Anointing Someone Just Baptized?
I noticed in reading the Rite of Initiation of a Person in Danger of Death that Baptism is conferred followed immediately by Confirmation followed immediately by Viaticum. My first thought was that Anointing of the Sick would be unnecessary because of the lack of sin and temporal punishment due to sin as well as the fact that Anointing is the completion of the Christian life of penance. I was also mindful, however, of the effect of Anointing in strengthening against temptation.
However, in the context of a discussion on whether only a person with actual sins is capax to receive the sacrament of Anointing, Felix Cappello says (Tractatus Canonico-Moralis de Sacramentis, Vol III, editio altera, 1941, No. 222):
2. Ex communi certaque sententia, si quis in fine vitae gravi morbo correptus baptizetur, potest et debet ei sacramentum hoc ministrari, etiamsi nullius peccati conscientiam post baptismum habeat. Quod confirmatum est responso S. Congreg. de Prop. Fide diei 26 sept. 1821, quo declaratum fuit, ungendum esse paganum adultum graviter decumbentem immediate post baptismum (cfr. Collect. I, n. 768).
My translation:
2. From the common and certain opinion, if someone in the throes of grave illness at the end of life were baptized, this sacrament can and should be administered to him, even if he has consciousness of no sin after baptism. This was confirmed by the response of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith on 26 Sept., 1821, by which it was declared, that a pagan adult lying gravely ill should be anointed immediately after baptism (cf. Collect. I, n. 768).
So, what should be the current practice? Should Anointing be administered to someone just baptized who is in danger of death? Should it be conferred before Viaticum?
