[Question:]{.underline} Is the administration of Extreme Unction valid if the priest does not anoint the hands and feet?
[Answer:]{.underline} The proximate matter of the sacraments consists in the application of the remote matter to the person receiving the sacrament. For Extreme Unction the remote matter is the Oil of the Sick. The proximate matter is the action of anointing with the holy oils. In the different rites of the Church and even in the history of the Roman rite there have been different anointings, indicating the purification of the sins committed with each of the senses. The traditional Roman ritual contains the anointing and order fixed by the tradition of the Roman Church, namely the anointing of the two organs, right first followed by the left, in the order: eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, hands and feet. The anointing of the loins is no longer practiced, as it once was, and both the ritual and the traditional Canon Law ask that it be omitted.
It is quite clear from this variation in the history and rites of the Church that Christ did not institute the remote matter in a determined way, but rather in a general way, as an external anointing of the body, symbolizing and producing the interior anointing of the soul by the grace of the sacrament. Thus it is that the Code of Canon Law states that any one anointing on any one sense, or in any one part of the body, suffices for the validity of the sacrament (Canon 947 in the 1917 Code and Canon 1000 in the 1983 Code). Consequently there can be no doubt that the omission of the anointings on the hands and the feet does not invalidate the administration of the sacrament.
The question of the lawful administration of the sacrament is quite different. A distinction has to be made between the case of necessity, or the urgent case, in which there is only time for one anointing, as the person is at the immediate moment of death. In such a situation, the anointing, according to the traditional rite, must be done on the forehead, as containing all the other senses. However, if time remains afterwards, the priest is to go back and then perform all the other anointings that were omitted, for the sake of integrity.
Outside the case of necessity, a further distinction must be made. The anointing of the feet, can be omitted for any reasonable cause at all (Canon 947, 3), such as the simple question of modesty or inconvenience. Consequently, a person ought not to ber surprised or concerned if the priest omits the anointing of the feet. This is not the case, however, with the hands, which must always be anointed, with the correct formula, for the sacrament to be lawfully administered. There can, nevertheless, be an exception even here. It happens from time to time that a person is lacking the organ that is to be anointed, such as an ear, or a hand or a foot. In such a case, the anointing is to be done on the adjoining part of the body, if it is possible. If this is not possible, because there is no adjoining part of the body, then the anointing is to be omitted. For example there is to be no anointing of the hands and feet in the extraordinary case of a person who lacks both arms and legs. Outside of these special cases, a priest who would carelessly or deliberately omit the anointing of the hands would be culpable of a fault, but the sacrament would still be both valid and fruitful for the person who received it.
It is very unfortunate that the new rite for the “anointing of the sick” does not impose the traditional order of anointing, with its profound symbolism of the purification from the effects of all the sins committed with the various senses, and that as a consequence some might not appreciate the true value of the traditional order of anointing.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.