Folia Theologica et Canonica 3. 25/17 (2014)

IUS CANONICUM - Szabolcs Anzelm Szuromi, O.Praem., Crystallization process of the ecclesiastical discipline regarding the sacrament of extreme unction and its canon law historical sources

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SZABOLCS ANZELM SZUROMI, O.PRAEM.

of grace.54 This principle appeared already at the Council of Mainz in 813 in such a way as a practice going back to the Church Fathers.55

Finally, in chapter III of Sessio XIV of the Council of Trient we find detailed provisions concerning the administration, conditions, place and time of the holy anointment. Here we can read of the criterion, a few times underlined above, relating to the person of the administrator, who must be at least in the presbyter grade of the holy orders. This is an evident consequence of the sin-remitting character of holy anointment. Regarding to the receiver it is an important relating principle that to such a sinner, who contumaciously persists in a public and scandalous evil, the administration of the holy anointment is forbidden. The imposition of the hand as necessary to the validity of the administration becomes emphasized, as well as the recitation of those adequate and indispensable words - prayer (

oratio) - that are tied to the rite.

II. The Provisions Of The Codified Canonical Discipline - Their Sources And Interpretation

The detailed position of the Council of Trient gave stable framework for the subsequent legislation. This appears in CIC (1917) Cann. 937-947 which order the administration of the holy anointment after the introductory definition'56 57 in three chapters, touching upon the administrator, the receiver, finally the liturgical form of the administration. In the new Code of Canon Law, published on January 25* 1983, the name extrema unctio is replaced with sacramentum unctio- nis infirmorum, in accordance with phrasing of the new liturgical provisions published in 1970 and 1972, as well as of the apostolic constitution of Blessed Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) Sacram unctionem infirmorum, published on November 30* 1972s7. With a knowledge of these documents we can follow up those preliminary schemata that were prepared for the reform of the Code of Canon Law and concern Canons 998-1007, as well as those interpretations that have been published as laws appended to the canons, in the 1977, 1983, 1999 and 2000 issues of Communicationes,58

Although it appears from the sources that there were disputes concerning the material of the holy anointment, namely whether the use of a kind of olive oil

55 Mansi XIV. 75. Werminghoff, A., Concilia aevi Karolini (MGH Concilia II/l), Hannoverae 1906 (repr. 1997) 302-306.

56 CIC (1917) Can. 937 - Extremae unctionis sacramentum conferri debet per sacras unctiones, adhibito oleo olivarum rite benedicto, et per verba in ritualibus libris ab Ecclesia probatis prae- scripta.

57 Paulus VI, Const. Ap. Sacram unctionem infirmorum (30 nov. 1972): AAS 65 (1973) 5-9.

58 Cf. Communicationes 9 (1977) 340-344; 15 (1983) 213-216; further interpretations: 31 (1999) 86-102, 114-115, 118-120, 161-163; 32 (2000) 60-61, 120-122, 132-134.