Shetler

Churches and sacred objects can of course be re-consecrated, but only if they lose their blessing by profanation, which does not indicate that the effects of their consecrations were only fallibly produced but rather that through some subsequent effect they were afterwards lost.
The Spanish Jesuits describe the efficacy of sacramentals as follows:
The efficacy of these sacramentals is not ex opere operato, but neither is it ex opere operantis, as if their efficacy were such as the good works of the faithful have. The efficacy of the sacramentals is derived from the fact that they are the petitions of the Church, which, since they are most acceptable to God, are efficacious in a special way; but they do not have their effect infallibly. Therefore the efficacy of the sacramentals is quasi ex opere operato, or ex opere operantis Ecclesiae.

- Joseph Shetler, “Some Contemporary Questions on Sacramentals Considered according to the Scholastic Theology of Their Mode of Efficacy.” (STL Thesis,Angelicum,2007), 18.

Shetler

This quasi-certainty is founded on the Church’s sanctity, which St. Paul calls “holy and immaculate, without stain or wrinkle or anything of that sort.” The Bride of Christ must indeed possess a particularly effective intercessory power deserving of a middle cate-gory between the perfect merits of Christ and the imperfect merits of men.

- Joseph Shetler, “Some Contemporary Questions on Sacramentals Considered according to the Scholastic Theology of Their Mode of Efficacy.” (STL Thesis, Angelicum, 2007), 16.

Shetler

This distinction has at heart the distinction of the operans in each case; that is, the sacraments are understood by theologians to have an objective efficacy independent of the human minister’s merits because the true operans/operator of the sacraments is Christ Himself, who is perfect.

- Joseph Shetler, “Some Contemporary Questions on Sacramentals Considered according to the Scholastic Theology of Their Mode of Efficacy.” (STL Thesis, Angelicum, 2007), 15.

Shetler

Finally, the Church uses the sacramentals also to gain temporal favors, as the rituals contain many blessings for objects used in everyday life, such as those of fields and livestock. This is easily explained, “since the efficacy of sacramentals arises from the power of collective prayer, the effect expected from their use must follow the usual norm applicable to petitions to God, namely, that what it is legitimate to desire, it is legitimate to ask.”

- Joseph Shetler, “Some Contemporary Questions on Sacramentals Considered according to the Scholastic Theology of Their Mode of Efficacy.” (STL Thesis, Angelicum, 2007), 14.

The importance of this paper is that it helps me to understand the Spanish jesuits distinction about the mode of efficacy of sacramentals as somewhere between ex opere operato and ex opere operantis.