Either way, do you really think it makes sense for somebody to be consigned to a place like this based on whether a priest used all the right words in a ritual?
I believe that Rome's position here is that they have been entrusted with specific sacraments as tools / "means of grace," and it's not their place to tinker with them, but that doesn't imply that anyone is automatically consigned anywhere as a result of such tinkering. It's entirely reasonable to believe that God is extending grace in a non-standard way because God agrees that this does not make sense. But the fact remains that it is still a non-standard way and not actually the use of the sacraments as given to the Church, and the Church doesn't have the power to decide how much tinkering is too much. It just gets the sacraments the way the sacraments are.
A bad attempt at a nerdy analogy here is to a sudo rule. An unprivileged user who doesn't have "ALL" sudo access must run specific commands in the way they're phrased in the sudoers file. If the sudoers file says you can run "sudo shutdown -h now," and you type "sudo shutdown --halt now", it won't work. But that doesn't mean that the root account is unable to run "shutdown --halt now" or that root doesn't think the "--halt" version is a good idea. It certainly doesn't mean you're unable to contact whoever is root and say "Hey, please run shutdown --halt now," or that they'll ignore you if you do. If root runs it, it will work, and have the same effect. It's just not what's in the sudoers file.
But what it seems that the church also believes in the other side of the analogy: that if your command line DOES match the sudoers file, (i.e. the wording IS right), it somehow obliges God one way or the other, and that part seems difficult to believe, even if one accepts the underlying concept of baptism.
Even in the Lutheran service, where we have a norm of corporate confession in the middle of the service instead of individual confessions (and prescribed acts of contrition) beforehand, the preacher says to us, "As a called and ordained minister of the church of Jesus Christ, and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins." This phrasing is clearly not meant to mean just "Because I am a called and ordained minister, I can tell you for sure that Jesus already died for your sins." It is meant to be an actual thing that happens, through the authority given by God to the clergy - i.e., God is obliged, because God has chosen to grant that authority.
Here's my denomination's take on sacraments in particular: https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/What_...
> Historically a sacrament was viewed as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given to us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof" (Anglican Catechism). Lutherans have traditionally tried for greater clarity by stating that a sacrament is an act that is commanded by Christ, uses a material or earthly element, and through connection with the Word is the bearer of God’s promise, as the definition above indicates.
I think I see why it feels sort of "unfair" that God is obligated to do something when we invoke a sacrament - but we're not the people imposing that obligation. God did! It's a "pledge to assure us [of grace]" / "promise" in the wording above, and it's not unfair to make use of that pledge / promise. Going back to the analogy - if I'm root and I give you a sudoers file, you're not imposing on me by running sudo. Yes, you can always ask me to do something and have me form an opinion in the moment about whether I should, but for the things in the sudoers file, you can also just run sudo, I'm not going to be unhappy about it. That's why I put it there!
It seems to me that the alternative position is that every baptism and communion is nothing more than a prayer that God might choose to do something - and might just as easily choose not to do so. To me, that seems harder to believe: you'd have to say that God gave us the sacraments even though there's no particular point in them beyond just regular prayer. Why should they exist, then?
(Also, there's a connection here to the ancient argument of the Donatists, that priests and bishops who apostatized in the face of Diocletan's persecution lost their "powers," so to speak. That view was declared heretical, and the view that won out, advocated by Augustine and others, is that sacraments derive their power from God's grace and the simple fact that they are done, not by the merit of the person trying to do them.)
