ASK FATHER: During Covid, the Bishop anointed my niece by means of a Q-tip. Valid?

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

During Covid, the Bishop annointed my neice by means of a Q-tip. Valid?

Yes. The Congregation for Divine Worship in a response to the USCCB saying that it is valid. HERE

“The use by the minister of an instrument (gloves, cotton swab…), does not affect the validity of the Sacrament.”

This contradicts previous teaching about the use of an instrument for confirmation. However, I think we have to go with it.

That said, from the time of the Council of Trent, use of an instrument was forbidden.

In the traditional form, the bishop laid his hand on the head of the confirmand and then anointed the forehead with Chrism using the thumb of his right hand.  In an emergency, another finger could be used, but an instrument could not.

Paul VI lifted the obligatory laying on of the hand saying that the touching with the thumb in anointing accomplished that gesture as well.

Manuals reflected this.

Sabetti-Barrett’s 1919 edition of Compendium Theologiae Moralis,  says (in Latin):

669.  Query. – Question 2.  How is the [Confirmation] anointing to be done?

Response. It must be done with the right thumb of the Bishop in the manner of a cross on the forehead of the one confirmed.  However, the anointing would be valid if it were done by a different digit of the Bishop, and even if it were a digit of the left hand, because it would be an imposition of the bishop’s hand.  But a Bishop would sin, were he to do that without necessity, because he would be departing from the universal praxis of the Church; albeit it does not seem that an inversion of the aforementioned ceremony would reach the level of grave guilt. – Cf. S. Alphons. n. 165

Question 3.  Whether anointing can be done validly by means of an instrument?

Response. NEGATIVE., and the reason is, that the immediate imposition of the hand of the Minister would be lacking, which is absolutely required from what has been said.  On this in the new Code (1917):
§2. Anointing is not to be done with any instrument, but it is imposed properly by the hand of the minister on the head of the confirmand.

Prümmer in the 1953 Manuale Theologiae Moralis says:

156. 3. The anointing must be done with the thumb of the right hand, and not with a stylus or another instrument, as has already been said.  If, however, the bishop has a bad thumb, he can licitly anoint with the thumb of his left hand or with another digit.

We grant that THE CHURCH gets to determine how the sacraments are to be administered.

So, an instrument such as a Q-tip can be used. The same applies to anointing of the sick whereby even a nitrile glove can be used.