How the confessor should deal with a penitent whom he finds laboring under an erroneous conscience?

I say 1° : If there be question of conscience erring vincibly, it seems beyond doubt that the confessor is bound to admonish his penitent : 1° Because, as physician, he ought to guard against his formal sins, from which he is not excused by a conscience erring vincibly. 2° Because such a penitent is in an evil state and incapable of absolution. The same must be said of those who ask whether this be sin or not; because by the very fact that they ask, they seem to doubt, and not to have invincible ignorance, and moreover the confessor is not only judge of the penitent, but is doctor, whose office it is to instruct, especially those who beg to be instructed. And I esteem both parts of the conclusion true, even though no hope of amendment appear; because the same reasons urge, and besides no inconvenience follows from admonition; for equally does the penitent sin formally whether admonished or not, since his vincible ignorance will not excuse him from formal sin.

You will ask by what signs the confessor can know that the error was vincible in the penitent.

I answer. Let him interrogate : 1° whether he adverted to any indecency in this act; 2° whether his own conscience dictated to him that he ought at least to consult a confessor, or another prudent man; 3° whether out of shame or fear he neglected the occasion of asking. If the penitent answer affirmatively to one or other of these, he can be held to be laboring under inculpable error; otherwise if he deny all. Gury, de Conscientia, n. 38.

I say 2° : If there be question of a conscience erring invincibly, a distinction is needed. Either there is hope of amendment, and no danger of graver inconvenience from admonition, or there is no hope of amendment, or there is danger of a graver inconvenience than the material sin of the penitent. If there be hope of amendment, and no danger of a graver inconvenience than the material sin of the penitent, the confessor is bound to admonish him; because, as doctor, he is bound, where no inconvenience is feared, to instruct his penitent, and to guard against sins in him, even material ones. But if there be no hope of amendment, or only a very slight one, or if there be, yet graver inconveniences are justly feared than the material sin of the penitent, as a rule the confessor neither is bound nor can admonish. The reason of the first part, because, hope of amendment set aside, the gravest inconvenience follows, namely that this penitent will sin formally, whereas before he sinned only materially, and that being admonished he is damned, who not admonished might have been saved. It is better therefore to leave him in good faith : whence Aug., hom. 41, among the 50,^{1 1} This homily was relegated to the appendix in the Benedictine edition.

si quis, dist. 7 de Poenit. : « If I knew that I did not profit you, I would not admonish you, I would not terrify you. » The reason of the second part is, that of several evils the less is to be chosen.

I said, « as a rule, » because certain cases are excepted.

Excepted is 1° if the penitent be invincibly ignorant of what is necessary with necessity of means for salvation, as that God is triune, incarnate, that sorrow for sins is necessary together with the sacrament for obtaining remission of sins, and the like. For whether there be hope of amendment or not, the confessor ought on these points to admonish and instruct his penitent, partly because otherwise the penitent is not capable of absolution, partly because even if he do not admonish him, he will no more be saved on account of ignorance of these things. It is better therefore to place him in that state in which he can be saved, if he wish, and from which it is likely that hope of amendment will not be excluded throughout the whole course of life.

2° Excepted is the case where the invincible ignorance of the penitent verges toward scandal of many or damage to the common good ; as if a priest ministering the sacraments were invalidly ordained, if the nullity of some marriage were notorious, etc. The penitent must be admonished, whether there be hope of amendment or not, because the good of many, especially the common good, prevails over the good of any particular person.

Certain authors add, and not badly, even if the ignorance of the penitent verge toward grave damage to some particular person ; because it seems to belong to charity and equity that I rather guard against the damage of an unwilling innocent¹ than the damage of him who is supposed to incur it by his own will and malice. ¹ This homily was relegated to the appendix in the Benedictine edition; note on the citation of Aug., hom. 41, among the 50 (p. 93).

Here a distinction must be made : namely whether grave damage, to be borne by a particular person from such an error, casts into peril the salvation of his soul or only temporal goods. If the former, the one erring invincibly seems bound to be admonished, because, if perchance he acquiesce not in the admonition, at least the peril of salvation will be removed from the other, and the lost good will be compensated by a good of the same nature and weight. If the errant one, unwilling to obey, perish, he will perish by his own fault, and it cannot be said that his soul should be preferred to another's soul. In the latter case, since the good of a superior order is to be preferred to the good of an inferior order, we hold that the errant one, probably not going to obey the admonition, is to be left in good faith. If it be objected that the consent of him who would suffer damage of this kind ought not be presumed, we answer that he is not reasonably unwilling, because the order of charity requires that provision be made for the eternal salvation of the neighbor at temporal loss, even grave. Moreover, the confessor, concerning whom here chiefly there is question, is bound ex officio to provide for the spiritual good of the penitent, not indeed for the temporal good of another, and since he cannot avert these two evils simultaneously, he ought choose the less, or rather permit it.

3° Excepted by certain more recent authors, and well, is the case where the ignorance concerns the natural law, as regards secondary principles, v. g., pollution, venereal delectation, etc. Because although invincible ignorance of these things can exist for a time (which nevertheless many deny), this ignorance cannot long endure, and easily and shortly becomes vincible, on account of the suspicion of malice which an act evil and dishonest of itself carries with it. Whence if the penitent be not admonished, when the occasion arises he will reckon this suspicion as ill-founded because of the silence of confessors, and will easily contemn it, and thus he will persevere in sin already formally, from a conscience erring vincibly ; but if he be admonished, there is hope that he will sin with greater remorse, will open his wicked habit to confessors, receive salutary remedies from them, and finally come to himself.

You will say against the second part of the second conclusion : A penitent in whom there is no hope of amendment, if admonished, ought not be held sufficiently disposed for absolution. Therefore.

I answer. I deny the antecedent. For that one be held sufficiently disposed, it suffices that he detest sin above every evil in its kind, nor is it necessary that he descend to singulars; otherwise, human frailty attended to, few would be true penitents : « Contrite, says St. Thomas, Quodlibet 1, a. 9, he is bound in general to will to suffer whatsoever punishment rather than sin...; but to descend in particular to this punishment or that he is not bound. Nay more, anyone would act foolishly who should solicit himself or another concerning punishments of this particular kind... And therefore to descend in such matters to singulars is to lead man into temptation and furnish occasion of sinning. » He teaches the same in Suppl., q. 3, a. 1.

From what has been said you will gather : 1° that if the confessor discover that the marriage of the penitent is null, which however the penitent himself believes invincibly valid, if he prudently judge that the penitent once admonished would not depart from the putative wife, or that if he depart, grave inconveniences and scandals would follow, namely hatreds and long-lasting quarrels, incontinence, defamation or desertion of an honest family or of children, and the like, he ought be silent and leave the penitent in good faith. But if there be question of contracting marriage, attention must be given to the irreverence toward the sacrament, and to the evils naturally apt to follow from an invalid marriage if the penitent be not admonished; and these must be weighed against the inconveniences foreseen to follow if he be admonished, and what seems less must be chosen, admonishing or keeping silence. As a rule, while future act is concerned, the thing still remaining intact, lesser evils follow if he be admonished than if he be not; whence as a rule in this case the penitent must be admonished. From these cases resolve others similar.

You will gather 2° that the confessor is bound to admonish a penitent whom he sees laboring under an erroneous conscience against himself, namely judging to be sin what is not, or mortal what is only venial. V. g., a layman thinks himself bound under mortal sin to be present at Vespers on Sundays and feasts, or that he cannot drink for refreshment on a fast day ; a religious or nun believes herself bound under mortal sin by regular silence or fasting; a wife reckons many mortalities in the use of matrimony which are only venial : in these, I say, and like cases, the confessor ought to admonish the penitent; because, as was said, as doctor he ought to instruct him, and as physician to guard against his formal sins, especially since there follows no inconvenience outweighing the inconvenience which follows if he be not admonished. For that thence the penitent perhaps sin venially more easily and frequently is far less inconvenient than if he sin mortally once only from an erroneous conscience.