Chapter I. On the Nature of Penance

412. Penance, considered generally, signifies the same as sorrow of soul, which anyone experiences after he has done or omitted something which he would wish not to have done or not to have omitted. But in the strict and proper sense, penance is sorrow of soul insofar as it is referred to God offended and hostile to us ¹.

¹ Take care to distinguish properly the twofold sense in which an offense against God is the formal object now of charity, now of penance; otherwise you may perhaps fall into the false doctrine which finds penance only where there is contrition perfected by charity. Cardinal De Lugo speaks well concerning these things: It is one thing, and a far different one, to detest sin because it is opposed to God, or because it is an evil of God, at least extrinsically, and because it displeases God, which pertains to charity; but it is another thing to detest sin because it offends God, or because it provokes God and turns Him away from man, which pertains to this other virtue of Penance.... For even among men these two things are distinguished, and I can be unwilling to offend another lest I reasonably render him averse to me, although otherwise I have no friendship with him nor desire to have it; for friendship tends to avoid his evil because it is his evil; but this other virtue tends formally to avoid an offense, not because it is his evil, but rather because it is evil and dishonorable for me to have another reasonably averse to me (On Penance, disp. 2, no. 52).

But he had previously explained the object of Penance more clearly thus (ibid., nos. 50-51): Even among men another virtue inclines one to remove an offense, which prohibits giving someone a sufficient and reasonable cause of indignation and aversion..., and inclines one also to remove it when it has been committed, by offering sufficient satisfaction through acts of service, through a petition for pardon, and other similar things according to the magnitude of the offense; for when this satisfaction has been made, the offense is extinguished. For if the offended person were harsh in accepting satisfaction, prudent men would nevertheless no longer judge him to remain reasonably averse, but entirely unreasonably so.... This being supposed, we say that there is another similar virtue of man toward God, which inclines one to have peace with God, or to avoid an offense against God and to remove it by every means when it has been committed. Its formal object is the goodness of peace with God, or not to have God averse and indignant. But since God is offended by all sins, this virtue hates all of them under that formal aspect, because they are offenses against God; and it endeavors to remove all of them, so that it may again have God pacified and appeased. And therefore it is called a reconciliatory virtue, because it tends to this, that it may reconcile to us the God who is averse.... But that this virtue is Penance is proved from the fact that, etc. And in this sense indeed the Author is to be understood when he presently adds that Penance is a moral virtue which inclines to the detestation of sin insofar as it is an offense against God, namely, insofar as it renders God averse and indignant toward us.

I. Penance, as a virtue, is defined: A moral virtue inclining to the detestation of sin insofar as it is an offense against God, and to an efficacious purpose of avoiding it in the future and of satisfying divine justice.

Penance is necessary for the sinner by a necessity of means for salvation. For in the present economy it is repugnant that an impenitent sinner be received by God into friendship.

It is also necessary by a necessity of divine precept, as is clear from many testimonies of Sacred Scripture, for example, Luke 13.5: Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish, etc.

The effect of penance ², however, is twofold: 1. the remission of sins, as is established from six hundred passages of Sacred Scripture; 2. the remission of eternal punishment. For a justified man cannot be liable to eternal punishment. This is also established from Trent, sess. 6, ch. 7.

² Understand this of perfect penance, namely, that which leads to those acts of service by which God Himself has revealed that, from His immense mercy, He is appeased and reconciled with sinful man.

II. Penance, as a Sacrament, is defined: A Sacrament of the new law instituted by Christ after the manner of a judgment, for remitting, through priestly absolution, to a contrite man who has confessed, sins committed after

Baptism.

This Sacrament differs from the others especially in this, that it is administered after the manner of a judgment; for there is present the penitent, at once the accused, witness, and accuser; and the Priest, the judge pronouncing sentence.

413. Things to be established. - I. Penance is a true Sacrament of the new law.

This is established, 1. from theological reason; for in it are found all the things which constitute a true Sacrament, namely: 1. A sensible sign through confession, or certainly through the absolution of the Priest, etc. 2. The institution of Christ in a permanent manner, as is clear from the text John 20.23: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. 3. The promise of grace; this is clear from the remission of sins, since sins cannot be remitted without the infusion of grace.

This is established, 2. from constant tradition and the doctrine of the Fathers, to which is added the express definition of the Church; for thus Trent, sess. 14, can. 1: If anyone says that in the Catholic Church Penance is not truly and properly a Sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord for reconciling to God the faithful as often as they fall into sins after Baptism, let him be anathema. The same is clear from the Council of Florence in the Decree to the Armenians: The fourth Sacrament is Penance. - See what is to be said below concerning the necessity of confession, no. 464.

II. The Sacrament of Penance has the power of remitting all sins committed after Baptism.

This is established, 1. from Sacred Scripture; for Christ generally, without any distinction or restriction, gives the power of remitting sins: Whose sins you shall forgive.... Indeed, Matt. 16.19, Christ says to Peter: Whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven. And in ch. 18.18 He says to all the Apostles: Whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven.

This is established, 2. from tradition, from all the Fathers, and also from the definition of the Church in the Councils, especially in Trent, sess. 14, can. 1, cited above.

414. • III. The necessary parts of the Sacrament of Penance are: 1. contrition; 2. confession; 3. absolution; 4. satisfaction, insofar as it is to be accepted by the penitent. For the Sacrament of Penance was instituted after the manner of a reconciliatory judgment; but this cannot be had without a sorrowful confession of guilt and a disposition of soul to undergo the satisfaction imposed, and without the absolution of the Priest. - Satisfaction, however, insofar as it is to be imposed or fulfilled, is only an integral part of this Sacrament, because the primary effect, namely, grace and the remission of sins as to guilt and eternal punishment, can be had without satisfaction ³.

³ This distinction, by which satisfaction is said at one time to be a necessary and even essential part of the Sacrament, namely, insofar as the purpose of fulfilling it is considered, and at another time only an integral part, insofar as its execution is considered, was introduced by some Authors so that they might better defend the acts of the penitent as being the matter from which, and thus as pertaining to the essence of the sign causing grace. For since satisfaction is commonly called an integral part by the Doctors (see Lugo, On Penance, disp. 12, no. 40), while the Council of Trent (sess. 14, ch. 3) numbers it together with contrition and confession as the quasi matter of this Sacrament, it seemed to follow therefrom that by the name of matter there was designated not merely an essential element of the Sacrament, but also the integral parts of Penance, as the Catechism of the Council of Trent in fact calls them (On Penance, sec. 21). Melchior Cano, a theologian at the Council of Trent, also employs this manner of speaking (Relectio de Poenitentia, part 6, q. 15), where without hesitation he writes: Contrition is not an essential part of this Sacrament, but an integral part. But not every integral part is necessary for the existence of the whole, as is clear of satisfaction, without which a true Sacrament exists. And Andrew Vega, another theologian of the Council of Trent, according to the testimony of Cardinal De Lugo (On Penance, disp. 14, no. 3), called that doctrine common.

Nevertheless, whatever this evasion may be worth with regard to satisfaction, it is not free from another difficulty. For in that opinion the matter of the Sacrament would not in fact be satisfaction, but the purpose of satisfaction, that is, the purpose of supplying the matter. Moreover, if that pertains to the matter of the Sacrament which the penitent must be prepared in the disposition of his soul, as the Author says, to perform, another could conclude by almost the same reasoning that the matter of the Sacrament is the Lenten fast, the hearing of Mass, and finally all things which divine or human law commands; for all these things must also be present in the purpose of the penitent.

Moreover, neither is it our intention, nor does the brevity of this Note permit, even lightly to touch upon those most intricate questions which are customarily disputed on both sides in the schools concerning the matter of this Sacrament. It is certainly very well known that the Council of Trent deliberately abstained from those formulas of words which might seem opposed to either opinion of the disputants. From this it is sufficiently clear that decretory force cannot reside in the arguments which some have attempted to elicit in support of either opinion from the doctrine both of that Council and of the Council of Florence, especially from the fact that the acts of the penitent are called by the name of matter or quasi matter, as though the word matter necessarily conveyed the notion of an element causing grace. This persuasion drove some so far that they sought some causality of grace even in sin (see Lugo, On Penance, disp. 12, nos. 22 and 37), because it also is the matter of this Sacrament. But this very thing is what others deny concerning the notion of matter; and very many Theologians - for I shall use the words of the Roman Theologian in his note to the Bibliotheca of Lucius Ferraris, s.v. Absolution, art. 2, no. 10 - establish the acts of the penitent not as the matter from which the Sacrament is made, but as that concerning which the Sacrament is occupied. They support this opinion with such reasons (see Maldonatus, On Penance, part 3, q. 3, ad Thesis 7) that even Cardinal De Lugo himself (On Penance, disp. 12, no. 29), although he fights for the opposite opinion with all his strength, nevertheless, pressed by the difficulties, was compelled to concede that the causality of the Sacrament could probably be attributed to absolution alone: Although the acts of the penitent, he says, are parts of the Sacrament, it is not required that all the parts of a Sacrament cause grace, but it is sufficient that the Sacrament cause it through some part of itself; but this Sacrament causes grace through the absolution of the Priest alone, in whom there is the power of the keys for absolving and destroying sins. Several seem to hold this opinion, whom Suarez adduces, disp. 18, sect. 2, no. 11, and he says that this is a probable solution. And in fact, in support of this opinion Suarez (loc. cit., nos. 1 and 12) adduces, together with Scotus, Major, Gabriel, Vega, Ferrariensis, Capreolus, and St. Bonaventure, even St. Thomas. He indeed contends that the last of these thought otherwise in the Summa (III, q. 86, art. 6) (ibid., no. 13); but others will perhaps gather from the reply to the first and to the last objection that the Holy Doctor there added more things indeed, but not contrary things. For since he speaks of acts caused by the grace which remits guilt, these certainly cannot be the cause of that same grace by which sins are remitted, since an effect cannot be prior to its cause. To those adduced by Suarez, not only can several others be added after Maldonatus, but the most grave Theologians, indeed those of the first rank, Francis de Vitoria, Melchior Cano, Dominic Soto, Francis Toledo, Vega, and, omitting others, Martin Navarrus, do not seem capable of being excluded, precisely because of the things which they wrote concerning the power of merely supposed contrition; for these things cannot in any way be reconciled with the opinion which regards the acts of the penitent as the matter from which.

But enough has now been said concerning these matters. They had to be intimated for this reason, lest, since it must be accepted that mere opinions of the school are being treated here, more than is right should afterward be attributed to doctrines which are mere consequences of these opinions; for conclusions cannot possess more force and firmness than the premises bear.

IV. The acts of the penitent required for the remission of sins are: 1. contrition; 2. confession; 3. satisfaction. This is established from the Council of Trent, sess. 14, can. 4: If anyone denies that for the entire and perfect remission of sins three acts are required in the penitent, AS IT WERE THE MATTER of the Sacrament of Penance, namely, contrition, confession, and satisfaction, which are called the three parts of Penance..., let him be anathema.

V. The Sacrament of Penance is necessary by a necessity of precept in actual reception, and by a necessity of means in desire, at least implicit, for remitting mortal sins committed after Baptism. Thus in the new law the supreme legislator, Christ the Lord, has established it according to divine goodness and providence.

Hence, for those stained by mortal sin committed after Baptism, the Sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation at least by a necessity of precept; but penance or contrition ⁴, together with the desire for the Sacrament, or with a serious purpose, at least implicit, of confessing the sins when a suitable opportunity is given, is always necessary by a necessity of means.

⁴ If contrition here is understood as that which is perfected by charity, it is always necessary for justification when there is no opportunity of confessing sins; for, as is said below, imperfect contrition is sufficient with the Sacrament.

415. Questions. - QUESTION 1. When was the Sacrament of Penance instituted?

Reply. It was instituted when Christ, after His Resurrection, breathed upon His disciples, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them..., etc. For then, as the Council of Trent, sess. 14, ch. 1, declares, He conferred upon them the judicial power which before the Passion He had only promised. Hence Trent says that this Sacrament was instituted principally after the Resurrection.

416. • QUESTION 2. Do sacramental and forensic judgments agree, and to what extent?

Reply. They partly agree and partly differ, as is clear from the form of each.

1. In sacramental judgment the procedure is as follows: 1. The whole matter is conducted between only two persons, namely, the judge and the accused. The penitent himself is the accused, accuser, and witness; but the Priest is the judge, who, after the cause is known, pronounces a sentence which God ratifies if the requisite conditions are not lacking. 2. The investigation of the cause and the pronouncement of the sentence are conducted entirely in secret. 3. The judge is bound to the strictest seal of silence concerning the crimes and the whole course of the cause.

2. In forensic judgment, however, the procedure is as follows: 1. Besides God and the judge, there are assessors who assist the judge by counsel. 2. There are accusers who convict the accused when he evades. 3. There are procurators and advocates who defend. 4. There are officers, attendants, and sometimes executioners, who execute the sentence.

Moreover, another essential difference is also found between the two judgments, namely, that forensic judgments tend to punish the accused and are vindicatory judgments; but sacramental judgment tends to absolve the accused, or to reconcile the sinner with God.