Please refer to the Sacramental Preparation section if you are desiring to prepare to receive a specific sacrament.

The sacramental principle is another characteristic tenet of Roman Catholicism. The sacramental system worked out especially in the Middle Ages by the schoolmen and subsequently at the Council of Trent envisaged sacraments primarily as causes of grace that could be received independent of the merit of the recipient. Recent Catholic sacramental theology emphasizes their function as signs of faith. Sacraments are said to cause grace insofar as they are intelligible signs of it, and that the fruitfulness, as distinct from the validity, of the sacrament is dependent on the faith and devotion of the recipient. Sacramental rites are now administered in the vernacular, rather than in Latin, to increase the intelligibility of the signs.

Conservative Catholicism connected sacramental theology to Christology, stressing Christ's institution of the sacraments and the power of the sacraments to infuse the grace of Christ, earned on Calvary, to the recipient. The newer emphasis connects the sacraments to ecclesiology. We do not encounter Christ directly, but in the church, which is his body. The church mediates the presence and action of Christ.
The number of sacraments was finally fixed at seven during the medieval period (at the councils of Lyons 1274, Florence 1439, and Trent 1547). In addition Roman Catholicism has innumerable sacramentals, e.g., baptismal water, holy oil, blessed ashes, candles, palms, crucifixes, and statues. Sacramentals are said to cause grace not ex opere operanto like the sacraments, but ex opere operantis, through the faith and devotion of those using them.

Three of the sacraments, baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, are concerned with Christian initiation

The sacrament is understood to remit original sin and all personal sin of which the recipient sincerely repents. All must be baptized or they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. But not all baptism is sacramental baptism by water. There is also "baptism of blood," which is received by dying for Christ (e.g., the "holy innocents," Matt. 2:16 - 18), and "baptism of desire," which is received by those who, implicitly or explicitly, desire baptism but are prevented from receiving it sacramentally. "Even those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ and his church may be counted as anonymous Christians if their striving to lead a good life is in fact a response to his grace, which is given in sufficient measure to all."

A theology of confirmation was not developed until the Middle Ages. Confirmation was said to be the gift of the Spirit for strengthening (ad robur) while baptismal grace is for forgiveness (ad remissionem). This distinction has no basis in the Scriptures or the fathers, but has been retained to the present following ratification by the Council of Trent. Today, however, the rite is sometimes administered at the same time as baptism and by the priest, not the bishop, to emphasize that both are really aspects of the one sacrament of initiation.

Distinctively Catholic doctrines on the Eucharist include the sacrificial nature of the Mass and transubstantiation. Both were defined at Trent and neither was modified at Vatican II. The unbloody sacrifice of the Mass is identified with the bloody sacrifice of the cross, in that both are offered for the sins of the living and the dead. Hence Christ is the same victim and priest in the Eucharist as he was on the cross. Transubstantiation, the belief that the substance of bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ, was first spoken of at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). The Eucharist is also known as Holy Communion.

Two sacraments, reconcilation and anointing the sick, are concerned with healing

By the Middle Ages the sacrament of reonciliation had four components which were confirmed by the Council of Trent: satisfaction (the doing of an act of penance), confession, contrition, and absolution by a priest. All grave sins had to be confessed to a priest who acted as judge. Since Vatican II the role of the priest in penance is understood as healer, and the purpose of the sacrament is reconciliation with the church rather than the restoration of friendship with God. Through contrition the sinner's union with God is restored, but he is still required to seek forgiveness in the sacrament of penance because his sin compromises the mission of the church to be a holy people.

During the Middle Ages the rite of anointing the sick was reserved increasingly for the dying, hence the description of Peter Lombard: extreme unctio (last anointing). Vatican II relabeled the sacrament "anointing of the sick," stating explicitly that it "is not a sacrament reserved for those who are at the point of death." The last sacrament is now known as viaticum, received during Mass if possible. Earlier, this was called Extreme Unction.

There are two sacraments of vocation and commitment: marriage and orders

The sacramentality of marriage was affirmed by the councils of Florence and Trent. Marriage is understood to be indissoluble, although dispensations, chiefly in the form of annulment (a declaration that a valid marriage never existed), are permitted. The grounds of nullity so carefully delimited in the 1918 Code of Canon Law have now been broadened to embrace many deficiencies of character.

Vatican II recognized that all the baptized participate in some way in the priesthood of Christ, but confirmed Catholic tradition on the clerical hierarchy by decreeing that there is a distinction between the priesthood conferred by baptism and that conferred by ordination.
The ordained priesthood has three orders: bishops, priests, and deacons. The first and third are offices of the NT church. The office of priest emerged when it was no longer practical to continue recognizing the Jewish priesthood (owing to the destruction of the temple and the great influx of Gentiles into the church) and with the development of a sacrificial understanding of the Lord's Supper.