Dear Father: The priest who married us has left the priesthood - Is our sacrament still valid?

YES! If you ask a certain generation of life-long Catholics, most should be able to tell you a quick definition of a sacrament. They would tell you something like, “a sacrament is a sacred sign, instituted by God, to give grace.” You might also hear someone say that a sacrament is “an outward sign of an inward reality.” Either way, we could say that the seven sacraments of the Church are the foundation of our faith. These sacraments are, of course: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony. Ordinarily, these sacraments are conferred by a priest. Two of them, baptism and matrimony, may be conferred by a deacon.

Some priests will tell you that there are times when conferring a sacrament is sometimes challenging because of his awareness of his own sinfulness. That’s why priests, deacons and all of us should uti-lize the Sacrament of Reconciliation often. Sometimes we forget that the priest himself is a sinful man, unworthy of his calling. And yet, God calls him to this extraordinary state of life. That’s nothing new. If you want to find priests who are sinful peo-ple, look to the Apostles.

But what if a priest, who conferred a sacra-ment on us, is in the state of mortal sin? Or what if he leaves the priesthood?

Am I still baptized? Am I still married? The answer is most certainly yes! The weaknesses and sinfulness of the priest has no effect on the sacraments he celebrates. Remember, in every sacrament, it is Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, who is at work. In God’s divine plan, he acts through his priests. But regardless of the sinfulness of the priest, once a sacrament is conferred, the grace that comes from it cannot be removed, because it comes from God. St. Augustine (354-430) addressed the issue when he wrote, “... those whom Judas baptized, Christ baptized. So too, then, those whom a drunkard baptized, those whom a murderer baptized, those whom an adulterer baptized, if the baptism was of Christ, Christ baptized.”

And it was St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) who wrote in his famous Summa Theologica, “The sacrament is not wrought by the righ-teousness of either the celebrant or the recip-ient, but by the power of God.” Thank God this is true. Can you imagine what we would be saying if we claimed that it was the priest alone that confers the grace? That’s unthinkable!

We live in a very challenging time in so many ways. The ter-rible actions of some priests that have been revealed over the years forces us to ask these difficult questions. We must always remember that God’s grace is always greater than all of our weaknesses. And the grace of his sacraments will always be there for us.