48. Furthermore, since it is forbidden to administer the sacrament of extreme unction except in a case of serious illness, a penitent may no means be obliged to receive anointing with oil of extreme unction as penance or satisfaction for his sins. As Pope Eugene IV established in his Decretum pro Instructione Armenorum, satisfaction for sins or penance imposed by confessors on their penitents should consist chiefly in prayers, fasting, and almsgiving. In times past such anointing was introduced among eastern Christians. That it was purely ceremonial may be gathered from canon 74 or the Council of Nicaea (from the Arabic translation, Harduin, Collect. vol. 1, p. 492). There it is decreed that if one of the faithful shall live impurely with an unbeliever, he may be reconciled to the Church after extended penance "through holy water and the oil of the sick." This was the source of a further abuse. According to Joannes Nathanael, de Moribus Graecorum, and Francois Richard, de Expeditione Sacra, rich penitents were often obliged to receive this anointing as penance for their sins; thus this practice was quite profitable for the clergy.

Pope Innocent IV opposed this serious error in his letter to the Bishop of Tusculum: "Confessors may not impose on anyone any mere anointing in satisfaction for their sins" (sect. 6). The synod of Nicosia passed a similar decree (Harduin, Collect. vol. 7, p. 1114) and We renewed this precept in Our constitution, Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 5 (Bullarium, vol. 1, no. 57). Thiers, de Superstit., bk. 8, chap. 6, should also be consulted. Arcudius, moreover, refers to Greek priests who impose this on their penitents; he states that they usually employ the sacramental words in performing the anointing. He criticizes them severely for this (de Concordia, bk. 5, chap. 4, sect. Ego praesentem). However, Goarius asserts that the Greeks did not intend to confer the sacrament in performing this anointing: "They do not consider that the infirmities of the soul are removed automatically by the anointing and prayers, but only that the devotion of the penitent or the prayerful charity of the minister, that is, the intention of the agent, may possibly have this effect" (in notis ad Euchologium, p. 350). Still, even he criticizes this custom since, as he says, the Greeks should be careful to act in this affair in accordance with the teaching of the holy Roman Church. Many serious errors stem from this practice of anointing: either the sacrament of extreme unction is conferred on one in good health and so incapable of receiving this sacrament, or the matter and form of the sacrament is used without the intention of conferring the sacrament itself.