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Simulating Sacraments is not a talent

A word ought to be said about Your Excellency’s accusation that Bp. Thuc simulated a sacrament, i.e.,
pretended to confer a sacrament while withholding his intention, thus rendering the sacrament invalid.
This regards an incident on Holy Thursday, April 16, 1981, when Bp. Thuc concelebrated the New Mass
with the Most Rev. Gilles-Henri-Alexis Barthe, the Novus Ordo bishop of Frejus-Toulon, France. Your
Excellency writes:
According to Fr. Cekada, Archbishop Thuc excused himself for concelebrating the New
Mass by claiming, among other things, that he only pretended to say Mass; that is to say,
that he simulated saying Mass. Simulating a Sacrament “consists in performing the
sacramental action without the intention of conferring a Sacrament, although others think
a Sacrament is being administered” [quoting Jone, Moral Theology, p. 318]. To simulate
a Sacrament is to go through the motions while withholding one’s intention. Simulation
invalidates the Sacrament. It is also a mortal sin of sacrilege.306
Consulting Fr. Cekada’s essay to which Your Excellency makes reference here reveals that neither Fr.
Cekada, nor the source Fr. Cekada quotes, claims that Bp. Thuc said he withheld his intention. Instead,
the explanation given, which appears in your very own book, is as follows: “[Bp. Thuc] said it was
because on that day [Holy Thursday] he could not celebrate alone. . . It happens that it was a false
concelebration, because he said he didn’t receive communion. For, when a priest does not communicate,
there is not a Mass.”307
Thus, it turns out that the charge of simulating a sacrament goes back to the fact that Bp. Thuc claimed
that even though he “concelebrated” the New Mass that day, he did not receive “communion” at that
“Mass.” Whatever one may think of this “explanation,” there is absolutely nothing here allowing one to
claim that Bp. Thuc withheld his intention or otherwise simulated a sacrament. While a priest is
certainly under grave obligation to consume the Host and Chalice he himself has consecrated, it is
absolutely gratuitous and inexcusable to suggest that failure to do so means he simulated the
sacrament.308 Fr. Davis, so often quoted by Your Excellency, is quite clear on this: “None of these parts
[offertory, consecration, communion] may in any wise be omitted without grave sin, though the
omission of the Oblation [offertory] and the Communion would not affect the actual Sacrifice itself.”309
So, not only would a refusal to receive Holy Communion at one’s own Mass not be “simulating a
sacrament,” it would not even affect the Sacrifice itself, even though, of course, it would be entirely
impermissible.

Mario Derksen, Open Letter to Bishop Kelly - Appendix B Did Bp. Thuc Simulate a Sacrament?