Dear Father:

I appreciate the note, but in looking into it does not appear that the statement is wrong (a statement that I took from an article in This Rock Magazine.

The thought that the private intention cannot effect the validity because no one can know the priest's interior thoughts is precisely the question that St. Aquinas was refuting. Objection 2 (ST III Q64 A8)states:

Further, one man's intention cannot be known to another. Therefore if the minister's intention were required for the validity of a sacrament, he who approaches a sacrament could not know whether he has received the sacrament.

St. Aquinas refutes that proposition in his Reply to Objection 2 where he states:

Consequently, others with better reason hold that the minister of a sacrament acts in the person of the whole Church, whose minister he is; while in the words uttered by him, the intention of the Church is expressed; and that this suffices for the validity of the sacrament, except the contrary be expressed on the part either of the minister or of the recipient of the sacrament.

The article from which I borrowed the analogy of how a priest could intend to not confect the Eucharist was an article by James Akin in This Rock Magazine, entitled, Invalid Masses:

Thus for the Eucharist, but also for other sacraments, only the general intention to "do the thing that Christians do" is needed for validity: "Objectively considered, the intention of doing what the Church does suffices. The minister, therefore, does not need to intend what the Church intends, namely to produce the effects of the sacraments. . . . It suffices if he has the intention of performing the religious action as it is current among Christians" (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 344). This is also the interpretation of Aquinas (ST III:64:9-10).

In order for a minister to lack valid intention, while outwardly performing the rites of the Mass and the Eucharistic prayer, he virtually would have to say to himself, "What I am doing is not the Eucharist. I'm only play acting and fooling all of these people into thinking I'm performing a sacrament, when really I'm not." Needless to say, a priest is almost never going to have such an intention.

But, since you brought it up I wanted to check with other sources concerning the interpretation of St. Aquinas in this matter. It could always be possible that Mr. Atkin and myself are misinterpreting.

There are two more sources that bear mentioning. One is from Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university, who said:

According to the doctrine of Council of Trent, the sacramental intention must be to do as the Church does whenever it performs this rite. This means that the celebrant must at least intend to consecrate the bread and wine.

It does not mean that he intends to follow all Church norms in doing so. Provided that correct matter and form are united to the intention, the Church would normally recognize the validity of an abusive Eucharistic celebration where many norms were flouted.

This seems to agree with Atkin and myself. The priest must have the Intention to do as the Church does. He must "at least intend to consecrate the bread and wine." If this be the case, if the priest does not intend to consecrate the bread and wine, which is the rare contention proposed, then the Mass is invalid. All sort of other abuses do not matter, but the intention of the Priest does. Father McNamara seems to suggest that merely going through the motions and the words is does not in itself constitute intention.

And then another quote from Colin B. Donovan from the EWTN Q & A states:

The priest must intend to do what the Church does in offering bread and wine at Mass, transforming them separately into the Body and Blood of Christ, and thereby offering the sacrifice of Christ to the Father. In being ordained he accepts this duty, and therefore makes this intention, which will continue in him even if he should not explicitly form that intention when actually celebrating Mass. He has Christ's authority and power even if he is distracted or otherwise not explicitly forming an intention, just as we can walk and do many other kinds of things without having them in the front of our mind, simply because we have the power and habit of doing them. So, it is a very high hurdle to say that a priest doesn't intend to do what the Church intends. However, if a priest rejects the Church's intention then he positively wills to NOT do what the Church intends. I know of a case where a priest said "I don't do that hocus pocus," referring snidely to the Latin form of the Consecration ("Hoc est enim corpus meum"). In doing so he warned, at least the more knowledgeable of his listeners, that he did not offer the Mass and his "communions" were a nice picnic. Flee O faithful ones! And tell the bishop! Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence, the standard of invalidity being very high, as I noted.

Mr. Donovan also seems to agree with the interpretation that has been posited here. He even gives an example of a priest who deliberately did not intend to do that the church does.

Lack of faith of the priest, sinfulness of the priest, liturgical abuses, lack of attention to the intention of the Sacrament, all do not invalidate the Sacrament. But, in the extremely rare instances where a priest purposely, consciously and deliberately does not intend to confect the Eucharist and intends to render it nothing but ordinary bread and wine, then Intention is lacking and the Mass is not valid.

Now, this is a very rare thing, but theoretically it is possible according to St. Aquinas -- a "contrary" intention can invalidate the Mass, at least as I read him and apparently as the men I quoted read him.

Thus, I am not sure where this is wrong.

Perhaps the problem here is one of interpretation of St. Aquinas; the Saint can be hard to interpret sometimes. Can you provide some sources that interpret St. Aquinas the way that you do? I'd be interested if you can. Although this is such a rare possibility as to be almost non-existent, it is still important to know the boundaries of the possibilities.

Thanks.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary