EXTREME
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EXTREME
a severe, view of the gravity of the sickness, or the
proximity of the danger of death, required to qualify
for the vahd reception of extreme unction; and this is
clearly compatible with the teaching of the Council of
Trent and is supported by the traditional practice of
the first twelve centuries.
But if the Easterns have had some justification for their charge against the Westerns of unduly restricting the administration of this sacrament, the Orthodox Church is officially responsible for a widespread abuse of the opposite kind which allows the euchelaion to be given to persons in perfect health as a complement of penance and a preparation for Holy Communion. Many Western theologians, following Goar (Eucholo- gion, pp. 349 sq.), have denied that this rite was under- stood and intended to be sacramental, though the matter and form were employed precisely as in the case of the sick; but, whatever may have been the inten- tion in the past, it is quite certain at the present time that at least in the Constantinopolitan and Hellenic branches of the Orthodox Church the intention is to give the sacrament itself and no mere sacramental to those in sound health who are anointed (Kern, op. cit., 2S1). On the other hand, in the Russian Church, except in the metropolitan churches of Moscow and Novgorod on Maundy Thursday each year, this prac- tice is reprobated, and priests are expressly forbidden in their faculties to give the euchelaion to people who are not sick (Kern, pp. 279 sq.; Fortescue, The Or- thodox Eastern Church, London, 1907, p. 425). We have already noticed (III) among Nestorians what appears to have been a similar abuse, but in the Or- thodox Church till long after the schism there is no evidence of its existence, and the teaching of Eastern theologians down to modern times, to which the Rus- sians still adhere, has been at one with the Western tradition in insisting that the subject of this sacrament must be labouring under a serious sickness.
(4) Nor will danger, or even certainty, of death from any other cause than sickness qualify a person for ex- treme unction. Hence criminals or martyrs about to suffer death and others similarly circumstanced may not be validly anointed unless they should happen to be seriously ill. But illness caused by violence, as by a dangerous or fatal wound, is sufficient; and old age itself without any specific disease is held by all West- ern theologians to qualify for extreme unction, i. e. when senile decay has advanced so far that death already seems probable. In cases of lingering dis- eases, like phthisis or cancer, once the danger has be- come really serious, extreme unction may be validly administered even though in all human probability the patient will live for a considerable time, say sev- eral months; and the lawfulness of administering it in such cases is to be decided by the rules of pastoral theology. If in the opinion of doctors the sickness will certainly be cured, and all probable danger of death removed by a surgical operation, theologians are not agreed whether the person who consents to under- go the operation ceases thereby to be a valid subject for the sacrament. Kern holds that he does (op. cit., p. 299), but his argument is by no means convincing.
VH. Effects. — The decree of Eugene IV for the .Armenians describes the effects of extreme unction briefly as " the healing of the mind and, so far as it is expedient, of the body also" (Denzinger, no. 700 — old no. 59.5). In Sess. XIV, can. ii, De Extr. Unct., the Council of Trent mentions the conferring of grace, the remission of sins, and the alleviation of the sick, and in the corresponding chapter explains as follows the effects of the unction: "This effect is the grace of the Holy Ghost, whose unction blots out sins, if any remain to be expiated, and the consequences [re- liquia.f] of .sin, and alleviates and strengthens the soul of the sick person, by exciting in him a great confi- dence in the Divine mercy, sustained by wnich [confi- dence] he bears more lightly the troubles and suffer-
ings of disease, and more easily resists the temptations
of the demon lying in wait for his heel, and sometimes,
when it is expedient for liis soul's salvation, recovers
bodily health." The remission of sins, as we have
seen, is explicitly mentioned by St. James, and the
other spiritual effects specified by the Council of Trent
are implicitly contained, side by side with bodily
healing, in what the Apostle describes as the saving
and raising up of the sick man (see above, II).
(1) It is therefore a doctrine of Catholic faith that sins are remitted by extreme unction, and, since neither St. James nor Catholic tradition nor the Council of Trent limits tliis effect to venial sins, it is quite certain that it applies to mortal sins also. But according to Catholic teaching there is per se a grave obligation im- posed by Divine law of confessing all mortal sins com- mitted after baptism and obtaining absolution from them; from which it follows that one guilty of mortal sin is bound per se to receive the Sacrament of Pen- ance before receiving extreme unction. Whether he is further bound, in case penance cannot be received, to prepare himself for extreme unction by an act of per- fect contrition is not so clear; but the affirmative opinion is more commonly held by the theologians, on the ground that extreme unction is primarily a sacra- ment of the li\'ing, i. e. intended for those in the state of grace, and that every effort should be made by the subject to possess this primary disposition. That the remission at least of mortal sins is not the primary end of extreme unction is evident from the conditional way in which St. James speaks of this effect ; " and if he be in sins" etc.; but, on the other hand, this effect is attributed, if conditionally and secondarily, yet di- rectly and per se to the unction — not indirectly and per accidens as we attribute it to other sacraments of the Uving — which means that extreme unction has been instituted secondarily as a sacrament of the dead, i. e. for the purpose not merely of increasing but of conferring sanctifying grace saeramentally. Hence, if for any reason the suliject in mortal sin is excused from the obligation of confessing or of eliciting an act of perfect contrition, extreme unction will remit his sin and confer sanctifying grace, provided he has actual, or at least habitual, attrition, or provided (say on recovering the use of reason) he elicits an act of attrition so that the sacrament may take effect by way of reviviscence (see below, X). By habitual attrition in this connexion is meant an act of sorrow or detes- tation for sins committed, elicited since their commis- sion and not retracted in the interval before the sacra- ment is received. The ordinary example occurs when the act of attrition has been ehcited before the sick person lapses into unconsciousness or loses the use of reason. That such attrition is necessarj', follows from the teaching of Trent (Sess. XIV, cap. i, De Poenit.) regarding the absolute and universal necessity of re- pentance for the remission, even in baptism, of per- sonal mortal sins. Schell has maintained (Kathol. Dogmatik, III, pp. 629 sq.) that such attrition is not required for the validity of extreme unction, but that the general purpose and intention, which a Christian sinner may retain even when he is sinning, of after- wards formally repenting and dying in the friendship of God, is sufficient; but this view seems irreconcilable with the teaching of Trent, and has the whole weight of theological tradition against it.
Extreme unction likewise remits venial sins pro- vided the subject has at least habitual attrition for them; and, following the analogy of penance, which with attrition remits mortal sins, for the remission of which outside the sacrament perfect contrition would be required, th"ologians hold that with extreme unc- tion a less perfect attrition suffices for the remission of venial .sins than would suffice without the sacrament. But besides thus directly remitting venial sins, ex- treme unction also excites dispositions which procure their remission ex opere operanUs-
