123. Integrity of Confession

1. Crispinus, a young man, thus makes his confession: 1.º I have been given to intemperance, gaming, and blasphemies with various companions; 2.º I have rather often revolved impure thoughts in my mind concerning various persons; 3.º once I spent the whole night conversing with a girl; 4.º several times I nourished enmities in my mind, detracted from an enemy, and wished evil to him.

2. Elodia, a querulous woman, accuses herself that she had uttered imprecations against her husband about ten times; afterward, however, she discovers that she had uttered imprecations eleven times, or even fifteen times. Likewise she confesses some sin of detraction as doubtful, saying: I believe that I detracted, but I doubt about this. Afterward, however, she finds that that sin was certainly committed by her. Therefore she doubts whether the confession of the same sins must be repeated in both Cases.

It is asked: What is to be said to the Case?

R. "The confession of Crispinus lacks integrity in all points, since he declares neither the number of the sins nor their species, nor sometimes sufficiently expresses whether the matter is grave or light. Therefore the confessor must supply by questioning in the following manner:

1.º How have you violated temperance? Was it by excess in food or in drink? Was it to the point of surfeiting, or to full drunkenness? And how many times? - To what game did you give yourself? Was it a prohibited game? An unjust one? Was it with great prodigality? Was it several times? - How many times did you blaspheme? In what way? This last question will often be necessary for discerning whether the penitent really blasphemed.

2.º How many times did you deliberately give assent to wicked thoughts? Did you also foster wicked desires? What was the object of your concupiscence? Were the persons free, or married? Were they related by blood, or by affinity? Were the sins consummated or not?

3.º In conversing the whole night with the girl, did you sin several times, and how many times, or did you consummate the sin?

4.º How many times, or for how long, did you foster enmities? Did you wish grave evils to your neighbor, or how many times?

Elodia, however, is not bound to accuse the eleventh sin, as being comprehended in this accusation, about ten times. She is truly bound to express the fifteenth number, as not contained in the aforesaid expression. She is bound, at least speaking practically, to accuse again the sin of detraction according to the common opinion, because a certain sin is not contained in a doubtful accusation. See Comp. n. 472-480." Thus Fr. Gury 428, 429.

But it is to be noted here that, since the various questions to be asked by the confessor are not without burden and inconvenience for the confessor and for the penitent, the confessor can often abstain from them: first, because he is bound to judge concerning what has been heard according to the obvious sense, and he is not bound to search out subtle things; then because often, although the sufficiently ultimate species of sins is not expressed, nevertheless it is understood quite sufficiently from other circumstances of a well-known penitent, or from other sins which are afterward declared. And thus the confession is sufficient "if one whom the confessor knows to be married, or a priest, says that he has had intercourse with another woman." D'Annib. 303.

Then, as to the confession of Crispinus, some of those questions which Fr. Gury teaches are to be asked under n. 1.º can in reality be omitted, since they do not contain a grave species of sin, as, for example: How have you violated temperance? By exceeding in food, or in drink? To the point of surfeiting or to full drunkenness? More briefly and more fittingly the confessor would ask: Did you commit excess in drink to the point of perfect drunkenness, or in food to the grave harm of health?

As to the other questions to be asked of Crispinus under n. 2.º, it must be noted that one must proceed with great caution, so as to remove every scandal, especially if there is question not of a man, but of a woman. Besides, as is established by experience itself, when the faithful simply accuse wicked thoughts, they distinguish them from wicked desires; whence they seem to accuse simple delight or complacency. And when they thus generally accuse these wicked thoughts or wicked delights or complacencies, it seems that then there is given only an indeterminate consent to venereal delight in common, or to copulation in common, and not to this or that determinate object. Hence the confessor seems to satisfy his obligation if he only asks the penitent, where there is need, whether he was delighted concerning some other person of the other sex. For the various objects apprehended do not pour back their malice into simple delight except insofar as they delight. But ordinarily they do not delight except either merely insofar as they stir the genital spirits, or insofar as they are referred to carnal copulation, toward which that stirring naturally tends. Besides, since it is better to fall short as to the integrity of confession than that the penitent be scandalized, this indeed is the practice of pious confessors: namely, to abstain from further questions. "This doubt," says Reuter 209, "creates no light annoyance for confessors who strive to discharge their office exactly; for on the one hand the more common opinion in the schools holds that simple delights, for example concerning copulation, a kiss, sodomy, bestiality, are distinguished in species... on the other hand it is dangerous to ask penitents about what object they thought and were delighted. For they will easily be scandalized, they will accuse confessors of excessive curiosity, and they will give responses which offend the ears. And perhaps for this reason the common practice of confessors... holds that they do not order penitents to declare the venereal objects about which they were simply and nakedly delighted... nor is reason lacking for this. For... although the objects are diverse - adultery, incest, fornication - nevertheless simple delights concerning them, not as such, but precisely as they are carnal copulation, do not differ in species. Now indeed simple venereal delights seem ordinarily to be borne precisely toward the delectability arising from the motion of semen and of the spirits serving generation, which is the same whether it arises from this or from that object thought of; therefore they seem not to differ in moral species." Cf. I. M. vol. 1, 291. But as to the question: whether of a blood relative, of an affine; since probably incest with blood relatives and with affines does not differ in species, the question can be omitted as to this precise distinction of a person related by blood or by affinity. I. M. 711.

But what of Elodia, if in good faith she had erred otherwise in the number, namely by notably exaggerating it? Would she have to declare this afterward in confession? R. Negatively. For the confession would have been good, since the smaller number is contained in the greater, and, since she acted in good faith, that exaggeration lacked every sin. - But as to a doubtful sin, afterward known as certain, and to be accused again, Fr. Gury himself, in the cited place of the Compendium, namely n. 480, says that the opinion denying that the confession must be repeated is sufficiently probable. And he concludes: "Thus Lugo d. 16, n. 78, Sporer n. 397, Elbel n. 274, Reuter n. 332, etc." Therefore, speaking practically, Elodia cannot be obliged to repeat the confession. I. M. 674.

3. A recent sin declared as ancient. Paulina, a clever woman, if at any time she sins more gravely, finds a way of confessing the sin with less shame, as will be clear from the things to be said.

1.º Once, when she had become guilty of a base sin, she made a brief general confession of several years, and she mingled and confused that sin recently committed and not yet declared with other sins already accused in preceding confessions.

2.º At another time, stained with recent lethal guilt, after accusing venial sins, she adds: I accuse myself also of such a sin, which I unhappily committed in the past year.

3.º At another time, the same Case recurring, after likewise accusing venial sins, she concludes thus: I accuse myself of all faults committed in my whole life, especially of such a base sin.

It is asked: What is to be said to the Case?

R. In the first Case Paulina satisfies the integrity of confession. For, speaking of itself, there is no obligation of declaring that she had not previously confessed such a sin. The reason is that the sin is the same whether someone had previously confessed it or not, unless perhaps a change of time brings with it a circumstance diverse in species. Speaking of itself, namely, unless the sin is reserved, unless there are adjuncts of proximate occasion or of wicked habit, which need the peculiar care of the confessor. Nor indeed does it stand in the way that the penitent says she wishes to make a general confession. For by this she does not say that she wishes to confess ancient sins alone, but that she wishes also to comprehend those. For a general confession embraces all sins up to this hour. Nor does it matter that the confessor understands that sin to be ancient; for the penitent did not say this, and therefore the intention of absolving is not regulated by the private estimation of the confessor, who intends to absolve from the sins which the penitent has brought to judgment, whatever they may be. Finally, it does not matter that the penitent seems implicitly to indicate that they are ancient sins; for she herself truly has the mind of speaking about new sins, and wishes to speak about them, although she desires not to be understood as to this by the confessor. Lugo d. 16, n. 47, 54.

"In the second Case," says Fr. Gury 435, "Paulina did not satisfy the integrity of confession, because she denied that she had sinned recently, which is false, and therefore equivalently concealed the sin committed in this last time."

"In the third Case," says the same Fr. Gury, l. c., "there was also lack of integrity of confession, because she accused a recent sin as ancient; for this formula, ordinarily uttered at the end of confession: I accuse myself of the sins of my whole life, in the commonly accepted sense, signifies sins committed before the last confession. Therefore the confessor understands the sin specified by the penitent to pertain to the former life, and already to have been accused. Therefore that confession lacks integrity. Therefore it is to be repeated. See Comp. n. 488."

Moreover, in the cited place of the Compendium it is noted that there are not lacking theologians who think the aforesaid lie light. And then the distinguished Ballerini observes that the argument adduced does not exceed the limits of mere probability insofar as it is urged for denying the sufficiency of such a confession. "And indeed, as Tamburinus notes, Exped. Conf. l. 2, c. 1, n. 6, a disorder of this sort, by which you seem to accuse a sin never committed and to be silent about one truly committed, equally happens, even the adversaries freely admitting it, from other circumstances also which are falsely added. Thus, for example, if you say that you killed Paul, when you killed Andrew, or that you sinned with a stranger, when you sinned with an inhabitant, or that you stole from Lucius, when you stole from Caius, or that you detracted from someone at home, when you detracted on the road or in the theater, or that you read a heretical book of the author Melanchthon, when the book was by Osiander, or that you struck a Capuchin, when you struck a Carmelite: indeed, that these lies do not stand in the way of sufficient integrity of confession is clear also from this, that if perhaps they were uttered inadvertently, no one compels the penitent to amend the error in the following confession." Baller., Comp. P. Gury, l. c.; D'Annib. 309; I. M. 715.