Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/689

 PENANCE

625

PENANCE

sacrament. Siioever, in fact, repents of his sin out of love for God must be willing to comply with the Divine ordinance regarding penance, i. e., he would confess if^a confessor were accessible, and he realizes that he is obliged to confess when he has the oppor- tunity. But it does not follow that the penitent is at liberty to choose between two modes of obtaining for- giveness, one by an act of contrition independently of the sacrament, the other by confession and absolution. This view was put forward by Peter Martinez (de Osma) in the proposition: "mortal sins as regards their guilt and their punishment in the other world, are blotted out by contrition alone without any refer- ence to the keys"; and the proposition was con- demned by Sixtus IV in 1479 (Denzinger-Bannwart, " Enchir.", 724). Hence it is clear that not even heart- felt sorrow based on the highest motives, can, in the present order of salvation, dispense with the power of the keys, i. e., with the Sacrament of Penance.

Confession; Necessity. — "For those who after bap- tism have fallen into sin, the Sacrament of Penance is as necessary unto salvation as is baptism itself for those who have not yet been regenerated" (Council of Trcut, iSess. XIV, c. 2). - Pe nance, therefore, is not an institution the u.se of which was left to the optioti of each sinner, so that he might, if he preferred, hold aloof from tlie Church and secure forgiveness by some other means, e. g., by acknowledging his sin in the prTvacy of his own mind. As already staled, thepower granted by Christ to the Apostles is twofold, to for- give and to retain, in such a way that what they forgive God forgives and what they retain God re- tains. But this grant would be nullified if, in case the Church retained the sins of a penitent, he could, as it were, take appeal to God's tribunal and obtain par- don. Nor would the power to retain have any meaning if the sinner, passing over the Church, went in the first instance to God, since by the very terms of the grant, God retains sin once committed so long as it is not remitted by the Church. It would indeed have been strangely inconsistent if Christ in conferring this twofold power on the Apostles had intended to pro- vide some other means of forgiveness such as con- fessing "to God alone". Not only the Apostles, but any one with an elementary knowledge of human nature would have perceived at once that the easier means would be chosen, and that the grant of power so formally and solemnly made by Christ had no real significance (Palmieri, op. cit., thesis X). On the other hand, once it is admitted that the grant was effectual and consequently that the sacrament is necessary in order to obtain forgiveness, it plainly follows that the penitent must in some way make known his sin to tho.se who exercise the power. This is conceded even by those who reject the Sacrament of Penance as a Divine institution. "Such remission was manifestly impossible without the declaration of the offences to be forgiven" (Lea, "HLstory etc.", I, p. 182). The Council of Trent, after declaring that Christ left His priests as His vicars unto whom aa rulers and judges the faithful must make known their sins, adds: "It is evident that the priests could not have exercised this judgment without knowledge of the cause, nor could they have observed justice in enjoining satisfaction if (the faithful) had declared their sins in a general way only and not specifically and in detail" (Sess. XIV, c. .5).

Since the priest in the pardoning of sin exercises a strictly judicial function, Christ must will that such tremendous power be used wisely and prudently. Moreover, in virtue of the grant of Christ the priest can forgive all sins without distinction, qucBcumque solverilis. How can a wise and prudent judgment be rendered if the priest be in ignorance of the cause on which judgment is pronounced? And how can he obtain the requisite knowledge unless it come from the spontaneous acknowledgment of the sinner? This XL— 40

necessity of manifestation is all the clearer if satisfac- tion for sin, which from the beginning has been part of the penitential discipline, is to be imposed not only wisely but also justly. That there is a necessary con- nexion between the prudent judgment of the confessor and the detailed confession of sins is evident from the nature of a judicial procedure and especially from a full analysis of the grant of Christ in the light of tradition. No judge may release or condemn without full knowledge of the case. And again the tradition of the earliest time sees in the words of Christ not only the office of the judge sitting in judgment, but the kindness of a father who weeps with the repentant child (Aphraates, "Ep. de Poenitentia", dem. 7) and the skill of the physician who after the manner of Christ heals the wounds of the soul (Origen in P. G., XII, 418; P. L., XIII, 1086). Clearly, therefore, the words of Christ imply the doctrine of the external manifestation of conscience to a priest in order to obtain pardon.

Confessio7i; Various Kinds. — Confession is the avowal of one's own sins made tcTa^dxily authorized priest for the purpose of obtaining their forgiveness through the power of the keys. Virtual confession is simply the will to confess even where, owing to cir- cumstances, declaration of sin is impossible; actual confession is any action by which the penitent mani- fests his sin. It may be made in general terms, e. g., by reciting the "Confiteor", or it may consist in a more or less detailed statement of one's sins; when the statement is complete, the confession is distinct. Public confession, as made in the hearing of a number of people (e. g. a congregation) differs from private, or secret, confession which is made to the priest alone and is often called auricular, i. e., spoken into the ear of the confessor. We are here concerned mainly with actual distinct confession which is the usual practice in the Church and which so far as the validity of the sacrament is concerned, may be either public or priv ate. "As regards the method of confessing secretly to the priest alone, though Christ did not forbid that any one, in punishment of his crimes and for his own humiliation as also to give others an example and to edify the Church, should confess his sins publicly, still, this has not been commanded by Divine precept nor would it be prudent to decree by any human law that sins, especially secret sins, should be ]jublicly confessed. Since, then, secret sacramental confession, which from the beginning has been and even now is the usage of the Church, was always commended with great and unanimous consent by the holiest and most ancient Fathers; thereby is plainly refuted the foolish calumny of those who make bold to teach that it (secret confession) is something foreign to the Divine command, a human invention devised by the Fathers assembled in the Lateran Council " (Council of Trent, Sess. XIV, c. .5). It is therefore Catholic doctrine, first, that Christ did not prescribe public confession, salutary as it might be, nor did He forbid it; second, that secret confession, sacramental in character, has been the practice of the Church from the earliest days. Traditional Belief and Practice. — How firmly rooted in the Catholic mind is the belief uPEhe efficacy and - necessity of confession, appears clearly from the fact that the Sacrament of Penance endures in the Church after the countless attacks to which it has been sub- jected during the last four centuries. If at the Refor- mation or since the Church could have surrendered a doctrine or abandoned a practice for the sake of peace and to soften a "hard saying", confession would have been the first to disappear. Yet it is precisely during this period that the Church has defined in the most exact terms the nature of penance and most vigorously insisted on the necessity of confession. It will not of course be denied that at the beginning of the sixteenth century confession was generally practised throughout the Christian world. The Reformers themselves, not-