From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
I’m going to entirely recast this question in my own words because I need to address the answer to priests, rather than to the laymen who sent the original query.
It seems that a priest recently baptized using Latin for the form.
Nothing wrong with that! As a matter of fact, I often recommend the use of Latin so that people don’t have to wonder about the validity of translations, etc.
HOWEVER… FATHERS… If you are going to use Latin, GET IT RIGHT.
Fathers, you may have noticed that in Latin, the endings of words change, depending on their function in the sentence. If you change those endings you change the meaning into a) something else that can be understood, b) something wrong but whose meaning we can guess at fairly confidently c) something incoherent which makes you look dumb as we stare at you without comprehension about what you were trying to say.
In the case brought to me, a priest goofed up on the endings of a couple of the names of the Trinity in form of baptism.
Serious? YOU BET!
Did that invalidate the baptism? Probably not, at least in this case.
Being an Unreconstructed Ossified Manualist I checked the manual by Prümmer about invalid forms (Tract II, Art II “De forma baptismi“). I found something that put me at ease about the case presented to me.
According to Prümmer what is essential in the form is that there must be expressed the act of baptizing made by the minister (taken care of with the word(s) “(ego) … baptizo“), the subject of the baptism whom he intends to baptize (“you… te“), the unity of the divine nature (expressed in the phrase “in the name… in nomine“), and the distinction of the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity (“(of the) Father (and of the) Son (and of the) Holy Spirit… Patris (et) Filii (et) Spiritus Sancti).
If over in the Diocese of Black Duck at the SSPX Chapel St. Joseph Terror of Demons, Fr. Rocco Firm were perhaps to be momentarily distracted by, say, an aardvark running across the floor during the pronunciation of the baptismal form, prompting Father in his astonishment at the aardvarkial epiphany to say, “in nomine Patris et [ENTER AARDVARK] FiliO et Spiritus SanctOOO!” [EXIT AARDVARK] instead of “Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti”, nevertheless the form of baptism would be VALID. He would have expressed his intent to baptize the person present in the name of the TRIUNE God.*
Fathers… make a review of the forms of the sacraments you administer, in whatever languages you may need to use. REVIEW. MEMORIZE and REVIEW.
GET IT RIGHT. There’s NO EXCUSE.
*It is likely that Fr. Firm would, ad cautelam, repeat the form prefaced by “Si non es baptizatus (-a), ego te baptizo…” etc. Of the things that could warrant such a repetition, I imagine an aardvark would be at the top of the list.
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