Chapter II — On the obligation by which Confessors are bound to enlighten penitents laboring under an invincibly erroneous conscience. Lax opinions are refuted

I. All theologians teach that penitents laboring under vincible ignorance must be instructed. The dispute concerns invincible ignorance alone. The precept of fraternal correction must be distinguished from the precept of giving instruction to the penitent, who is to receive the Sacrament of penance. The former, when hope of profit is wanting, does not press; but the latter binds even when the hope of amendment has been removed, on account of the reverence due to the Sacrament. All likewise teach that those penitents must be enlightened who labor under ignorance of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Eucharist, and of the supernatural sorrow necessary for sacramental confession.

II. Sanchez, Lugo, Tamburini, the Salmanticenses, and Sporer defend the position that Confessors are not bound — nay, that they ought not — to enlighten penitents laboring under invincible ignorance of the mysteries which are not necessary with the necessity of means, and of the other truths of law, whether positive or natural.

III. This opinion seems to me false. All Christians are bound by a most grave precept to learn the truths necessary for the forming of our morals. Therefore Confessors ought to manifest truths of this kind to penitents who are ignorant of them. By what reason, I ask, can Confessors dissemble the manifestation of these truths? Perhaps because they foresee that their penitents are unprepared to receive it? Then those penitents are violators of the precept of learning and finding the truth, and are therefore unprepared to receive the Sacrament. I set the matter forth perspicuously. Just as the Confessor in the tribunal sustains the person of a judge, to absolve or to bind; of a physician, to heal wounds; of a doctor, to enlighten, instruct, and teach: so penitents approach this tribunal as guilty men to be absolved, as sick men to be healed, as ignorant men to be enlightened, instructed, and corrected. If the Confessor foresees that they are so unteachable and so given over to depraved desires that he hopes for no profit from the manifestation of the truth, by what reason can he presume them disposed and prepared for the Sacrament? He foresees them unteachable, rebels against the light, and obstinate in their ignorance — and at the same time he will judge these same men worthy to receive the Sacrament of penance?

IV. The Adversaries are pressed more closely. They all teach that the truth must be laid open when penitents labor under a vincibly erroneous conscience. But when penitents are foreseen to be unprepared, and rebels against receiving the manifestation of the truth, forthwith their ignorance, which until then was invincible, becomes vincible and crass. Therefore, even according to their own principles, the Confessor sins gravely if he does not manifest the truth; and the penitents receiving the Sacrament are sacrilegious. I prove the minor. Ignorance is vincible, according to all, when a way lies open to Christians of learning the truth of which they are ignorant; in our case this way lies open; therefore, if Christians refuse to learn this truth from the Confessor, their ignorance becomes vincible and crass. All this is most luminous.¹

¹ See Tome 2 of the Apparatus, Dissertation I, chapter 4.

V. The writers cited teach that penitents are not to be admonished by their Confessors who in good faith possess the goods of others, who enter upon usurious contracts, who practice pollutions in good faith, whenever it is foreseen that the manifestation of the truth will harm, and not profit, the penitent. Nay, some add — among them Tamburini — that the truth is not to be manifested even if the penitents would make right use of the knowledge, when the remedy is most difficult and infamy or scandal is feared. If a dying man, they say, is ignorant that he has heaped up a great sum of money by usuries and unjust contracts, and it is foreseen that, if admonished by the Confessor, he will not make restitution, then he is to be left in his ignorance. Tamburini says that this doctrine is especially necessary, above all to the Confessors of Princes and of Merchants; but it must be spat out as false.

VI. They object, first: when the manifestation of the truth is foreseen to be harmful and not profitable, no just end of revealing the truth presents itself; nay, say the Salmanticenses, treatise 20, chapter 5, point 3, number 27, in that case Confessors administer poison, while they seem to apply medicine. Answer. Christ the Lord foresaw that few would receive his law, and that very many would be rebels against it: did he for that reason abstain from promulgating it? Is there no just end of revealing the truth? Is it not a just end to guard the Sacraments, lest they be profaned by the unworthy and the blinded, who refuse to open their eyes to the light that freely offers itself?

VII. They object, secondly, the authority of St. Augustine, found in the chapter Si quis, On penance, distinction 7, saying: If I knew that it would not profit thee, I would not admonish thee, I would not terrify thee. Answer. St. Augustine speaks of fraternal correction, say some. But the holy Doctor there discourses of a dying man, to whom he urges penance; and he adds that he does not know whether it will profit him. For if he knew it would not profit, he would not urge it. Ignorantly, therefore, is this authority brought against us.²

² See Tome 2 of the Apparatus, Dissertation 1, chapter 4.

VIII. They oppose, thirdly: Innocent III, in the chapter Quia circa, On consanguinity and affinity, says: Thou mayest dissemble, that he may remain in the union thus contracted, since from a separation, as thou assertest, grave scandal may threaten. Answer. Some say that the Pontiff speaks of a Bishop or a Parish priest, not of a Confessor. Leaving this response aside, the true one is presented. The entire text of the Pontiff in the place cited is this: Further, concerning the man N., for whose dispensation — that is, the indulgence of remaining with her who touches him in the fifth degree of consanguinity — to be obtained from the apostolic See, a false cause was alleged to us, namely offspring; whereas before the dispensation was obtained, the only daughter whom he had had entered the way of all flesh, as thy consultation stated: thou mayest dissemble, that he may remain in the union thus contracted, since from a separation (as thou assertest) thou seest grave scandal to threaten. It is evident that the Pontiff approves the dispensation — which otherwise, on account of the falsely stated cause, was null — in order to guard against the scandal which he foresaw would arise from the separation of the spouses. See what the Gloss teaches in the same place.³ Ineptly does Navarrus cavil at this dispensation, as has been demonstrated in the place cited by the most luminous reasons. Wherefore the Casuists named wrongly oppose to us the testimonies both of Augustine and of Innocent.

³ See Tome 2 of the Apparatus, Dissertation 1, chapter 4, number 28 and following.

IX. I sum the matter up in few words. Confessors, that they may be able to absolve their penitents, must of necessity form this judgment: namely, that they approach that tribunal with a sincere heart and a contrite soul; that they sincerely will to observe all the commandments of the Law; that they are prepared to receive instruction in all the truths which the divine law commands to be known and kept. With these dispositions Confessors must presume their penitents to be adorned. Therefore they can in no way presume them adverse and rebellious to receiving the knowledge of the divine Law and of the precepts of which they labor in ignorance. But if they presume them such, it necessarily follows that they must also judge them most unworthy of the reception of the Sacraments. See more in the place cited.

X. Bertha married in good faith. Her marriage, on account of a hidden impediment, is null. If she be admonished of the impediment, she is placed in a proximate occasion of fornicating. If she refuse to render the debt, either she is killed by her husband, or mutual enmities and infamies arise between the families.

XI. Not a few devise cases occurring either never, or most rarely, that they may extort some decision, which they afterwards apply to cases happening everywhere. The Confessor sitting before the tribunal, before he absolves Bertha, ought to admonish her. She will be placed, you say, in a proximate occasion of fornicating, because she cannot be separated without scandal. This occasion will be a necessary one, not a free one; and by opportune remedies continence can be observed, until a dispensation be obtained.⁴

⁴ See Tome 2 of the Apparatus, Dissertation 1, chapter 4, number 48.