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I. THE Council of Trent teaches that all Catholics are bound by divine law to confess to a priest all the mortal sins into which they may have fallen after baptism. A confession of sin in general terms will not suffice, but as far as is possible the confession must be integral that is, each and every mortal sin must be confessed according to number and species. The confessor, then, must know when this duty is sufficiently fulfilled, or he must know how to distinguish the different species of sin. To enable him to do this, theologians have formulated three rules, of which sometimes one, sometimes another, is more serviceable for determining the species of any particular sin.

2. RULE I - Sins differ specifically according as their formal object differs. This rule is merely an application of the universal principle that acts are specified by their formal objects. Sins are bad human acts, and so, as we saw when treating of human acts, their formal object gives them their specific moral quality. The formal, not the material, object specifies the sin that is, the object, inasmuch as it is morally wrong, causes the will which tends to it to be a vicious will in a certain definite way. And so adultery is a specifically different sin from fornication, because in the former case right order is doubly violated in a way that does not belong to fornication.

3. RULE II - Sins are specifically different according as they are opposed to specifically different virtues. The reason of this rule is fundamentally the same as that of the former, for virtues are specifically distinguished according to their acts, and acts are specifically distinguished according to their formal objects. And so, inasmuch as charity is a different virtue from justice, hatred, as being opposed to charity, is a specifically distinct sin from theft or detraction, which are against justice.

4. RULE III - Those sins are specifically distinct which are transgressions of formally distinct laws.