La question pourrait paraître absurde car Réginald a sans doute raison de nous assurer que la formule invalide du Compendium n'est pas en effet en usage.

Mais il peut y avoir d'autres motifs de doute.

Car concrètement il y a eu le cas au Canada d'une paroisse où tous les baptêmes étaient invalides pendant une longue période pour la simple raison que le prêtre versait l'eau tout en faisant réciter la formule par une différente personne ! Ils en sont arrivés à 300 baptêmes parfaitement invalides ! Et quand, grâce à une grandmère de "victime" on a fini par vertir les évêques...ceux-ci ont corrigé l'abus tout en affirmant qu'il n'était pas nécessaire de réitérer les baptêmes car "il y a validité" par suite du principe "Ecclesia supplet".

"Ecclesia supplet" - vous vous rendez compte ? Et ces évêques canadiens ne sont même pas de la FSSPX !

Et si un jour un ou deux de ces non-baptisés voudraient se faire ordonner ? Ou sacrer évêque ? Mais ne vous inquiétez pas. Ecclesia supplet. Ecclesia supplebit.

Voici toute l'histoire de l'aventure pour les forts en anglais :


Baptisms botched on 300 kids

By God, a rite should be done right.
That apparently was the thinking of a Pointe Calumet woman who complained in 1996 that her grandchild was given a botched baptism, a claim that led Catholic Church investigators to determine that about 300 children hadn't received the holy sacrament.
Instead of having one designated person sprinkle the child with holy water while proclaiming "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," a priest handled the water while a lay person, properly designated to do baptisms, recited the sacred line, according to a Presse Canadienne report.
"It should be done by one (properly designated) person at the same time ... in one movement," Gaetan Baillargeon, director of the church's national office of liturgy, said yesterday.
Baillargeon said "this sort of thing doesn't happen often," but he could recall one other flurry of technically flawed baptisms in a Quebec parish in recent years. The genesis of this problem is the desire of clerics and parishioners to include more people in the sacrament, he said.
"People want a less formal ritual, as do many priests also. Difficulties arise when you touch essential elements recognized by the church in the recognition of a sacrament," he said.
The bishop of St. Jérôme, whose flock includes Pointe Calumet, tried to notify the parents of the 300 children but almost seven years after the error came to light, about 100 families have yet to be informed.
Yesterday, the Pointe Calumet church was taking the names and phone numbers of people concerned their children hadn't been properly baptized, saying contact would be made next week. Reporters were referred to the St. Jérôme diocese office.
The current bishop and the bishop serving the area in the mid-1990s did not return phone calls yesterday.
Though baptism is among the most sacred rites of the Catholic Church, considered so vital that parents fearing for the life - and immortal soul - of their newborn may perform the rite in emergency situations, the 100 improperly baptized Pointe Calumet children need not fear limbo.
Contained within canon law is an elastic Latin term that covers such holy messes, said Msgr. Peter Schonenbach, general secretary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"There is such a thing in canon law as ecclesia supplet, which means 'the church supplies.' If an error is made like that in good faith, the validity is there," Schonenbach said. The children need not be rebaptized but could be if their parents wanted it done.
All involved in the Pointe Calumet baptisms apparently "were acting in good faith so there shouldn't be any problem of conscience," he said.
Baillargeon agreed. "The parents presented their children for baptism with proper intentions and everyone was of good faith in the matter," he said.
presse canadienne contributed to this report
lmoore@thegazette.southam.ca
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