"Perhaps I should modify it," said the young priest airily. "Perhaps I should have rather said that modern theologians and right reason are dead against such an opinion."
"Quote one modern theologian that is opposed to the common and universal teaching of theologians on the matter!"
"Well, Ballerini, for example, and the Salmanticenses—"
"Psha! Ballerini. Ballerini is to upset everything, I suppose?"
"Ballerini has the Missal and common sense on his side."
"The Missal?"
"Yes. Read this—or shall I read it?
"'Quidquid horum deficit, scilicet materia debita, forma cum intentione, et ordo sacerdotalis, non conficitur Sacramentum; et his existentibus, quibuscunque aliis deficientibus, veritas adest Sacramenti.'"
"Quite so. The whole point turns on the words cum intentione. The Church forbids, under pain of mortal sin, to consecrate outside the corporal; consequently, the priest cannot be presumed to have the intention of committing a grave just at the moment of consecration; and, therefore, he cannot be supposed to have the intention of consecrating."
"Pardon me, if I say, sir," replied the young priest, "that that is the weakest and most fallacious argument I ever heard advanced. That reasoning supposes the totally inadmissible principle that there never is a valid consecration when, inadvertently, the priest forgets some Rubric that is binding under pain of mortal sin. If, for example, the priest used fermented bread, if the corporal weren't blessed, in which case the chalice and paten would be outside the corporal, as well as the ciborium; if the chalice itself weren't consecrated, there would be no sacrifice and no consecration. Besides, if you once commence interpreting intention in this manner, you should hold that if the ciborium were covered on the corporal, there would be no consecration—"