EffectsThe 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. 595). 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 [reliquias] of sin, and alleviates and strengthens the soul of the sick person, by exciting in him a great confidence in the Divine mercy, sustained by which [confidence] he bears more lightly the troubles and sufferings of disease, and more easily resists the temptations of the demon lying in wait for his heel, and sometimes, when it is expedient for his 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.
(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 this 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 imposed by Divine law of confessing all mortal sins committed 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 Penance 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 perfect 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 sacrament of the living, 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.
Extreme unction likewise remits venial sins provided 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, theologians hold that with extreme unction a less perfect attrition suffices for the remission of venial sins than would suffice without the sacrament. But besides thus directly remitting venial sins, extreme unction also excites dispositions which procure their remission ex opere operantis.
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Topic: What is Extreme Unction? (Read 755 times)