (Extraordinary Form) but those priests can’t do other sacraments (with exception to dire emergency Annointing of the Sick.) The analogy you used doesn’t work as well, because they didn’t “add” anything extra to to the salad. Their status seems to be to me that what they did is decide not to wait for the “Vatican grocery store to deliver them the Italian lettuce” and instead they used their own garden variety lettuce, which the “Vatican Commission of approved dietary acceptable nutritional meals” does not approve and is a violation of their nutritional standards (Canon laws).
YC, You are correct, of course, all analogies have their limits! That said, in the salad analogy, the hinge is not on adding or taking away, but on the illegal ingredient — in this case, unapproved ordinations. In the case you cite, perhaps a clearer form of “Illegal salad” would be stealing salad from the grocery store, or violating regulations governing the sale of salad.
I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable of the SSPX to comment in detail, but hopefully my explanation of the general differences between “invalid” and “illicit” will be helpful for those who have a need to understand what is going on in that situation.
If I’m ever forced by a cruel DRE to teach adults again, I’ll steal this.
So there.