Folio 440

Gregory XVI, 1831-1846

printed p. 408 · pdf p. 440

certitude to a knowledge of the existence of God, to the revelation made to the Jews by Moses, and to Christians by our adorable Man-God.1

The Matter of Extreme Unction 2

[From the decree of the Sacred Office under Paul V, Jan. 13, 1611, and Gregory XVI, Sept. 14, 1842]

1628. 1. Proposition: "that without doubt the sacrament of extreme unction can be validly administered with oil not consecrated by episcopal blessing."

The Sacred Office on Jan. 13, 1611, declared: it is destructive and very close to error.

1629. 2. Similarly, to the doubt: whether in a case of necessity as regards the validity of the sacrament of extreme unction, a parish priest could use oil blessed by himself.

The Sacred Office, Sept. 14, 1842, replied: negatively, according to the form of the decree of Thursday in the presence of His Holiness, Jan. 13, 1611, which resolution Gregory XVI approved on the same day.

  1. The original text (written in the French language) in Der Katholik 79 (1841), LVI ff.—The theses already written by Bautain Nov. 18, 1835, at the order of his bishop are these: 1. Reasoning can prove with certainty the existence of God.—Faith, a gift from heaven, is posterior to revelation; therefore, it cannot suitably be brought forward against an atheist as a proof of the existence of God.—2. The Mosaic revelation is proved with certainty by the oral and written tradition of the synagogue and of Christianity.—3. The proof of Christian revelation, drawn from the miracles of Jesus Christ, sensitive and striking for eyewitnesses, has not at all lost its strength and its brilliance for subsequent generations. We find this proof in the oral and written tradition of all Christians. It is by this double tradition that we should demonstrate it to those who reject it or who, without yet admitting it, desire it.—4. We have no right to expect an unbeliever to admit the resurrection of our divine Savior before we have given him certain proofs of it; and these proofs are deduced from the same tradition by reasoning.—5. The use of reason precedes faith and leads man to it by revelation and grace.—6. Reason can prove with certainty the authenticity of the revelation made to the Jews by Moses and to the Christians by Jesus Christ (Der Katholik, 59 [1836] XXV).—Bautain, April 26, 1844 (when he had in mind to found a religious community) was ordered by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars to promise in writing: 1. Never to teach that with the sole light of right reason, leaving divine revelation out of account, one cannot give a true demonstration of the existence of God.—2. . . . that with reason alone one cannot demonstrate the spirituality and immortality of the soul or any other purely natural, rational or moral truth.—3. . . . that with reason alone one cannot have knowledge of principles or of metaphysics, as well as of the truths which depend on them, as a knowledge quite distinct·from the supernatural theology which is founded on divine revelation.—4. . . . that reason cannot acquire a true and full certainty of the motives of credibility, that is to say, of those motives that render divine revelation clearly believable, such as are especially the miracles and the prophecies, particularly the resurrection of Jesus Christ" [see n. 1650 f.], (Dict. de Théol. Cathol., II, 482). ↩

  2. A Col 1860, 232. ↩