A priest's authority comes from the people

I was recently asked where a priest gets his authority to celebrate, to wit: "If an ordained priest is drunk, brain-dead, using a prosthetic hand, sleepwalking, hypnotized, etc., is the sacrament still valid?"

The timing was perfect, because one of my priest friends showed me last week where the priest's authority comes from: from the people participating in the Mass. There's a line in the liturgy where the congregation says "May the Lord accept this sacrifice at your hands . . . " This is the people's prayer and their confirmation of the priest's authority to consecrate. The guy who told me was so into the people's responsibility that he said "If I were celebrating a Mass, and the people didn't say this, I wouldn't consecrate!" He was really excited about it. You never know whose day you might make with your liturgical rebellion!

I think it was Augustine who pioneered the idea that a sacrament transcends the one who performed it. In other words, if a priest who performed a marriage or confirmation was later revealed to be a bad guy, the sacrament would remain valid. I imagine this would cover most of the stipulations in the question, although you never know about the artificial hand, what with the cows some hierarchs have over people trying to use wheat-free wafers. (Can't say I agree with the perspective of this article, but it certainly ought to give you some idea.) One of the few tidbits my entire generation seems to have retained from religion class seems to have been that any Catholic can baptize "in an emergency:" such a baptism remains valid and doesn't have to be re-done when the crisis is over, but if it's not a crisis and a priest is there, step aside, Sister.

If the sacrament transcends the one who administers it, why aren't maverick Catholics running around holding Masses right and left? Truth be told, I know some who have done it for the value of the gesture as a witness against hierarchical control of the Sacraments. I have two problems with this. One, the Sacraments should not be politicized: doesn't matter if you're a bishop who doesn't like Democrats or a reformer who doesn't like the bishops. Two, the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, as the liturgy shows, are meant to be administered by someone who's been called to service by the community. I guess I could imagine a scenario in which a community might call someone non-ordained to officiate a Sacrament for them, but I deeply question whether women getting together to have a Mass, or married priests having Eucharist at the dinner table for their families, qualifies. If I now qualify that the people in these scenarios are well-intentioned, I'm going to have to be balanced and say the same for bishops who keep Communion from pro-choice Catholics. Perhaps erring on the side of having more share in Communion is the better mistake. The important similarity, though, is that people make such choices because they recognize the deep sanctity of the Eucharist and know that how we celebrate together, whether Kerry's shut out or Carrie's at the altar, reflects who we think we are as a people and who we think God is for us.