Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/134

102 obliged thereunto once a year, according; to the constitution of the great Council of Lateran, and that, on this account, the faithful of Christ must not be persuaded to confess during Lent; let him be anathema.

If any one shall say, that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act, but a bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring sins to be remitted unto him who confesses; provided only he believe himself to be absolved, or [even if] the priest absolve not in earnest, but in joke; or saith, that the confession of the penitent is not required, in order that the priest may be able to absolve him; let him be anathema.

If any one shall say, that priests, who are in deadly sin, have not the power of binding and of loosing; or, that not priests alone are the ministers of absolution, but that unto all and each of the faithful of Christ is it said: Whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth, shall he hound also in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth, shall he loosed also in heaven;  and, whose sins ye shall remit, they shall be remitted unto them; and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained; by virtue of which words every one is able to absolve sins, to wit, public [sins] by rebuke only; provided the person rebuked yield thereto, and secret [sins] by a voluntary confession; let him be anathema.

If any one shall say, that bishops have not the right of reserving cases to themselves, except as regards external polity, and that therefore the reservation of cases hinders not but that a priest may truly absolve from reserved cases; let him be anathema. If any one shall say, that the whole punishment is always remitted by God, together with the guilt, and that the satisfaction of penitents is no other than the faith whereby they learn that Christ hath made satisfaction for them; let him be anathema.

If any one shall say, that satisfaction for sins, as regards their temporal punishment, is in no wise made to God, through the merits of Christ, by the punishments inflicted by Him, and patiently borne, or by those enjoined by the priest, nor even by those voluntarily undertaken, as by