Question:
Answer:
Whether in war or not, if a priest is doubtful that a person is dead, he can confer the sacrament of anointing conditionally. The Church teaches that at the moment of death the soul leaves the body (Catechism 1022). What we don’t know is exactly when that occurs.
Because of this, if a priest is attending someone who is presumed dead, he will often look for physical signs that death has occurred and the soul has left the body. One such sign is rigor mortis (stiffening of the body muscles). When that sets in, the person is considered dead, and the priest is not to administer the sacrament. But, if the body is still warm with no evidence of rigor mortis (or the odor of decay), and the priest has reasonable doubt that the person is dead, he can administer a conditional anointing with the words “If you are still alive, we pray through this holy anointing,” etc. The complete prayer of anointing without viaticum is in The Rites of the Catholic Church under the section “Rite of Anointing without Viaticum.”
The Rites of the Catholic Church as Revised by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (1976):
a) Subject of the Anointing of the Sick
15. When a priest has been called to attend a person who is already dead, he should pray for the dead person, asking that God forgive his sins and graciously receive him into his kingdom. The priest is not to administer the sacrament of anointing. But if the priest is doubtful whether the sick person is dead, he may administer the sacrament conditionally.