Chapter VIII — Certain questions concerning grief and purpose are resolved

I. QUESTION I. Ought a penitent to elicit grief for sin with the intention of confessing? ANSWER. De Lugo, Aversa, Tamburini, Gobat, Moya, Sporer, Illsung, and others deny it. But this opinion is to be rejected as less probable. That grief is a sacramental action. Therefore by the intention of the penitent it is to be subjected to the sacramental form. For an intention is necessary not in the minister alone, but also in the penitent. These things nevertheless are not to be discussed metaphysically and subtly, since by the very fact that a man wills to confess and grieves for his sins, his grief in fact bears a respect to the sacrament. As regards this, therefore, the minds of penitents are not to be tormented.

II. QUESTION II. Ought grief to precede confession, or is it enough that it be elicited after confession and before absolution? ANSWER. All affirm that grief ought to precede absolution, since it is its proximate matter. But theologians dispute the other part, namely whether it ought to precede the confession which is called sorrowful. Navarrus, Toletus, Vásquez, Hurtado, Diana, Bonacina, Suárez, de Lugo, Sporer, Gobat, Moya, Tamburini, and others defend that it is enough that it follow the confession and precede absolution. Others maintain the opposite. Sudden and unusual cases being excepted, speaking commonly, it is to me more probable that it ought to precede confession: both because in the sacraments we ought to follow the safer things when the matter is called into controversy; and because by that middle grief the penitent ought to pass from the state of mortal sin and diabolical servitude to the state of the sons of God. That passage, commonly speaking, is not made in an instant, or in a few moments. Account nevertheless is to be had of penitents. For when the just confess, they most easily grieve and are contrite, since they are habitually disposed. On the contrary sinners, laden with a grave bundle, more difficultly conceive this birth of grief. It is the part of confessors to instruct penitents that, before they approach the sacred tribunal, they spend some congruous time in conceiving this grief. Let them propose to them what points they ought to meditate, what considerations to form, that they may excite themselves to conceive this grief: let them be taught that there is need of prayers, by which they may implore help from God, whereby they may be able to be contrite as they ought.

III. That grief ought so to endure that by force of it the penitent be absolved, since that grief is the matter of absolution. Diana relates many who defend that a grief elicited several years before endures, provided it has not been retracted. Which opinion is false and lax. Escobar, Diana, and Arriaga admit an antecedence of long time. Others say that a grief elicited four or six days before, others a month before, suffices. But why do I waste time in heaping up these false opinings? The grief must be morally present. For practice, grief is to be conceived before confession and to be renewed in the confession itself, when absolution is to be imparted.

IV. In the confession of venial sins also this grief is necessary. It is not necessary that grief be conceived for all venial sins, since venial sins are not necessary but free matter: it is enough that grief be conceived for some graver venial sin, and that an express purpose be had of avoiding it, when no necessary matter is subjected to the keys.

V. QUESTION III. What is to be said of the opinion of Fr. Viva asserting that a grief conceived from the motive of temporal loss is enough for Confession? ANSWER. Fr. Dominic Viva in his Treatise on proposition 1 of Innocent XI, no. 26, teaches that a supernatural attrition from the fear of temporal punishments, as to be inflicted by God the avenger, suffices; and concludes: We lawfully follow opinions of this kind which are most probable, the safer being omitted. Who defined that opinions of this kind are most probable? The probabilists? But the Roman See, even granting that they were most probable, commands that in the sacraments, when it is a question of matter and form, we follow the SAFER opinions, the probable being omitted.

VI. Fr. Tamburini, Book 1, Method of Confession, chapter 1, § 4, no. 11, says: “Among the motives of attrition, of which we have spoken at no. 4, although some do not admit another fourth — that is, fear of a temporal evil … fear of infamy, of chains, of sickness, and so forth — nevertheless in a most probable opinion this motive also is sufficient, if evils of this kind be feared as inflicted by God, or to be inflicted.”

VII. This opinion I reckon not only false and lax, but contained in the Innocentian decree. Tamburini there confesses that the Doctors teach the opposite. Therefore the opinion is controverted. Therefore the safer is to be embraced. Tamburini objects: Trent does not define that grief is to be conceived from fear of hell, or of another spiritual or eternal punishment, but adds in general from fear of punishments. Evidently is Tamburini deceived, with the others. The Council says: from fear of hell and of punishments. The proposition is copulative. Why therefore do you dismiss hell, set in the first place, and coupled by a copulative particle with punishments? The punishment owed to mortal sin is eternal. Therefore a sinner ought to grieve for an eternal evil to be inflicted by God. Fear ye not them that kill the body … but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10. So the Evangelists, so Trent. Therefore the opinion of Tamburini, Viva, and others is evidently false.

VIII. QUESTION IV. What is to be said of the opinion of Fr. Tamburini teaching that it is not to be inculcated upon a sinner that he grieve for that sin toward which he is affected with a great love? ANSWER. Natural reason itself dictates that that wound should chiefly be cured which lies in ambush more inwardly for the soul. But Fr. Tamburini, Book 1, Method of Confession, chapter 1, § 3, no. 5, writes: “Whence when you advert that your penitent is greatly addicted to some crime, do not inculcate an act of grief concerning that peculiar sin. For a danger will underlie it, lest he detest it from his soul while its special memory is rubbed up again; whereas of detesting it in general and together with the others he will feel either no difficulty or a slight one.”

IX. Beware, O confessors, says Fr. Tamburini, lest you persuade penitents to elicit an act of grief for that fault which they perish for like a beloved mistress, and toward which they are borne impotently: because a danger will underlie it lest they detest it from their soul. Is it therefore not necessary that a sinner should from his soul detest that fault which he follows with a vehement love? It is enough, replies Tamburini, that he should grieve for this greatly beloved fault confused and covered over with the crowd of other crimes. For in this fashion the penitent will easily detest that sin lurking within the multitude of sins: then he will feel no difficulty, or a slight one. On the contrary, if he look upon this beloved fault of his with unveiled face, a danger will underlie it lest he detest it from his soul.

X. Every man is bound by some dominant and reigning passion and appetition. All the Fathers and preachers cry out that Christians should restrain, press down, and subdue this dominant passion, this reigning affection. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the lusts thereof, says St. Paul, Romans 6. In this man avarice dominates, in that lust, in another anger, in another vengeance. Unless each man arm himself with a peculiar grief and fortitude against this raging and reigning beast, it is all over with his salvation. How false therefore, and how lax the aforesaid doctrine is, let each man sit as judge.

XI. QUESTION V. Is a formal and explicit purpose of not sinning thereafter required? ANSWER. Fr. Tamburini in the place cited, § 5, no. 7, subjoins: In the probable opinion of others it is enough that it be implicit, that is, that which is involved in the act itself of detestation or displeasure. This opinion Diana, Gormaz, de Lugo, Vásquez, and many others similarly teach. But it is openly false: for the opposite is taught by St. Thomas, Albert the Great, Durandus, Scotus, Cajetan, Cano, Soto, and Cardinal Bellarmine, who in Book 2 On Penance, chapter 6, writes these things: But to us the common and trodden way of the ancients is always safer and more suitable. It is proved therefore that for contrition there is required an explicit and formal purpose of a better life. Would that all men were willing to tread this way trodden by the ancients. Trent, besides an efficacious and universal grief, in which indeed a virtual purpose is contained, requires a purpose of not sinning thereafter. If a virtual purpose contained in the efficacious grief sufficed, it would be superfluous that the Council should require a purpose besides the efficacious grief. Someone cries out to the contrary: if besides an efficacious and universal grief a purpose were required, there would be not three but four parts of penance. It is an empty sophism. There are three parts of penance. But contrition consists of two things, namely grief for the sin committed and a purpose of not sinning thereafter. It can nevertheless happen that a penitent be so carried away with vehement grief that he think not of the purpose; but if he adverted, he would conceive a most firm resolution of not sinning thereafter. The discourse now is of those things which commonly and everywhere happen, not of some rare and sudden case.