Case LVI: Does the Reservation of Absolution of an Accomplice Extend to the Case of One Who Had Transgressed Before Ordination?

It is known that Pope Benedict XIV., in his constitution Sacramentum Poenitentiae, of 1741, has prohibited all priests under penalty of excommunication, specially reserved to the Pope, and nullity of the absolution given, to hear the Confession of and absolve the complex in peccato turpi (except in case of most urgent necessity). The decree ordains: By Apostolic authority and the fullness of our power, we interdict and prohibit each and every priest, both secular and regular, of whatever order and dignity, even if otherwise approved to hear confessions and fortified by any privilege or indult, even one requiring special mention and the most special designation, from daring—outside a case of extreme necessity, namely at the very point of death and when every other priest who can discharge the office of confessor is then lacking—to hear the sacramental confession of a person who was his accomplice in a shameful and dishonorable sin committed against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue. For that purpose, by the law itself, every jurisdiction for absolving any person from a fault of this kind is withdrawn from him, so that any absolution he may impart is wholly null and void; and nevertheless, if any confessor dares to act otherwise, he incurs by the act itself the penalty of major excommunication, from which we reserve the power of absolving to ourselves alone and solely to our successors.

Plain and circumspect as this papal definition is, it yet leaves room for the question whether it affects a priest who had failed with his penitent before ordination. Reliable and prominent moralists, e. g.

Gury, Casus Consc. (p. 11. 1. 639), Scavini (Theol. Mor. lib. III. n. 485), Pruner (Handbook of Moral Theology, p. 471), and Lehmkuhl (Theol. Mor. vol. II. p. 658) answer this question emphatically in the affirmative. The latter writes: According to the common opinion and the purpose of the law, it does not appear to be required that the sin have been committed after the priesthood was received. And indeed, if the words are taken as they sound, it does not appear that a distinction can be made between sins committed after the priesthood and those committed before the priesthood.

Gury illustrates this view by the following concrete case: The student Liborius had sinned with Flavia contra sextum. After he had become priest, poenitentia serio peracta, she appeared in his confessional and declared that until now she has not confessed this sin owing to her shame, and that she could not make up her mind to confess it to anyone else. After some reflection Liborius consents to hear Flavia’s Confession and absolves her, because he reasons that the sin committed with Flavia before ordination is not subject to the reservation. Did Liborius decide and act correctly? No, says Gury, for through the reception of Holy Orders the bond of complicity is not dissolved and Liborius is after as before the ordination still complex peccati, and as such in respect to the sin committed with Flavia deprived of the power of absolution.

This view the writer was for a long while inclined to take. When recently, however, due to a discussion of this matter, he subjected both the Benedictine Constitution, and the declaration of February 8, 1745, to a closer inspection, he thought to find in its wording and purpose reasons calculated to justify the opposite view. The learned Pope, who carefully weighed his words, spoke of sacrilegious priests, Sacrilegi quidam qui complicem in peccato turpi absolvere audeant, and therefore he manifestly had in view only those who not before but after Holy Orders, as persons consecrated to God, sinned, because those who transgress contra sextum before ordination commit not a qualified sacrilegious sin, though of course a grievous sin against chastity, and therefore they cannot be designated sacrilegi. Though it is no doubt true that through Holy Orders the bond of complicity is not dissolved, and that the Pope in his constitution did not expressly distinguish between peccata post and peccata ante sacer-dotium commissa, and thus appears to have reserved the one as well as the other, still it is also true, because by the use of the word Sacrilegi tacitly (implicite) expressed, that the Pope did not aim at the simple, but at the sacrilegious complicity, at the sin committed sacrilegiously after reception of Holy Orders, and intended to withdraw power of absolution from the sacrilegious priest. This view is supported by the consideration that between a simple and sacrilegious sin of this kind there is considerable difference and the former is in culpability far surpassed by the latter. It would be unfair if, notwithstanding the vast difference, one sin should be punished in the same degree as the other. It may then be assumed, with good reason that the Pope wished to withdraw the sacrilegious rather than a simple complicity peccato turpi from the faculty of the concerned priest.

This milder view receives important support also from the aim of this constitution. The learned Pope issued it, partly to preserve the holy tribunal of Penance from desecration, and partly in order to protect the priest and souls confided to his care against temptation. Earnestly desiring to remove far from the sanctity of priestly judgment and the sacred tribunal every occasion of impurity, contempt of the Sacraments, and injury to the Church; entirely to eliminate such ruinous evils; and, as far as We can in the Lord, to meet the dangers of souls.

The holy Sacrament of Penance would, no doubt, be exposed to the greatest danger of desecration: it might even become the direct cause of downfall, if priests in such cases could absolve their partner in sin. This peril is either not at all or only remotely present if a confessor absolves a person from a sin contra sextum which he had committed with her before ordination, especially if, as is to be assumed, he has done sincere penance before entering the priestly state. Thus the basis and aim of the law, and therewith the law itself, passes out of the case, and he may validly absolve the complex peccati of this particular sin.

In the case cited by Gury, Liborius could therefore validly absolve Flavia: (1) because he was not complex sacrilegus; (2) because for him and Flavia a danger for the repetition of the sin did either not at all, or only remotely, exist; and (3) because, moreover, in this case the principle odia restringi convenit demands recognition.

Nevertheless, it hardly needs special mention that, for reasons of delicacy and propriety, it would be at least unbecoming for a person to go to Confession to a priest who, in his earlier years and in the lay state, had failed with her.

B. Schmid, O.S.B.