Chapter V — On contrition, the first part of Penance, and its natural and divine precept

I. QUESTION I. What is contrition taken generally? ANSWER. Regarded universally, as it abstracts from perfect and imperfect, it draws its origin from the word contero; and contero sounds the same as I divide, I cleave, I break up. Therefore the Prophet Joel cries out, chapter 2: Rend your hearts. The Council of Trent, session 14, chapter 4, thus defines it: Contrition is a grief of soul and a detestation of the sin committed, with a purpose of not sinning thereafter. It is called a grief of soul, because it stands within the soul. There is added detestation, because penance is not only a repenting, as the Lutherans contend, but also a hatred of the former life. Of the sin committed, that is, of all sins. With a purpose, and so forth. That purpose ought commonly to be express. These two, grief for the sin perpetrated and the purpose of not sinning thereafter, are so connected that the one cannot subsist without the other.

II. The properties of contrition are these: free, good, supernatural, true, sincere, great, vehement. Contrition therefore is an act not forced, as Luther blurted out, but free and good. Moreover it must be supernatural, both by reason of the divine help, without which no one can be contrite, and by reason of the motive from which it takes its species. The Council in the place cited adds with the desire of performing all those things which are required for the sacrament of Penance, namely of confessing and satisfying. That desire is necessary. Besides the divine help, faith, the fear of eternal punishment and of the beatitude to be lost, the baseness of sin inasmuch as it is an offence of God, and a love at least inchoate of the divine goodness, flow into contrition. Contrition must be true and sincere, which is set not in certain tears, not in the reading of some little book, but in the inmost and highest grief of the will.

III. This contrition must be supreme appreciatively, by which a man sets God before all creatures; and vehement, by which he is borne with the greatest ardour into hatred of sin and love of God. The Prophet Micheas likens the grief of contrition to the pains of a woman in labour, chapter 4: Be in pain, O daughter of Sion, as a woman in travail. And Isaias, chapter 59: We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. It is not necessary that it should burst forth into tears, which sometimes flow from natural disposition and the disposition of the senses.

IV. QUESTION II. Does the precept of contrition oblige a man as soon as he has sinned? ANSWER. That contrition is necessary by natural, divine, and ecclesiastical law all confess. Concerning the time of the obligation theologians dispute. Many teach that this precept presses on individual feast days, on which the Sacrifice of the Mass is to be heard. Others, as often as the sin committed occurs to the memory. Others, as soon as the sin is perpetrated. The opinion of those who limit this precept to the article of death, or to the reception or administration of the sacraments, is utterly false, and proscribed by force of just reasoning.

V. In Volume I, On the Decalogue, Book 1, dissertation 4, chapter 10, I have discussed at large with a full pen the question of the obligation of contrition immediately after a mortal crime is perpetrated. That immediately is to be taken morally, not physically. A latitude of time cannot be precisely defined. The graver theologians, from the testimonies of the Scriptures and of the Fathers, teach that those sin mortally who long defer their conversion. How much time does that long comprehend? Some say a month. I should understand a week, thereabouts. This opinion, which defends that a sinner deferring his conversion beyond a week by means of contrition sins gravely, seems to me the more probable. The holy Scriptures partly, as also all the Fathers, inveigh against sinners deferring their conversion to God. The opinion of very many being admitted, with what efficacy can preachers from the pulpit convince sinners that they should not defer their conversion from day to day, but convert themselves at once? And because the time of death is uncertain, at what hour we think not the Son of man cometh. Those who persist in sin expose themselves to the danger of dying in sin. A man stained with mortal sin is the bondman of the devil. Is it lawful to serve the devil, or to persevere in his service? Is it expedient to persist under the wrath of God and in rebellion against him? Awake, ye sons of men, hear God crying out: Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day to day. He does not say from month to month, from year to year, but from day to day. Read the divine testimonies and the documents of the Fathers which I have adduced in the place cited, and which it is not needful to repeat here.

VI. QUESTION III. What is to be said of the opinion of Leander asserting that the precept of contrition obliges of itself only in the article of death? ANSWER. Fr. Leander, tract 5, disputation 1, question 38, alleges for the recounted opinion Vásquez, Hurtado, Diana, Villalobos, de Lugo citing Navarrus, Durandus, Soto, Bonacina, and Suárez citing Malfesius and Filliucci. That opinion is false and lax. Let all the cited authors teach it, be it so, in Leander. Besides, this opinion has been condemned. I prove it. The Church condemned the casuistical opinions defending that the precept of charity does not press of itself outside the article of death, or outside a five-year period. Therefore the aforesaid opinion also is condemned. I prove it. Are sinners bound outside the article of death, and within five years, to love God? Do you say yes? Therefore they are also bound to be contrite. For they cannot follow God with the love of charity unless they be contrite for the faults perpetrated. Therefore the condemnation of the former doctrine necessarily infers the condemnation of the other.

VII. QUESTION IV. What is to be thought of the following opinion of Fr. Sporer? ANSWER. Fr. Sporer, part 3, chapter 1, section 2, § 2, no. 174, says: “The precept of contrition, even in the article of death, does not oblige a sinful man justified by the use of the sacrament with attrition. … So Henríquez, Vásquez, Cano, with very many alleged by Cardinal de Lugo. … Dicastillo, Layman.” This opinion is false, and, as it seems to my weakness, most pernicious to the eternal salvation of Christians. For the precept of charity cannot be fulfilled without contrition either implicit or explicit. Therefore the reported opinion seems to be contained in thesis 7 proscribed by Innocent XI.

VIII. QUESTION V. Has the precept of contrition conceived out of charity CEASED in the evangelical law, the use of the sacraments being admitted? ANSWER. Fr. Sporer affirms it in the place cited, no. 175, in these words: “The precept of contrition does not oblige those who by the use of the sacrament with attrition are justified, or wish to be justified. Most common, among those to be cited below. The reason is, because Christ in the new law by a singular privilege instituted another means also of justification, namely the sacraments of the dead, Baptism and Penance, so that thereupon the necessity of perfect contrition alone should cease: otherwise assuredly Christ, instituting and commanding sacramental confession — a means of itself sufficiently hard and difficult — if besides there were still required perfect contrition, and that itself not easy but very difficult to a sinner, would not have lightened but much aggravated the burden of the law, and we should be of a worse condition than the ancients of old, who were bound to contrition alone.”

IX. With most bitter tears are these unheard-of paradoxes to be lamented rather than struck with a sharp style. They overturn the first foundation of the Christian religion, namely the law of charity. And yet this doctrine Fr. Sporer calls most common, and cites for it Henríquez, Vásquez, Cano, de Lugo, Dicastillo, Layman. The evangelical law is a law of love, as the whole Gospel of Christ, as the Fathers, the Councils, and the whole Church cry out. The sacrament of confession is hard and difficult, replies the cited casuist with the others alleged by him. But by charity it becomes sweet, answer all the Fathers. What? Those casuists rise up: if the love of charity were necessary with the sacrament, Christ would not have lightened but much aggravated the burden of the law, and we should be of a worse condition than the Hebrews of old. Let readers meditate these things, and contain their tears if they can. I transcribe these paradoxes, that at some time those may be untaught who are forestalled by these casuistical figments, and may recall that the recited doctrine is a certain principle, whence innumerable other paradoxes proceed. See more, Vol. IX, Book 1, dissertation 1, chapter 8.

X. He subjoins in the same place, no. 177: “That the precept of contrition of itself never obliges except in the article of death, and not before, most grave Doctors teach.” Fr. George Gobat, tract 1, no. 139, similarly writes: “I say sixthly: it is indeed probable that there exists no precept concerning contrition, speaking of itself, to be elicited before the article of death.”

XI. Behold how by the merely probable even the first mandates themselves of the Christian religion are reduced to nothing. It has already been shown above that petty opinions of this kind are false, lax, and proscribed by force of just reasoning.

XII. QUESTION VI. Is a sinner who cannot confess during the year for want of a confessor bound to contrition? ANSWER. Fr. Dominic Viva proposes this question, question 3, article 1, no. 8, and resolves it in these words: “I answer indeed with Coninck and others commonly in the negative. For it is false that the Church determined that time … undetermined for repenting in general. … To the rules adduced, He who cannot do the whole, and so forth, I answer that they hold good when the whole and the parts are HOMOGENEOUS, but not when they are HETEROGENEOUS.”

XIII. Behold the little distinctions drawn from the Peripatetic philosophy, by which the primary precepts of Christ are eluded. Are the evangelical precepts wrapped up in these trifles, homogeneous and heterogeneous? This doctrine of Fr. Viva seems to my weakness condemned, not merely false and lax. For this thesis has been condemned: Then only does the precept (of charity) oblige, when we are bound to be justified, and have no other way by which we can be justified. We are bound to be justified every year by the precept of the Church; and the thesis was condemned because it asserted that only then does the mandate of charity press. But Fr. Viva teaches that not even within the year are we bound to justification, a confessor being lacking: because the precept of charity and of contrition does not press. Therefore by force of just reasoning, unless I myself am deceived, this doctrine of Fr. Viva, which he calls common from his own Coninck, is more condemned. And indeed common sense itself detests this doctrine. Since he who cannot do the whole — namely be contrite and confess at the same time — let him at least be contrite. He who cannot pay a hundred, let him pay at least ten while he can. This holds true, replies Fr. Viva, when the parts are homogeneous, otherwise when they are heterogeneous. Excellently! These figments, and like ones which occur everywhere in very many casuistical books, bring terror upon me. Since indeed the whole of holy Scripture and all the Fathers teach the opposite.

XIV. Fr. Sporer takes courage even against the Scriptures and the Fathers, and adds at no. 178 and following these words: “The most grave opinions of the holy Fathers and of sacred Scripture, so seriously and threateningly urging a mature repentance, and condemning a late deferring of penance, deter you.” Hear the answer. “But why cannot they conveniently be understood of a counsel indeed most excellent and most wholesome; or at most of a precept that we ought not to remain too long in a state of mortal sin?” Too long, that is, until death, or for five years! Is it therefore only a counsel that Christian sinners should not persevere under the tyranny of the devil, and in rebellion from God?

XV. QUESTION VII. Whether the opinion of de Lugo denying the precept of contrition in the article of death be too lax? ANSWER. Cardinal de Lugo writes these things, disputation 7 On Penance, section 13, no. 241: “Whether he who receives the sacrament of Penance with recognized attrition ought still under mortal sin to have contrition at least in the article of death? Suárez affirms it with many … Nuño … Sánchez … Granado … Valentia, and so forth. Nevertheless others teach the contrary opinion with many: Coninck, Becanus, Layman, Fagundez, Faber, Diana, Turrianus, Salas, and other more recent men. … No. 245: This latter opinion has always seemed to me the more probable.”

XVI. Have you heard? Not only probable, but truer also has it always seemed to him. But to us the aforesaid doctrine has always seemed false, and condemned by force of just reasoning. Does not even in the article of death the natural and divine precept of contrition press? Has it ceased, has it fallen into nothing in the evangelical law in respect of those who confess — the precept of contrition, even in the last extremity? Are Christians not bound even in this extremity to follow God with the love of charity, nor to be contrite from grief for the offence against the infinite goodness of God?