Chapter VII — On the causes excusing from the material integrity of confession. On a dying man destitute of his senses, and on confessions to be repeated. Lax opinions are refuted

I. QUESTION I. What are the causes excusing from the material integrity of confession? ANSWER. The following. 1. Physical impotence, by force of which are excused, first, those who labour under invincible ignorance; second, the dumb; third, those who during confession suffer a fainting; fourth, those ignorant of the confessor's idiom, if other ministers be lacking; fifth, those who, war, fire, or shipwreck being imminent, are destitute of time for confessing wholly; sixth, as often as there is grave danger in delay, suppose in a shipwreck. In this case, if there be several penitents, let the priest say: I absolve you, and so forth.

II. Moral impotence also excuses from material integrity: first, when a priest cannot without breaking the seal lay open some sin; second, a sick man infected with a contagious disease, whose confession cannot be heard even from afar; third, when from a whole confession a sick man would be gravely oppressed; fourth, when from a whole manifestation of sins a most grave detriment would threaten the confessor or the penitent.

III. QUESTION II. What is to be said of the opinion asserting that a great frequency of penitents by reason of a solemnity excuses from material integrity? ANSWER. These things Fr. George Gobat teaches, tract 6, no. 479: “Fr. Coninck, Book 6, no. 98, denies that the opinion is probable of those who think that, when there is present so great a multitude of persons wishing to confess for some celebrated feast that the priest cannot satisfy all by hearing all wholly, he can say to each that they lay open only the graver of their mortal sins and defer the rest to another time. I think, subject to a better judgment, that that opinion can probably be sustained, in the case in which many came from far off for the sake of obtaining some great indulgence which requires confession and communion.”

IV. This opinion Innocent XI condemned in this 59th thesis: It is lawful sacramentally to absolve those who have confessed only by halves, by reason of a great concourse of penitents, such as, for example, can happen on the day of some great solemnity or indulgence.

V. A man hindered from approaching a superior is not excused from material integrity, so that he can be absolved by an inferior priest from the remaining sins with the burden of afterwards approaching the superior. Nor can he manifest to the superior the reserved sins alone and be absolved from them, and confess the remaining sins to an inferior priest. The opposite opinion authors commonly disapprove.

VI. QUESTION III. Ought the person of an accomplice to be manifested in confession? ANSWER. Never without necessity. Wherefore when the circumstance of an accomplice is to be manifested, a penitent ought, while he can, to seek out a confessor to whom the person of the accomplice is unknown. If he cannot find such a confessor, he ought to manifest the accomplice. This has always been the discipline of the Church, as Morinus, Book 2, chapter 11 and following, lays open. For the accomplice by sinning ceded his own right. So St. Thomas teaches, II-II, q. 73, art. 2. Besides, a penitent, either for his own or for his accomplice's benefit, can manifest the accomplice himself to the confessor.

VII. QUESTION IV. Can a dying man destitute of his senses be absolved, when he asked for confession before the priest's arrival? ANSWER. All commonly affirm it. Even if he did not expressly ask, if nevertheless he beat his breast, or give signs of confession, he is to be absolved.

VIII. QUESTION V. Is a dying man suddenly destitute of his senses, who neither asked nor gave signs of confession, to be absolved, if nevertheless he lived piously and in Christian fashion? ANSWER. Very many and grave theologians affirm it; and John Morinus above the rest illustrated this affirmative opinion, Book 10, chapter 10. Very many others on the contrary deny it. The arguments of each opinion I have given in Vol. IX, dissertation 4, chapter 10.

IX. In few words I now touch upon the matter. The opinion denying seems to me the more probable; since Christ instituted this sacrament after the manner of a sensible and human judgment. When God wills the salvation of someone, he wills by the same will also the means which he himself prescribes. Therefore when he wills the salvation of someone, he grants him time in which he may exhibit such signs that he can by right be absolved. The matter of the sacrament is the acts of the penitent. If these be lacking, the matter is lacking. And just as, water being lacking, Baptism cannot be administered, so, the acts of the penitent being taken away, the sacrament of Penance cannot be performed. The testimony of St. Augustine which is produced for the affirmative opinion speaks of a catechumen, or of a penitent who by voice or by works had asked for absolution.

X. QUESTION VI. What is to be said of the opinion of Fr. Gormaz? ANSWER. I judge probable the opinion of those who defend that Christians destitute of their senses, whose excellent life is established, are to be absolved. But Fr. John Baptist Gormaz goes further, who, disputation 5, section 1, § 1, page 775 and following, teaches this: “It follows sixthly that he also is to be absolved concerning whom it is not established whether he foresaw the peril of life, whether he lived well or ill, if he is found destitute of his senses and near to death. … Wherefore even if perchance someone, while ACTUALLY SINNING, be suddenly deprived of his senses, he is REGULARLY not to be dismissed without absolution, since it most rarely happens that a man near to death should not wish to consult his own salvation at least by attrition, which it is not established that he inwardly lacks, although externally he be deprived of sense: for by the condition an injury to the sacrament is avoided, and so forth. So Bonagratia cited above. See Gobat, tract 7, nos. 577 to 625.”

XI. Are wicked and outrageous Christians therefore regularly to be absolved who, ACTUALLY SINNING, are destitute of their senses in a duel, in fornication, in adultery, in blasphemy, and wearied in the way of iniquity? Does a sinner actually fornicating wish to consult his own salvation at least by attrition? But even the laxer casuists teach that the precept of contrition presses in the article of death. Besides, is not attrition a supernatural gift of God? And will God give this gift to a sinner actually committing adultery? If God permitted him to fall into sin, how can it be presumed that in that same moment God wills regularly to impart to him such a gift?

XII. QUESTION VII. What is to be said of the opinion of Fr. Gobat, by which he eludes the decree of his own Society forbidding the absolution of a dying man destitute of his senses? ANSWER. Fr. Gormaz cites Fr. Gobat; Fr. Gobat cites, tract 7, no. 601, the decree of his own illustrious Society in these words: “Sixthly, the superiors of our Society have most recently and deservedly inhibited their own from teaching hereafter this proposition: A dying man, even if he give or have given no sign of contrition, so that the priest neither knows nor can prudently think that some sensible confession preceded, can be absolved.” Two things Fr. Gobat devised, that he might elude this prudent decree. Behold his words in the place cited, no. 604: “Moreover, concerning that ordination of our Order of which we have spoken in the preceding number, two things are to be noted. First, that it speaks of a case in which it cannot prudently be presumed that he gave a sign. … The other, that the ordination EXPRESSLY only forbids that that opinion BE TAUGHT, not expressly that it BE NOT PRACTISED.” Do you wish for prettier things? What? If even the decrees of his own Society are eluded with witty figments, what obedience can extraneous decrees expect? I pass over in deep silence the corollaries which hence proceed of their own accord. Will they say that the text of Fr. Gobat has been less sincerely produced? I beg all to read in the fount Gobat, and Gormaz, and La Croix, and Viva, and all whom I cite in this work.

XIII. QUESTION VIII. Is there given a valid but formless confession? ANSWER. They call that sacrament valid but formless which has all the parts essential to validity, but on account of the indisposition of the subject does not confer the effect of grace. Very many theologians defend that there is given a valid but formless confession; very many deny it. The question is merely speculative.

XIV. QUESTION IX. In what case is confession to be repeated? ANSWER. In very many cases. 1. If sufficient grief was lacking. 2. If a penitent knowingly keep silence about some sin. 3. If through mortally culpable negligence some mortal sin was omitted. 4. If a man confess for a depraved end. 5. If a man gravely lied in confession. 6. If, being conscious of an excommunication, whether greater or lesser, he conceal it. 7. Those who solicitously seek out half-learned or too kindly confessors, that they may obtain absolution from the sins into which they frequently relapse, most certainly make sacrilegious confessions. If a confessor from a frequency of confessions and communions sees no reformation of morals, nor amendment of outrages, but the same crimes perpetrated thereabouts, let him not doubt, but judge the confessions to be sacrilegious.