Article I. On the Obligation of Receiving the Eucharist

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Questions. - QUESTION 1. At what time does the divine precept of communicating urge?

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Resp. 1. It obliges per se in the article or proximate danger of death, and indeed under grave obligation. The reason is that the Eucharist was instituted as Viaticum, strengthening against the enemies of salvation. - Thus commonly with St. Ligorius, n. 295.

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Resp. 2. It obliges per se also several times in life. This is clear from the fact that the Eucharist was instituted in the manner of spiritual food, by which the soul may be nourished and strengthened; for food is to be taken more than once. It is also drawn from Sacred Scripture cited above, and from the Councils just adduced. Yet Christ did not determine how often one must approach this Sacrament, but left this to be established by His Church. But the Church established annual Communion in Easter time. Hence by Communion taken once in the year at that time the divine and ecclesiastical precept are satisfied at the same time. - St. Ligorius, n. 295.

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Resp. 3. This precept obliges per accidens sometimes, and perhaps also several times in the year, if the Eucharist is necessary for overcoming some grave temptation. Yet this rarely happens, since other means can suffice for this, prayers, penances, etc. - St. Ligorius, n. 295.

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- QUESTION 2. Whether one is bound to receive the sacred Viaticum when the danger of death is imminent, if a few days before he communicated from devotion?

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Resp. It seems that the answer must be affirmative, at least more probably. The reason is that this precept, from the interpretation of the Church, urges in danger of death, that we may be fortified by this divine aid against spiritual enemies. Therefore it is not fulfilled by Communion made before the illness; because although someone has fulfilled the prescribed work, nevertheless he did not fulfill it at the time at which he was bound. - St. Ligorius, n. 285. - Billuart. - Salmanticenses, etc.

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Yet several deny this with Lugo, disp. 15, n. 39. Their reason is that the precept of Communion has already been fulfilled in substance. - St. Ligorius says that this opinion is sufficiently probable, at least if the danger of death occurs naturally, because during that short preceding time it had already morally begun to be imminent, although it was unknown.

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QUESTION 3. Whether one who communicated in the morning from devotion is bound, or is able, when danger of death urges, to receive Viaticum.

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Resp. There is a threefold probable opinion according to Benedict XIV, On the Synod, lib. 7, c. 11.

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The first opinion affirms that he is bound, because then Viaticum must be received in order to fulfill the divine precept, which, since it did not yet urge at the time when Communion was taken, therefore could not be fulfilled through that reception.

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The second opinion says that he is not bound, but can communicate: 1. indeed, that he is not bound, because the time at which he communicated is morally the same, since it is the same day; 2. that he can, because although strictly he does not seem to be bound, nevertheless he is not therefore prohibited, since favors are to be enlarged.

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The third opinion contends that he is neither bound nor able to communicate. The reason is that, since the precept obliges from the intention of the Church, the practice of the Church is that no one communicate twice in a day; nor is there a reason why this case should be excepted. - See St. Ligorius, n. 285. - Therefore in practice one must stand for liberty ³.

³ ** To these [authors] the VV. oppose (p. 932, n. 96) these things of St. Alphonsus (lib. 6, n. 285, dub. 3): But moreover, the opinion of Lugo seems more probable to me, disp. 16, n. 53 and 54, who distinguishes between a natural and a violent disease, and says that if someone has been struck by a wound, or has fallen from a height, he can communicate (indeed, he is bound, according to our opinion), because here in reality he did not receive Viaticum while placed in the article of death; but otherwise if someone, already placed in sickness, communicated in the morning from devotion.

Resp. I concede the antecedent; and I deny the consequence. For the Holy Doctor had already premised (ibid.): Our Father Benedict XIV thinks all these three opinions probable (On the Synod, lib. 7, c. 12), saying thus: In so great a discrepancy of the opinions of Doctors, it will be free to the parish priest to embrace that opinion which has pleased him more. Now surely, if there is some probability in the other opinions, it does not perish because St. Doctor, in giving his opinion, wrote that one of them seemed to him more probable. Therefore it equally remains free to the parish priest to choose the opinion which he prefers.

I said, moreover: I concede the antecedent. For Lugo, whose opinion St. Alphonsus says that he prefers as more probable, rather than hold this opinion, altogether rejects it. For after bringing forward the opinion which grants that Communion can be given twice on the same day, he adds (On the Eucharist, disp. 16, n. 52): Therefore all Doctors teach the contrary opinion, either in common or even in particular, who, when they say that even he who communicated a little before can afterwards, when danger has arrived, communicate again, add the exception: Unless he communicated on the same day. Thus Suarez speaks, who adds that the contrary is not only against all Doctors, but also against the custom of the Church. Then, after bringing forward similar votes of others, he concludes: All others speak in the same way, with no one granting it for the same day; and from this common authority it does not seem easy to depart.

And indeed, after Lugo wrote these things (l.c., n. 53): If the discussion is about him who, already placed in sickness, communicated from devotion on that day, I do not see how Communion can be given again on the same day, he distinguishes another case, as St. Alphonsus has it, and writes (l.c., n. 54): But if the discussion is about him who was well in the morning, and, struck by a wound or suddenly seized by disease, dies in the evening, it could more apparently be said that he could communicate again; because in reality he had not yet received the Eucharist while placed in the article of death. These words St. Alphonsus transcribed as if they expressed the true opinion of Lugo.

In reality, however, there Lugo is merely proposing a difficulty which he undertakes to solve for himself. Hence he concludes that same paragraph by saying: The precept of receiving Viaticum does not oblige one to receive it when it cannot be received; but then it cannot be received on the same day because of the prohibition of the Church, because it is prohibited that anyone communicate several times on the same day.

Then Lugo proceeds to confirm the same opinion even to the end of the same section (n. 55 to 60); and especially (n. 57) he answers the reason which he had added in the difficulty objected to him. By Communion, he says, made a little before death, even without thought of danger or death, satisfaction has in reality been made for the precept of communicating at the end of life: just as in fact he satisfies it who, while well, knowing that he is to be killed tomorrow, communicates today.... Since therefore the danger is not increased from the fact that a man knows death to be imminent (for the danger is present in reality, although it is unknown), it must be admitted that even he for whom death was imminent on the same day in reality communicated in danger of death, although he was ignorant of it, and therefore satisfied the divine precept. Therefore the Church rightly did not dispense in the prohibition of communicating twice on the same day, since there was no necessity of a second Communion.

But to the principal foundation of the contrary opinion, which is taken from the obligation of the divine precept concerning receiving Viaticum, which ought to be preferred to the human precept prohibiting communicating twice on the same day, Lugo (ibid.) replies: The answer is easy: in that case satisfaction has already been made for the divine precept by the first Communion, as we said. Add that, even if satisfaction had not been made, the divine precept would not oblige one to receive again on the same day, while the contrary prohibition of the Church stands, just as it does not oblige one to celebrate without sacred vestments because of the prohibition of the Church. Hence Vasquez and others, who say that satisfaction had not yet been made for the divine precept, nevertheless do not concede that Communion ought or could be received again on the same day, but on the following day.

He also solves that which they object (ibid., n. 60), that this opinion is too rigid. I answer, he says, that the contrary opinion is more rigid, since it obliges under mortal sin to receive Communion again on the same day, on which the same sick person had already communicated. For what some say, following a middle way, that a second Communion can indeed be received, but ought not to be received from obligation, does not seem to be said with sufficient consistency. For if the precept of receiving Viaticum does not oblige, it does not appear from where that license of communicating several times against the universal prohibition is had, since it cannot be proved either from custom or from some law.

QUESTION 5. Whether in danger of death Communion is to be given to children who have not yet been admitted to the sacred Synaxis ⁴?

⁴ Doctors usually inquire in this place, not so much about children in danger of life, but generally about them, whether and when they are obliged by the precept of receiving the Eucharist.

The obvious and easy solution of this question will indeed seem to be available in this Decree of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council under Innocent III (cap. Omnis utriusque sexus): Every faithful person of either sex, after he has arrived at the years of discretion, shall confess all his sins alone once a year to his own priest..., receiving reverently at least at Easter the sacrament of the Eucharist. And this all the more because, for establishing this obligation, there came also the Tridentine canon striking with anathema those who would deny it. For thus the Holy Synod (sess. 13, can. IX): If anyone shall deny that all and individual faithful of Christ of either sex, when they have arrived at the years of discretion, are bound each year, at least at Easter, to communicate according to the precept of Holy Mother Church, let him be anathema.

Therefore concerning the obligation, which no one denies to be grave, it is sufficiently clear. It remains to inquire when children are to be considered to have arrived at the years of discretion, and what discretion is to be required in the present matter. But this can be known under a twofold head.

First, indeed, from the sense of the Doctors. Among these, St. Thomas, who flourished a little after the Lateran Synod, wrote these things (3, q. 80, a. 9, ad 3): When children now begin to have some use of reason, so that they can conceive devotion for this sacrament, then this sacrament can be conferred upon them. In these words carefully notice those expressions: begin to have, and some use of reason. Nor should it move you that the Holy Doctor requires children to be capable of devotion. For already in the body of the article he had said that only some devotion is required. Some, he says, are said not to have the use of reason in two ways: in one way, because they have a weak use of reason, just as one who sees badly is said not to see; and because such persons can conceive some devotion for this sacrament, this sacrament is not to be denied to them. From these things it is also clear that some use of reason is the same as a weak use of reason. And indeed from the same St. Thomas the celebrated rule was drawn among very many writers, that children can then be made participants in this sacrament when they know how to distinguish bread from bread. For thus the Holy Doctor (In 4, dist. 9, q. 1, a. 5, q. 4): It must be said that to children lacking the use of reason, who cannot distinguish between spiritual and corporal food, the Eucharist is not to be given.... But to children already beginning to have discretion, even before perfect age... this can be given, if signs of discretion and devotion appear in them.

This very thing you find in Dominic Soto, where (In 4, dist. 12, art. 9, at the end) he writes: But what is the lawful age at which little children can receive this Sacrament? There is no more certain rule than when, by the judgment of prudent men and especially of the Confessor, it appears that the child has reached the fork of the Pythagorean letter Y, namely that he can distinguish between good and evil, and therefore between this food and other secular foods.

And lest more be brought forward here, let it be enough to have heard Martin Ledesma, who expressed the common opinion of all in this way (In S. Thom., q. 80, a. 9, dub. 6): I say from the consent of all that the Eucharist is to be given to all having the use of reason, however early they have that use of reason, even though that child still confusedly knows what he does.

And the Roman Catechism is added (On the Eucharist, n. 62), which at last excepts from the precept of receiving the Eucharist only those who lack the use of reason. But, it says, although this law, sanctioned by the authority of God and of the Church, pertains to all the faithful, nevertheless it must be taught that those are excepted who do not yet have the use of reason because of the weakness of age.

The other thing from which it may be known what the years of discretion are, let it be the common sense not only of Doctors but of all men. And indeed not only Doctors, but all men agree in this, that the use of reason or the years of discretion are required even in a child so that he may be considered capable, and in reality be capable, 1. of sinning mortally, 2. of validly pronouncing vows which induce a grave obligation, 3. of validly receiving the sacrament of Penance. And if indeed scarcely any controversy exists concerning these things, and finally only this one thing is guarded, that a certain rule, by which sufficient use of reason or discretion may be presumed, must be defined from things commonly occurring, and thus, for example, betrothals are to be considered valid from a child in his eighth year (that is, after the seventh year has been completed), unless it is proved that someone has obtained the use of reason later, contrary to the ordinary laws of nature; indeed it does not appear why we ought to hesitate so greatly where the sense of the law given in the Lateran and Tridentine Councils is at issue.

And in reality St. Antoninus defined concerning this matter without any hesitation, and declared that a child, when he was capable of sinning mortally, was subject to the law of receiving the Sacraments both of Penance and of the Eucharist. Thus he says (part 3, tit. 14, cap. 12, sec. 5): But when he is capable of deceit (the child), namely when he can sin mortally, then he is obliged to the precept of Confession and consequently of Communion, which are given together.

Whence then, you will say, comes the disagreement of certain Authors who, although they all equally venerate the Decrees of the Church, nevertheless as if depart from them, and prolong somewhat the time of approaching the Eucharist? I answer that this seems to have happened from three causes, which nevertheless you would vehemently doubt can be approved by all. And first indeed some, which perhaps you would say must be attributed to special circumstances of places or times, thought that some use of reason arrives much later than now generally happens. Hence St. Antoninus (part 2, tit. IX, cap. VIII, sec. 2), asking: What, according to the Lateran decree, is called the year of discretion, in which someone is bound to confess? and premising that the Gloss on the said chapter Omnis says that the year of discretion is when one is capable of deceit; Richard in 4 says the same; and another certain one

holds the same, saying that one is capable of deceit when he has the use of reason and recognizes sin; the sign of which is that he gives ordered answers to one asking; but Hostiensis... says that children are bound to confess when they are capable of deceit and not otherwise; then he refutes those who said that the year of discretion is the eighth year, because, he says, in many persons in the eighth year the child does not yet have the use of reason. Hence he infers this: But it is certain that before the use of reason no one can sin nor is bound by laws; hence neither is such a one consequently bound to confess. But he adds his own opinion thus: And since each one is obliged by an equal precept to Communion as to Confession, as is clear from that Decretal itself, Blessed Thomas says in 4 Sent., that children around the eleventh or twelfth year, if signs of devotion appear in them, namely so that they know how to distinguish material bread from sacramental bread, can communicate: which he says because one is presumed already to have the use of reason, and not before. Into this place, perhaps from a less corrected codex of St. Thomas, an error crept in; for the text of St. Thomas (In 4, dist. 9, q. 1, art. 5, q. 4) does not have eleventh or twelfth, but tenth or eleventh, as, among others, Tabiena also read (word Communicate, n. 6), and Sylvester (word Eucharist III, n. 7). But this is little; for others (see Ledesma, l. sup. c.) judged that discretion of this kind was still lacking in children before the fourteenth year.

Another cause of this quasi-departure from the Lateran and Tridentine sanction we find in Soto; for although he somehow concedes (In 4, disp. 12, art. 9, at the end) that children are capable of the sacred Synaxis in the tenth year of age, and approves the opinion of Paludanus, who thinks them fit even in the ninth year (see Tabiena, word Communicate, n. 6), and even states that a very lively child in the eighth year cannot be prohibited from the sacred table, nevertheless, having established a certain general principle, that no one is obliged by the laws of the Church except in the twelfth year of age, he teaches that children are bound by neither the precept of Confession nor of Communion before this age. For thus he says (l.c., art. 11): But if you ask whether all Christians are obliged by this precept (namely, of the Lateran Synod), the first response is that children are not obliged up to the twelfth year, when they are bound by other ecclesiastical laws. For although a little before the dawn of reason they can receive it, nevertheless a greater age is required for obliging to the sacrament both of Penance and of the Eucharist. And after Soto, Valentia (tom. 4, disp. 6, q. 8, punct. 4) hands down the same thing thus: Certain things are to be noted here. The first is that before the twelfth year that precept of the Church does not oblige, as Soto well notes. For although even before that it happens to some to have that discretion of reason so that the Eucharist can indeed be given to them..., nevertheless before that time of age they do not have that discretion such that they are also bound to receive the Eucharist, or also to confess, says Soto. Yet he himself (l.c., punct. 2) had conceded that, speaking generally, children can be admitted to the Eucharist in the tenth year. But the time, he says, at which children can be admitted to the Eucharist is that when they begin to be strong with such use of reason that they can sufficiently distinguish this heavenly food from the rest. This ordinarily tends to happen around the tenth year of age, as Soto notes.

Finally, a third cause of thinking otherwise than the Lateran law seems to bear can be discerned in Suarez. For although he affirms that the opinion of Soto and Valentia is approved by him, namely that children can be fit for Communion, and yet are not therefore bound to it by law, nevertheless he does not seek the reason with Soto from some general principle concerning ecclesiastical laws not obliging before the twelfth year, but he uses other supports, to which perhaps in great part the confusion introduced into this question seems to be owed. It is better to hear him himself (On the Sacraments, disp. 70, sect. 1): Soto adds, and it is also approved by me, that not immediately when these children arrive at the age in which they can lawfully communicate are they bound to it, but after some time, for example after one or another year. Thus then he gives the reason for these things: For both the use of the Church seems to have declared this law thus; and it is consonant with reason that the Church not oblige as soon as it can, but grant the faculty of waiting for some time, either on account of the greater reverence of the Sacrament, or on account of the greater fruit of the receiver, or lest these children be exposed to the danger of transgression; and this will be done more safely if it is done by the counsel of the Confessor; for thus there will also be no discord from the words of the law.

Moreover, I said that it must be greatly doubted whether those three causes of delay can be approved. And as regards the first, even the few things which we touched upon above concerning defining the year of discretion more than sufficiently prove that the opinion of St. Antoninus in this matter is opposed to the common sense of all. And indeed from those things which are commonly handed down concerning the sufficiency of age and therefore of discretion in children, both for contracting obligations either of vow or of betrothals, and for sinning gravely and receiving the sacrament of Penance, an argument can be made a fortiori as regards the capacity of receiving the Eucharist. For who does not see that, for having that some sense of devotion, as St. Thomas says, which alone is required for receiving the Eucharist worthily, a much smaller discretion suffices than either for conceiving the affections necessary for validly receiving the sacrament of Penance, or for perceiving the force of a grave obligation in vows and betrothals?

But as regards Soto's opinion, which denies that children are bound by ecclesiastical laws before the twelfth year of age, this, as is clear, has the common opinion of Doctors against it. Concerning this matter Suarez also (On Penance, disp. 56, sect. 2, n. 3) has this: Some think that they (children) are not bound by this precept (of Confession); indeed Soto rather says that children before the twelfth year are not bound by this precept, for which he brings forward no reason.... But it must be said that every one who knows how to sin mortally is bound by this precept; hence, just as no certain age can be designated in which a man arrives at the use of reason and is able to discern between good and evil, but some use reason earlier, others later (which is to be discerned by the judgment of a prudent man), so no certain age can be prescribed in which a man begins to be bound by this precept. This is the common doctrine.... The Gloss and Canonists also agree on the said cap. Omnis utriusque sexus, and Soto too finally thinks the same, d. 18, q. 1, a. 3, at the end. It is proved from the words of the text: When he shall have arrived at the years of discretion; for years of discretion signify the age in which a man knows how to sin. Secondly, because these are bound by a precept of divine law; but this precept is the determination of that precept, as was said. Thirdly, these can be bound by other precepts of the Church, at least as to directive force, whatever Soto may say; for they are bound to hear Mass on feasts, and to abstain from flesh-meats on a prohibited day: why therefore will they not be bound by this precept, especially necessary? But what Suarez says, that Soto too finally agrees in this, pertains to defining the year of discretion and the obligation of confessing. For Soto has these things (l.c.): But concerning that word of the Decretal, After they shall have arrived at the years of discretion, there is no need to dispute. For it does not designate a certain time, such as twelve or fourteen years, as for contracting matrimony, but as soon as the child has been capable of deceit, namely if he has begun to discern between good and evil, and by the judgment of prudent men sins mortally. And the reason is clear: for since the necessity of the precept of Confession, both divine and human, arises from its necessity for salvation, as soon as a man incurs the necessity of salvation, he is also bound to Confession both once a year and in the article of death. Yet it is true that up to the twelfth year of age the Church would compel no one to Confession by censures, although it knows that even before that one can sin...; for from seven years, when infancy ends and childhood begins, they can sin. These last things agree with those which we brought forward above from him, namely that a lively child even in the eighth year can be capable of Communion.

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Finally, to touch upon the opinion of Suarez, truly this could deservedly seem perhaps less reasonable than the preceding opinions of St. Antoninus and Soto. And indeed those opinions, after the principles established by them, at least cohere with themselves. But Suarez indeed admits with Soto that one or another year can be waited even when children could already before that lawfully approach to receive the Eucharist; yet he does not receive the reason brought forward by Soto, namely that children are not bound to observe ecclesiastical laws before the twelfth year; rather, he expressly rejects and refutes it. By what way therefore, or by what reason, does he exempt children, even according to his own opinion fit for Communion, from the obligation of Communion, which the Ecumenical Synods, Lateran and Tridentine, so manifestly proclaim? He has recourse, as we saw above, 1. to the use of the Church; 2. to the congruity of the matter; of which congruity he brings forward a threefold reason, namely 1. greater reverence, 2. greater fruit of the receiver, 3. danger of transgression.

Now, to begin from this last, if he judges that the Church did not wish to oblige children before the twelfth year because of the danger of transgression, namely because a less mature age will easily omit fulfilling the precept, why does he reject the doctrine of Soto, who for exactly this reason denied that that immature age is capable of obligation? Why does he oppose to the same Soto the obligations either of Confession, or of abstinence from flesh-meats, or of hearing Mass, by which he contends that children before the twelfth year are bound? Indeed, if the Church for this cause defers, as he thinks, the obligation of Communion, by stronger right other obligations would have to be deferred; for much more easily, as experience suggests, it will happen that children transgress the precept of hearing Mass on feast days, or of abstaining from flesh-meats.

But what is said about greater reverence is light. For either the child before the twelfth year is considered to furnish sufficient reverence, or he is not. If he does not furnish sufficient reverence, why does Suarez himself concede that even then he can approach to Communion? But if he presents sufficient reverence, why does he exempt him from this grave precept? With the course of age, he says, greater reverence will come. But this reason proves too much. For with equal right another will oppose that greater reverence will be present in the twentieth year than in the twelfth. Will it therefore be lawful, under the pretext of greater reverence, to defer Communion up to that age, the law of the Church being postponed? St. Thomas, as we said above, teaches that one capable of some devotion, not of greater devotion, is bound by the Decree of the Church; and, as Paludanus says (see Tabiena, word Communicate, n. 6), innocence compensates for ignorance in children.

But the reason sought from the greater fruit of the receiver, if Communion is deferred, in the first place labors under the same fault as the preceding reason, and proves too much. Moreover it limps also for this reason, that it somehow supposes that the greater fruit which perhaps is hoped for at a more adult age is hindered by the lesser fruit which is received earlier. But this of itself is altogether false. Finally, it is necessary to remember that the Eucharist is numbered among the Sacraments of the New Law, which confer both sanctifying and sacramental grace ex opere operato, whenever they do not find an obstacle in the one receiving. But although perhaps it can be conjectured that some greater fruit, which may come ex opere operantis, is to be expected from a less tender age, yet will not something more of an obstacle have to be feared from that very age in which the vices of corrupt nature begin to grow, whereas on the contrary the innocence of a more tender age, as the old Doctors used to say, compensates for ignorance? But besides, cause yourself to recall to memory the singular charisms of this Sacrament and its proper fruits (above, n. 275), and that from Christ's institution it is the nourishment and strength of spiritual life, and the antidote of sins and vices. Therefore, under the imagined pretext of some greater fruit, will it be better to have deprived childhood of these excellent and at the same time necessary aids, and of the most abundant supply of graces, by which its innocence may be preserved and fortified?

Finally, as to what is objected concerning common use, which is the interpreter of law: if indeed it is taken for the custom by which children are generally admitted to Confession before participation in the Eucharist, this is easily conceded; nor is a just reason for this custom lacking. Since by the consent of all it pertains especially to the Confessor to judge whether children are capable of deceit and therefore fit for the reception of the Sacraments, and at the same time in this way the danger is absent lest the sacrament be conferred on the incapable, certainly they are most wisely sent to Confession beforehand. But if it is understood as a custom of deferring Communion beyond that age at which the child is capable of it, you would better say that this is an abuse to be ascribed both to negligence and to the prejudged opinion of certain persons, rather than a custom of the Church.

And indeed Suarez himself (cited disp. 70, sect. 1) had premised these things: Almost all agree in this, that this obligation cannot be defined generally by the ages of men, or by the number of years.... Often before the twelfth year of age many are so capable of deceit, and so instructed in the things of faith, THAT WITHOUT DOUBT THEY ARE BOUND BY THIS PRECEPT. And then he adds that this happens also in the tenth year, that is, after the ninth has been completed. But if, as he himself admits, almost all Doctors agree (we shall of course except Soto, whom Suarez there also refutes) that the obligation is to be taken from age, to what purpose is the abuse of those who defer Communion further than age requires thrust upon us as a legitimate custom of the Church? He adds (ibid.) that it is consonant with reason that the Church not oblige as soon as it can. Indeed we would confess that these things were excellently said where the mind of the Church had to be conjectured from plainly uncertain indications. But after the Church, most manifestly opening its mind, not only could oblige to receiving the Eucharist, but in reality obliged all whoever had arrived at the years of discretion, and moreover struck with anathema those denying this obligation, what place of doubting concerning this, I ask, now remains? Or shall we say that the Church, when it obliged as soon as it scarcely could oblige, performed something less consonant with reason?

Nor is there any need to linger over certain persons who, after Suarez, recall here those words of the Lateran Decree: Unless perhaps by the counsel of his own priest, for some reasonable cause, he should judge that he must abstain for a time from reception of this kind: as if indeed from these words there is made a free power for the confessor of exempting from the obligation those who otherwise are capable and are obliged. For certainly, to use the words of St. Antoninus (part 2, cap. 9, sec. 1), according as the Confessor can perceive from their confession concerning their greater or lesser use of reason, so he can and ought to counsel them or bind (namely oblige) them to Communion; where he also warns parents and schoolmasters (ibid.) that they ought well to exhort them if they see them to have good discretion, or to leave them to the judgment of their Confessors; and finally he adds that very grave thing also: But by drawing them back solely from this, that they are small, and because it is not according to the custom of the country that they communicate, however much they have the use of reason, they sin gravely. But it is one thing that it is deferred to the Confessor's judgment concerning sufficient use of reason; another thing that the Confessor can exempt from the obligation those who have attained the use of reason. But what the cited words of Innocent III have regard to is obvious; namely when, as Gonzalez notes (On the Decretals, lib. V, tit. 38, cap. VII), the Confessor defers absolution, that he may test whether the penitent's purpose is firm, or because he has judged it unjust to absolve him until the penitent avoids the proximate occasion of sin: in which cases a faithful person not communicating at Easter will in no way be guilty of the ecclesiastical precept, nor will he suffer the penalties imposed in the present law. And in like manner it is obvious that those words do not regard children; for since Innocent says, Unless perhaps... by the counsel of the Confessor he should judge that he must abstain, it is absurd to understand this concerning those children who are led in these matters not by their own judgment but by another's.

Moreover, once that anomalous opinion of Soto concerning children exempt from any ecclesiastical law before the twelfth year has been rejected, and the other little reasons by which Suarez contends that delay can be conceded to children who from the common opinion are obliged have been put aside, there remains the opinion in which, after St. Thomas, Doctors commonly agree, as St. Alphonsus also affirms (lib. 6, n. 301): that children ten years old are regularly both fit for participation in the Eucharist, and therefore capable of this obligation. Concerning this matter the same St. Alphonsus, after he reported from the Ninth Synod of Milan the admonition of St. Charles that Parish Priests should summon those who have reached the tenth year (note well: have reached, not completed), instruct them for knowledge of the Eucharist, and teach them with what reverence they should approach it, gives this reason why it was said regularly: For, he says, as the Doctors note, children can be obliged earlier who before such (namely, the tenth) age are seen to be more perspicacious. Hence Bonacina rightly reproves parish priests who indiscriminately do not admit to Communion except children constituted in a certain age.

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- QUESTION 4. Whether the Eucharist can be given to a sick person who labors under a cough?

Cited by 1 passage

Bucceroni, Moral Enchiridion, On the Eucharist, ¶ 26

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

Resp. Affirmatively, because the danger that the sacred species be rejected together with phlegm is for the most part absent. And the reason is that the path by which spittle is expelled by coughing is not the esophagus, that is, the path by which food and drink are conveyed into the stomach, but is the rough artery, by which respiration extends even to the lungs. Yet if the cough is so continual that it prevents the host from being able to be transmitted into the stomach, then Communion must be abstained from. - Thus the Roman Ritual. - St. Ligorius, n. 292.

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

But when the sick person labors under continual vomiting, he cannot communicate unless perhaps he has been free from vomiting for at least six hours. But in doubt whether the sick person is going to vomit back the sacred particle, it must not be given to him. - St. Ligorius, n. 291.

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

Resp. 1. No, if they have not yet attained the use of reason. The reason is that this is against the present discipline of the Church.

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

Resp. 2. Affirmatively with respect to children who are in possession of reason. Indeed not only can Communion be given to them, but it also ought to be given. The reason is that on the one hand children placed in such danger are bound by divine precept to communicate; on the other hand the utility of the Eucharist then does not demand a greater disposition. Therefore Parish Priests err gravely who are unwilling to administer Viaticum of this kind to children. - St. Ligorius, n. 301. - Billuart, diss. 6, art. 1. - Gousset, n. 233.

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

- QUESTION 6. Whether Communion in danger of death is to be given to the insane, the semi-fatuous, the delirious, and those deprived of senses?

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

Resp. 1. Concerning the insane: 1. If they have been perpetually insane, Communion is never to be given to them. Thus from the Roman Ritual on the Eucharist. 2. If they often have lucid intervals, and have manifested a desire of communicating, Communion can be given to them; indeed it ought to be given, with the danger of irreverence removed. - St. Thomas, part 3, q. 80, art. 9. - Catechism of the Council of Trent. - St. Ligorius, n. 302.

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

Resp. 2. Concerning the semi-fatuous, Communion is to be given to them when they have sufficient discretion, so that they distinguish this heavenly food from others; but rarely, namely only in the article of death, and where the strict precept of communicating urges. - St. Ligorius, n. 303, and others commonly ⁵.

⁵ I have found no one earlier than Henry Henriquez who teaches that to those who have sufficient discretion to distinguish the heavenly food from others, Communion is to be permitted only once a year. And Henriquez indeed, according to his own manner, alleges in a note a long series of Authors (Summa, lib. 8, cap. 42, n. 3) as if for that opinion. But they do unanimously affirm that the Eucharist is to be supplied to these semi-fatuous persons, among whom Henriquez also numbers Ethiopians; yet none of them grants only Easter Communion. And from this it seems to have happened that afterwards certain others adhered to this opinion as if commonly received; although Laymann, departing from them (lib. 5, tr. 4, cap. 5, n. 4), said that these are to be admitted to the Eucharist at least at Easter. Meanwhile, however, no solid reason for this doctrine is brought forward; and on the contrary John Sanchez rightly attacks Henriquez thus (Select Disputations, 26, n. 5): Nor do I know by what reason Henriquez thinks that frequency of Communion must be denied to the foolish (he means those whom Henriquez calls semi-fatuous), if he once concedes that it ought to be given at Easter: for if, when they communicate once, they commit no irreverence, neither will they commit it by communicating several times, since both the man receiving and the sacrament received are always one and the same. Nor can I imagine how by communicating today there arises anew an irreverence which did not arise yesterday by receiving the Eucharist, while the action is the same in species, the sacrament the same, and the man who receives is with the same use of reason today as he was yesterday. Does he approach irreverently the second time, who approaches with grace acquired from the first Communion?

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Resp. 3. Concerning the delirious, Communion can be given to them if they are able to communicate, with the danger of irreverence removed. But the best practice is that beforehand a non-consecrated particle be given to the sick person, and so it may appear whether he can communicate becomingly. - St. Ligorius, n. 292.

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Resp. 4. Concerning those deprived of senses: they are indeed dispensed from the precept, since they are capable of observing no law. But therefore the Pastor is not dispensed from the obligation of ministering the Eucharist to them, if before the loss of reason they were disposed. For the Sacraments operate ex opere operato in those who desired to receive them before they lost the use of reason. Yet except the case if danger of irreverence is present, or if it is feared that they are not able to swallow the Host. - Thus commonly. - Gousset, n. 232.

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- QUESTION 7. Whether Communion is to be given to deaf-mutes, the possessed, and epileptics?

Annual Confession and Easter Communion Easter Communion

Resp. 1. Concerning deaf-mutes: Affirmatively, if from signs it is clear that they have discretion and are sufficiently instructed. But if they enjoy not just any sort, but some sufficient discretion, they will be able to communicate more often. - Thus commonly with St. Ligorius, n. 303.

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Resp. 2. Concerning the possessed, a distinction must be made: Communion is to be denied to them when they are not masters of themselves; otherwise it is to be granted. Indeed it is expedient that such persons communicate more often according to the prudence of the Confessor, since the Eucharist is a special remedy for driving away demons.