Chapter X — On the obligation of penitents to accept the satisfaction imposed by the confessor for deadly sins

I. QUESTION I. Are penitents bound under mortal sin to accept the penance imposed by the confessor? ANSWER. The Salmanticenses Morales, tract 6, chapter 10, point 4, advert out of others that they are not bound to accept it when it should be established to be unjust, but that they are bound when the excess should not be established. Shall penitents therefore be judges of the measure of the penance to be enjoined? Are litigants bound to accept the sentence of a supreme judge when they themselves judge it just, but otherwise when they reckon it unjust? What if the penances were unjust because too light and soft? For injustice can happen by defect as well as by excess. Are penitents skilled in the sacred canons and the discipline of the Church, so that they can bring forth a right judgment in their own cause? What of this, that very many casuists — as Rutz, Villalobos, and Zerola, cited by the Salmanticenses — deny that penitents are bound to accept even a just penance? This opinion is false, and contrary to the tradition of the whole Church. Wherefore the common opinion of theologians is affirmative, and the opposite opinion enjoys no probability, whether extrinsic or intrinsic. Hence it is that penitents who should omit the penance imposed for mortal sins first confessed would sin mortally, as the common opinion teaches, whether the penance imposed be grave or light. For a penalty for deadly sins first confessed is by its own nature grave. And although a confessor through unskilfulness should impose only the Psalm Miserere for the said faults, he who should deliberately omit this penalty would sin gravely, because this penalty, as it is satisfactory, is an integral part of the sacrament, and imposed for deadly sins; and although it be materially light, it is nevertheless formally, so to speak, grave.

II. Similarly a penance imposed for venial sins, or for mortal sins otherwise confessed, is to be accepted by the penitent; and if he should deliberately omit it, he would sin gravely, whatever some say to the contrary. Since although the said sins be not necessary matter, yet, granted that the penitent subjects them to the keys as the matter of the sacrament, he ought to fulfil the parts of the sacrament. But satisfaction is an integral part of the sacrament.

III. They dispute at what time the penance is to be fulfilled. Some teach that it can be deferred for a year, when the confessor has not defined the time. This opinion is false. For in this case the penitent ought to pay the debt as soon as he can. If the confessor determines a time — the day of some feast, a week, a month, and so forth — the penance ought to be fulfilled within the prescribed time, unless a lawful impediment excuse.

IV. A penitent cannot commute for himself the penance imposed, or fulfil it through another, as some contend, whose opinion Alexander VII condemned, no. 15: A penitent can by his own authority substitute another who may fulfil the penance in his stead. Any confessor can commute penances, the confession nevertheless having been heard of the sins for which it was imposed. Wherefore he cannot commute this penance outside confession. Similarly he cannot commute a penance imposed by a superior for reserved sins, because, as the sins, so also the penance is reserved to him.

V. What is to be said of a crafty sinner who, on account of a grave penance, approaches another confessor, the former confession being concealed, and confesses again, that he may receive a lighter satisfaction? Fr. La Croix writes these things: “Dicastillo nevertheless, no. 119, thinks it not improbable that one confessing the same sins CAN KEEP SILENCE, and afterwards perform the penance which he shall have willed, the first or the second.” In this fashion buyers are wont to act. They explore several shops, and where it is sold at a lesser price, there they buy the wares. And those who sell in this fashion have a greater concourse, says St. Bernardine of Siena: It happens in confessions as in trade: as merchants who give at a lesser price have a greater concourse, and so forth. This opinion, which out of Dicastillo Fr. La Croix proposes without after his manner confuting it as false and favouring the craftiness of penitents and not the holy Scriptures, I reject with the common consent of theologians.

VI. QUESTION II. Are penances therefore suspect because they are enjoined by mendicants? ANSWER. That this calumny was formerly laid upon the mendicants is established from the following thesis 21 condemned by Alexander VIII: A parishioner can suspect concerning mendicants who live on common alms that they impose a too light and incongruous penance or satisfaction for the sake of gain or of temporal profit. Ancient is this calumny, which first of all Guilielmus de Sancto Amore laid upon the mendicants. As it is of extreme rashness and malice to form such a judgment concerning mendicants, so must it in the highest degree be watched and guarded against that occasion be afforded to none of forming so iniquitous a suspicion.