A Contemporary Understanding of St. Thomas on Sacerdotal Character

The Thomist 71 (2007): 171-98 A CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING OF ST. THOMAS ON SACERDOTAL CHARACTER GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B. Saint Meinrad Archabbey Saint Meinrad, Indiana THE SACRAMENTAL CHARACTER of orders is treated by St. Thomas in several places. The most extensive treatments lie in his commentary on the Sentences, where he deals with the effects of baptism and orders, and in the Summa Theologiae, where he treats the sacraments in general. The latter in particular presents a problem internal to his view. My purpose in this article is to offer a speculative solution to this problem,1 and to link this solution with the way the Second Vatican Council talks about priests in Presbyterorum ordinis 2. The problem internal to St. Thomas's account of sacerdotal sacramental character shows up clearly in the Tertia Pars of the Summa, question 63. It can be stated as follows. In itself, sacramental character is fully realized only in the character of orders,2 and sacerdotal character is a power received from Christ through the sacrament of orders. The primary act of this power is to confect the Eucharist, and its secondary act is to dispose the faithful 1 It is a problem internal to his account of character as such; however, the priestly character is the primary instance of character for St. Thomas, and this will be the main concern of this paper. 2 Note the distinction between receiving gifts and bestowing gifts in STh III, q. 63, a. 2: baptismal character is receptive, sacerdotal character active. For St. Thomas's consideration of sacerdotal character as the analogatum princeps relative to the characters of baptism and confirmation, seeJean Galot, La naturedu caracteresacramentel: Etude de theologie medievale (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1956), 179-81; and Pierre-Marie Gy, O.P., "Evolution de saint Thomassur la i::heologie du sacrament de l'Ordre," Revue thomiste 99 (1999): 181-89, at 18586 . 171 172 GUY MANSINI, 0.S.B. for the reception of communion by absolving them of their sins.3 The power of orders is a power of efficiency, perfective of and not merely dispositive to its effect.4 It is, however, a merely instrumental power. Instrumental power, furthermore, is only a vis fluens, the transient motion of the instrument precisely as it is being moved by the controlling hand of the principal agent to produce an effect beyond the proportion of the instrument itself.5 As transient, instrumental power is received in the instrument only while it is being used. Therefore, it should follow that the character is received in the priest only when he says Mass or hears confessions. To the contrary, and as a datum received from a prior tradition in which St. Thomas has perfect confidence, the character is indelible, something permanent in the priest. The ordinary solution to this problem given by those who try with care, accuracy, and reverence to expound St. Thomas's view of sacramental character is to distinguish the character imparted by orders from the instrumental power received at the very time the priest confects the Eucharist or pronounces absolution. On this view, the character is a permanent capacity for sacramental action, a permanent qualification of the priest, but there is a further power received when the sacrament is celebrated, a temporary vis. Receiving the sacramental character, therefore, is as it were like iron being given an edge, or like an axe head being fitted to the handle-the iron is "instrumentalized," made into an instrument. In the use of the instrument, however, there is an altogether new power given it, according as it is moved now in this way, now that, now with this force at this angle and now with 3 For this, see N Sent., d. 24, q. 3, a. 2, qla., 1 = STh Suppl., q. 40, a. 4. 4 See H.-D. Dondaine, O.P., "Apropos d'Avicenne et de saint Thomas: De la causalite dispositive ala causalite insturmentale," Revue Thomiste 51 (1951): 441-53. A good overview of St. Thomas's sacramental theology as a whole is provided by John P. Yocum, "Sacraments in Aquinas," in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. Thomas Weinandy, Daniel Keating, and John Yocum...