Revisiting the Anointing of the Sick: Some Problems Today

Revisiting the Anointing of the Sick: Some Problems Today | Father Mark A. Pilon, STL, STD | Homiletic & Pastoral Review

The Church needs to clarify the administration of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick for a number of reasons.

In 1974, when I was a deacon in Texas, a priest from Fort Worth came to Holy Trinity Seminary in Dallas to speak to the deacon class about ministry to the sick and dying. I remember only one thing he told us that day, because it indicated to me that the administration of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick was in some quarters going amuck. This was only a few years after Pope Paul VI’s promulgation of the apostolic constitution revising the Pastoral Care of the Sick and how this sacrament was to be administered. Because we had read this document prior to this talk, it struck me as quite an abuse when the priest stated that he had established the practice of administering this sacrament to all who reached the age of fifty-five.

At first I thought it was a joke, but it turned out that he was quite serious. When someone asked him how this practice was justified by the norms of the Holy See, he simply shrugged it off and told us that the theology of the sacrament had evolved, and was no longer restricted to any particular degree of sickness. Additionally, he said that he thought fifty-five was the proper time for its administration due to “old age.”

“But why fifty-five?” I asked. He simply replied that because a lot of people retire by that age, administration of the sacrament is appropriate. I guessed that if the speaker could propose this bit of illogic, and gross misreading of the norms, at this fairly conservative seminary, abuses of the sacrament were likely much broader in the rest of the country. Over the years, my suspicion has proven to be an unfortunate fact.

While I personally have not encountered this particular abuse again, I have witnessed a number of other quite common practices that are also difficult to square with the norms in Pope Paul VI’s Sacram Unctionem Infirmorum (On the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick) and the subsequent Ordo regarding Pastoral Care of the Sick (PCS).

Continue reading on www.HPRweb.com.

Comments

[Kanakaberaka]

I remember back in parochial school in the 1960's, the nuns would urge us to get a priest to administer Extreme Unction whenever a family member was gravely ill. Too many Catholics put off this sacrament untill it was too late in those days. Is it really so bad that Catholic Priests these days annoint the sick too soon?

[LJ]

Informative article. I was not aware of the kinds and extent of the abuse of the sacrament, but then I have been somewhat fuzzy myself on the nature of the sacrament.

Personal experience. Several years ago I had a kidney removed because of a tumor. Complications after the same operation had killed my father a few years before and it was fresh in my memory although I was a younger man and in overall good health. Even the anaesthesiologist noticed my fear in our pre-op meeting.

Being somewhat new to the Catholic faith at that time I quite frankly did not even think of the sacrament of anointing. My concern was only to go to confession and clear my conscience. I can remember lying on the table as they were putting the needles in my arm and saying to Jesus, I trust in you, and I may just see you on the other side of this.

Later I was speaking to a priest, after my recovery, and he said I should have asked for the sacrament of anointing. I filed that for later reference without questioning it.

So it seems now, after reading this article, I did the right thing, quite without knowing it.