Case LXXI: Treatment of an Habitual Drunkard in the Confessional

Case.—Assuredly habitual drunkards are no small trial to the confessor, especially when they make not the slightest attempt at amendment. How is this class of habitual sinners to be treated in confessionali? We have here in mind the notorious drunkard who adds to his guilt by giving scandal to others. In his work on Moral, Noldin says on this subject: “Those who relapse into drunkenness and are publicly known as such, who become drunk almost every week or even more frequently, are not to be altogether driven away from the Sacraments, but ordinarily neither are they to be admitted to them at once. Not the former, because no person’s amendment is to be despaired of; not the latter, chiefly because one who is foreseen to be about to violate his resolution after a short time cannot be absolved unless necessity presses: for scandal would have to be feared if he relapsed immediately after receiving the Sacraments; moreover, because the public scandal must first be repaired. Therefore absolution is to be deferred for a penitent of this kind until he has at least amended himself to some extent. Indeed, even in the case in which he had been absolved at once because of an extraordinary sign of repentance, it is better not to admit him immediately to Holy Communion, both so that the public scandal may meanwhile be repaired by actual amendment and so that scandal perhaps arising from a relapse may be forestalled” (Summa Theol. Mor. ed. V. P. II. n. 411).

Question.—What about the matter when there is question of the Easter Confession?

Solution.—This kind of habitual sinner usually comes to confession only at Easter. Assuredly even then a recidivus ex genere ebriorum must not be absolved if the confessor has reason to doubt his disposition. Such doubt is certainly present if the penitent on his part has done nothing to reform, and has not avoided the occasions. It would be wrong to think “if he is disposed hic et nunc then with a good conscience I can give him absolution.” True, every habitual or occasional sinner may be absolved if only in actu he is disposed, and may be regarded as such by the confessor, even if later the penitent does not amend, and the confessor foresees that he will relapse into his former habits. “A relapsing sinner who is prudently judged disposed can always in himself be absolved; for one who can truly be judged disposed can be absolved, although he is a relapsing sinner: for nothing else is required for valid and lawful absolution except that he be actually disposed; future amendment, however, is not required for true disposition, nor does foresight of a future relapse prevent it’” (Ibidem, n. 410). “A person in an occasion of sin and a relapsing sinner can always be absolved, provided that he can prudently be judged by the confessor to be truly disposed, whatever the sign may be upon which his judgment is based: whether ordinary or extraordinary, whether the penitent brought it to confession or at last displayed it in confession in response to the confessor’s admonition” (Ibid., n. 411).

But now I ask: may a recidivus, as in our case, who for years, perhaps, has given his confessor empty promises, and has made no earnest attempt or hardly any to break with his sinful habit, be regarded, prudenter, as vere dispositus? How, then, may a confessor absolve such a one simply because he appears disposed hic et nunc? (Unfortunately there are confessors who absolve everyone if only they say “yes.” It is hardly necessary to remark that such administration of the tribunal of Penance is in damnum perhaps even in perditionem animarum.) There could be only one valid reason to exercise clemency in the case of such a penitent, and that is the periculum diffamationis, in the event of his not being absolved. But this is not as bad as it seems at first sight. If in a town a habitual drunkard is publicly known as such, then there can no longer be talk of defaming.

However, if the confessor believes for good reasons that he ought to absolve him, then he should likewise permit him to receive holy Communion; for though Noldin considers it prudent not to admit a notorious drunkard at once to holy Communion, even if he has been absolved propter signum extraordinarium poenitentiae, still on occasion of the Easter Communion a milder interpretation may prevail; on the one hand quia urget praeceptum, and, on the other, because the faithful take less scandal, just because it is the Easter Communion.