Fr. Rocky: No, the absolution is not valid. The priest must say: “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” That is the valid form in English. Anything else does not work. This is because the priest, as minister of the sacrament, acts in persona Christi — “in the person of Christ.”
The absolution, therefore, is made in the first person (“I absolve you” versus “Christ absolves you”), and in a causative way (not just declarative: “May Christ absolve you”). Nevertheless, the penitent’s sins are forgiven because it was no fault of his own that the priest used an invalid formula. In this case, as sacramental theologians point out, ecclesia supplet applies. That is, the Church provides, out of her treasury of grace, the proper remedy for the defect of the minister’s actions.
Father Rocky Hoffman