I’ve been on 2-year quest, odyssey really, to answer for myself if Rome still teaches ex opere operato. Based on the quote below from Rome’s official catechism of 1994, I doubt it.
CCC 1128 This is the meaning of the Church’s affirmation1 that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: “by the very fact of the action’s being performed”), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that “the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.”2 From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.
1 Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1608.
2 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 68, 8.
As part of my ongoing mission to prove to myself that Rome still teaches ex opere operato, I looked it up on Wikipedia, I think Confessional Lutheranism would agree with this, not mind you, what it says concerning confirmation but the role of the objective and subjective sides of the Sacraments: “’Affirming the ex opere operato efficacy means being sure of God’s sovereign and gratuitous intervention in the sacraments.’”[2] For example, in confirmation the Holy Spirit is bestowed not through the attitude of the bishop and of the person being confirmed but freely by God through the instrumentality of the sacrament. In order to receive sacraments fruitfully, it is believed necessary for the recipient to have faith.[3]” The footnotes in the Wikipedia article are not citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Here’s what CCC does say:
The Sacraments of Salvation
1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify.48 They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. the Father always hears the prayer of his Son’s Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.
And here again is paragraph 1128: This is the meaning of the Church’s affirmation49 that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: “by the very fact of the action’s being performed”), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that “the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.”50 From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.
The last line “’the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them” is our position’” (Harris, Paul, “Apology of the Augsburg Confession – Tappert Articles XIII (Number and Use of Sacraments), XIV (Ecclesiastical Order), & XV (Human Traditions in the Church) Pages 211-222, p.6).
Am I right? If so, this is significant. I’m aware that that Rome and the ELCA announced 25 years ago agreement in the Article of Justification when there wasn’t. There was a redefining of terms to make it sound so. I don’t get that here. But in keeping with an upcoming blog, perhaps I’m wrong.
