The sign of the Sacrament of Confirmation has not, historically, been defined as precisely as that of Baptism. Consequently, theological manuals spoke with less agreement and, overall, less certainty concerning this second sacrament of initiation. Moreover, some points on which past authors strongly concurred have been overturned by modern teaching and praxis.

Blame for this difficulty falls on the considerable diversity of rites of Confirmation through the centuries. As Pope Paul VI noted in promulgating the revised Order of Confirmation, “From ancient times the conferring of the gift of the Holy Spirit has been carried out in the Church through various rites. These rites have undergone many changes in the East and the West…. Consequently, in the course of the centuries, questions and doubts arose as to what belonged with certainty to the essence of the Rite of Confirmation.”¹ While certain doubts remain, we can describe this matter and form more confidently today than in the past.

Confirmed Matter

Because “the Sacrament of Confirmation is conferred through the anointing with Chrism,”² we cannot determine the remote matter of the sacrament without investigating more closely the characteristics of that particular oil. In defining the matter of this sacrament, the Council of Florence (1439) decreed that chrism is “made from oil and balsam, and blessed by a bishop.”³ While that would seem straightforward enough, we must clarify what counts as oil and balsam, and how important the episcopal blessing is for the validity of the sacrament.

First, as to the oil, it was commonly believed that “Olive oil is required for validity, because it alone is properly oil,”⁴ since only oil pressed from olives “is properly the oil through which the grace of the Holy Spirit is signified.”⁵ We must nonetheless reject this erstwhile consensus in light of the current rite for consecrating chrism, which makes more expansive provision: “The suitable matter for a Sacrament is olive oil or, if appropriate, another oil extracted from plants.”⁶

Second, the balsam mentioned in the decree of Florence is not an exact requirement. In fact, no mention of balsam in chrism is found before the sixth century,⁷ and 16th-century popes conceded for mission territory “the privilege of using for balsam a liquid that is called by them—but is not—balsam.”⁸ Consequently, rather than specifically requiring balsam, modern discipline demands only “fragrances or other aromatic material.”⁹ There is no minimum proportion of aromatic substance to oil, and the fragrance need not be meticulously mixed through every part of the oil, provided that it is present in sufficient quantity to send forth its aroma.¹⁰

Third, consecration by a bishop is required for liceity,¹¹ yet no specific form of blessing is required¹² and, against the most common opinion that presbyters were incapable of performing this consecration,¹³ the popes have, in fact, sometimes delegated non-bishop ordinaries to confect chrism.¹⁴

We can, accordingly, loosen the seeming constraint of older definitions and say that chrism is a plant-based oil infused with some fragrance and specially consecrated for its purpose by a bishop or, theoretically, a presbyter delegated by the Apostolic See.¹⁵ Further, while the Magisterium has never positively affirmed the possibility of conferring Confirmation without specially blessed chrism, it has also not foreclosed this possibility. Therefore, in danger of death, conditional Confirmation with another oil might be attempted on the chance that someone could receive the great grace of the sacrament.¹⁶

Hands-on Approach

For proximate matter we return to the ritual prescription that Confirmation “is conferred through the anointing with Chrism on the forehead, which is done by the laying on of the hand.”¹⁷ Note two simultaneous components: laying on of the hand and anointing with chrism. Hand laying is the matter explicit in the conferral of the Holy Spirit in Acts 8. We do not know when anointing with chrism was conjoined to imposition of the hand as the sacramental sign. This may have been the primitive institution, but Our Lord may also have granted the Church authority to add an element to his original sign.¹⁸

Either way, anointing has obtained primary signification, with oil symbolizing the grace of the Holy Spirit¹⁹ and anointing, in particular, imprinting what it signifies, “a spiritual seal.”²⁰ Although Paul VI included anointing on the forehead in his description of the sacramental sign, and rubrics past and present specify anointing in the form of a cross,²¹ neither detail is certainly essential. Alongside a majority asserting the probability or certainty of their necessity,²² “some doubt or deny that either the forehead or form of a cross are required for validity.”²³ All doubt will, of course, be precluded by faithfully performing the rite as prescribed.

Much firmer consensus held that anointing must be “by the hand of the minister, not by any mediating instrument; otherwise, a proper imposition of the hand would be lacking.”²⁴ This point leads us to the second element of the proximate matter and a disruption of previous consensus. Laying on of a hand or hands notionally occurs twice in the course of the rite of Confirmation. The first “imposition” is accomplished with hands outstretched over the group of candidates while beseeching the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; while ritually significant, it certainly does not impact validity. The second “imposition” was long understood as resting the four fingers of the right hand on top of the candidate’s head while the right thumb was tracing the cross with oil on the forehead.

Yet as an authentic interpretation of the new Order of Confirmation explained,²⁵ no rubric required such placement of the fingers prior to the early 1700s. Instead, as long ago as Innocent III (1198-1216), it had been taught, “The anointing of the forehead with Chrism signifies the laying on of the hand.”²⁶ Thus, for the essential laying on of hands, “the chrismation made with the thumb suffices,”²⁷ as this “contact with the anointing thumb”²⁸ provides all necessary imposition. In fact, the laying on of the hand “is really identical with the anointing.”²⁹

In response to questions prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Roman authorities reiterated the 1972 authentic interpretation just described. Nonetheless, despite that interpretation’s assertion that no further imposition is necessary beyond the anointing thumb’s contact, the most recent responsum zeroed in on the concept that “anointing sufficiently manifests the imposition of the hand” to assert that “The use by the minister of an instrument (gloves, cotton swab…), does not affect the validity of the Sacrament.”³⁰ As hand laying in ordination was historically performed through gloves, we can harmonize the 2020 responsum with previous insistence on contact by understanding that some layer between the hand and forehead does not disrupt the sign value. However, one presumes not every instrument equally, and thus sufficiently, manifests hand laying.

Conformation

Having treated Confirmation’s matter at length we may now briefly discuss its form. In promulgating the new rite, Paul VI displaced the medieval Roman formula “Signo te signo crucis, et confirmo te chrismate salutis. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti” (I sign you with the Sign of the Cross and confirm you with the Chrism of salvation. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) in favor of a slight expansion on the Byzantine form. Adding an explicit “receive” where the East only implies a verb, the Roman form is now “Accipe signaculum Doni Spiritus Sancti” (Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit).³¹ Comparison of the two formulae reveals almost no verbal overlap. Thus, while we might theorize that some mention of “sealing” links the variant forms, in analyzing any (hopefully accidental) departure from either prescribed text, it would seem sufficient to determine whether “the effect of the giving of the Holy Spirit is clearly signified”³² to a reasonable observer despite the modification.

_{^{Image Source: AB/Wikimedia Commons. Pietro Longhi, Confirmationis Sacramentum}}

1. Divinae consortium naturae.
2. Order of Confirmation [OC] 9.
3. Decree for the Armenians.
4. Eduardo F. Regatillo, SJ. Ius Sacramentarium, vol. 1 (Santander: Sal Terrae, 1945), 50.
5. Felix M. Capello, SJ. Tractatus Canonico-Moralis de Sacramentis, 5th ed., vol. 1 (Rome: Marietti, 1947), 167. Nicholas Halligan, OP. The Administration of the Sacraments (Staten Island: Alba House, 1963), 84, also requires “pure olive oil.”
6. Order of Blessing the Oil of Catechumens and of the Sick and of Consecrating the Chrism 3.
7. Capello, 167.
8. Regatillo, 50.
9. Order of Blessing the Oil 4.
10. Capello, 168.
11. Order of Blessing the Oil 6: “The Consecration of the Chrism belongs exclusively to a Bishop.”
12. The blessing must be “special” insofar as it distinguishes the resulting chrism from other oils blessed for different purposes, but no precise phrasing is required to accomplish this.
13. Some continue to hold that chrism’s consecration by a bishop is absolutely necessary to have valid matter for Confirmation. See John Huels, Liturgy and Law: Liturgical Law in the System of Roman Catholic Canon Law (2006), 196.
14. Capello, 168; August Lehmkuhl, SJ. Theologia Moralis, 10th ed., vol. 2 (Freiburg i.B.: Herder, 1902), 69.
15. Current law makes no provision for this delegation and the last pope to grant such permission was Benedict XV.
16. Regatillo, 51; Capello, 167; Lehmkuhl, 69; Alphonsus Liguori, CSSR. Theologia moralis, rev. ed., vol. 2 (Turin: Marietti, 1891), n. 162. The implicit condition would be “if this is valid matter.”
17. OC 9; this description is taken from Divinae consortium naturae and is employed in both Can. 880 §1 and CCC 1300.
18. Capello, 172-173, rehearses competing theories and declares most probable this empowerment of the Church to add to the essential matter.
19. F.M. Capello, 167.
20. CCC 1293.
21. OC 27.
22. E.g., Halligan, 84.
23. Capello, 170.
24. Regatillo, 51. Cf. Capello, 170.
25. Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of the Decrees of Vatican Council II, cf. Notitiae 7 (1972), 281-285.
26. As quoted in Divinae consortium naturae.
27. PCILT, Notitiae 7 (1972), 281.
28. PCILT, Notitiae 7 (1972), 283.
29. PCILT, Notitiae 7, 283.
30. Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Notitiae nova 5 (2020), 88.
31. Order of Confirmation, 9.
32. OC 9.