Article I: Concerning the Knowledge of the Confessor

I. Outside the case of necessity, the confessor is bound under grave obligation to have that knowledge which is required for duly undertaking his function and which is competent; namely, not eminent, but moderate, by which he can solve cases which commonly occur in the place where he is accustomed to hear confessions, and at least prudently doubt concerning more difficult ones, so that he may be able to consult books or others more learned.

It is proved: For if this knowledge is lacking, he exposes himself to a proximate and morally certain danger of fulfilling his function badly, with injury to the sacrament and damage to penitents. For as minister he must procure the validity and integrity of the sacrament; as teacher, he is held to instruct the ignorant concerning duties; as judge, he must judge concerning the sins, dispositions, and obligations to be urged upon penitents; as physician, he must investigate the cause of spiritual diseases and propose opportune remedies. All these certainly require no small knowledge; and when this is lacking, the sacrament is exposed to nullity or defects, and penitents suffer detriment in a most grave matter, according to that saying (Mt. XV, 14): "But if the blind offer guidance to the blind, both fall into the pit." - Hence St. Alphonsus, Pr. Conf., n. 18: "I affirm that that confessor is in a state of damnation who, without sufficient knowledge, exposes himself to receiving confessions."

It is said A) moderate, by which he can solve cases commonly occurring; namely, a) as minister he is bound to know 1) what pertains to the essence and effects of the sacrament of Penance, to its validity and licit administration and reception; - b) as judge and teacher: 2) the principles of discerning between mortal and venial sins both in general and in the individual precepts; 3) what pertains to the species, number, and circumstances of sins necessarily to be declared; 4) what pertains to the restitution of reputation and of goods; 5) reserved cases and the more frequently occurring censures; 6) impediments of marriage and obligations of states; - all which things it is impossible to know unless he knows the general principles of moral science concerning human acts, conscience, sins, and laws; - c) as physician: 7) the roots and occasions of sins and opportune remedies;

B) in the place where he is accustomed to hear confessions: for the same knowledge is not required in all confessors, but greater or less according to the diversity of places, times, and penitents. Thus, for example, greater knowledge is required in a city than in a remote village, for hearing any faithful whatever of diverse conditions than for the faithful of the same state and condition;

C) outside the case of necessity: for, if necessity presses, not only extreme but even grave, a less learned confessor licitly receives confessions, since generally the ignorance of the confessor does not obstruct the validity of the sacrament, but only its integrity or its fruitful administration; indeed in a case of true necessity, it is not always illicit to administer the sacrament with danger lest it remain defective or invalid. But a priest who fears lest the sacrament be null can absolve only conditionally.

II. Corollaries. - From the things said theologians deduce the following:

1. Natural endowments of talent or sound sense, or natural judgment, are not sufficient in a confessor. It is indeed sufficient for knowing the first moral principles, but not for their ultimate conclusions; nor does it help much for detecting positive laws concerning vows, justice, sacred ministration, the scope and limits of jurisdiction, reserved cases, matrimonial impediments and dispensations, and other things of this kind. Moreover natural and sound judgment, which is necessary for the application of principles and rules, is helped not a little by the study of theology, where one can find practical admonitions and counsels, which the common sense of the wise has elaborated and digested through many centuries. He would lack sound judgment who despised the wisdom of other prudent men.

2. Nor is experience alone sufficient: for it does not supply knowledge, but only helps it. Namely, it profits much for searching out the interior dispositions of penitents, and also for applying rules according to the various circumstances of places, times, and persons; but it does not furnish knowledge of principles and rules. Hence those who rely on experience alone necessarily commit many errors. Add that from so many matters so diverse and disparate among themselves, especially from those which are prescribed by positive law and occur more rarely, many very easily fall from the mind unless they are rather often recalled to mind.

3. A priest sins gravely who, while certainly knowing that competent knowledge is lacking to him, accepts the function of confessor, even if only from charity or obedience; - nor is it sufficient once to undergo a good examination, but he is bound to preserve knowledge by study, indeed to increase it, on account of new cases occurring, new positive laws, new decisions, for example, of the Roman Congregations. Nor does the approbation given by the bishop excuse him, since this supposes knowledge but does not supply it; although nevertheless, in doubt whether it is lacking or not, he can follow the judgment of the bishop.¹

¹ Benedict XIV does not hesitate to assert, Inst. XXXII, n. 4, "that some priests, who at the beginning had accepted the function of Confessor most excellently, thereafter after a long time, every care of studies having been neglected, lose the former knowledge of moral theology, so that those who had been most skilled in an art of this kind, at length, instructed with a scanty and confused knowledge of this art and with its first rudiments, are scarcely numbered among beginners."

4. Likewise a bishop sins gravely who would approve a confessor whom he knew to be ignorant, because thus he would cooperate in his sin; - although nevertheless he can be excused if he approve one less suitable in a case of necessity, for example, for small and remote places, when he cannot find one more learned: for it is better for the faithful to have an unlearned confessor than none. In which case the bishop is bound to admonish him concerning the obligation of obtaining competent knowledge as soon as possible.

5. Likewise the penitent sins gravely who deliberately chooses an inept confessor, if thus he exposes himself to grave spiritual damage, since besides the damage which he suffers, he is the cause that the sacrament is ministered in an undue mode.

6. Students of seminaries who are destined for the sacred ministry are bound under grave obligation to apply themselves for a long time and seriously to the study of theology, not only dogmatic but also moral, so that they may be made fit for exercising the function of confessor.

7. Likewise a confessor sins who for a long time neglects the study of moral theology, if he does not retain it in memory; and indeed easily gravely, if he exposes himself to a proximate danger of committing grave errors and of harming penitents.²

² St. Alphonsus writes (Praxis Conf., n. 17): "The lips of the priest shall guard knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth (Malach. II, 7). For the confessor, that he may duly perform the office of teacher, there is need that he know the law well; for he who is ignorant of it cannot teach others. But here that must be adverted to which St. Gregory writes, namely, that the office of directing souls through the way of eternal salvation is the art of arts: The art of arts is the rule of souls. And St. Francis de Sales used to say that the office of hearing confessions is the greatest and most difficult of all. In truth it is so. It is the greatest of all, because it is the end of all sciences, which ought to be nothing other than eternal salvation; and it is the most difficult of all, first, because the function of confessor requires knowledge of all sciences, all offices, and arts; secondly, because the science of moral theology embraces so many matters diverse among themselves; thirdly, because in great part it consists of so many positive laws and sacred canons, whose understanding must be taken according to their true signification: moreover each of these laws is rendered difficult, since by reason of circumstances which make cases dissimilar, resolutions must be varied. Certain men, who boast themselves to be learned and theologians of great note, disdain even to read cursorily the moralists, whom they call casuists (a name of disgrace among them). These say that, so that confessions can be duly received, it is sufficient to know well the general principles of morals; for by them, they say, all particular cases can be resolved. Who can deny that all particular cases must be resolved by these principles? But the whole work and the whole labor is in adapting principles of this kind to particular cases, entangled in such diverse circumstances, and that it may be discerned which of the principles agrees with the occurring circumstances; this cannot be done without great discussion of the reasons which stand for each side. And this is what the moralists have accomplished, while they labored in explaining from which principles many particular cases had to be resolved. Moreover, in this our age, as has been said, there are so many positive laws, so many bulls, so many decrees, which cannot be known unless the casuists are read, who have collected them, and according as the variety of matters demands, there those things are opportunely found; and therefore, the more recent these moralists are, the more useful they are than the ancient. Moved by a just reason, the author of the Instructions for New Confessors (Part. i, 18) affirms that many theologians, the deeper they are in speculative sciences, the ruder they are in the moral sciences, which, as Gerson writes (Tract. de orat.), are the most difficult of all, and no learned man, however much he is most versed in these, is such that new things do not happen to him day by day; from which he infers that the study of moral theology must never be abandoned by the confessor. The most learned Sperelli (De Episc., p. 3, c. 4) likewise says that those greatly err who apply themselves wholly to the study of scholastic theology, judging time to be spent vainly in moral theology, and afterward do not know how to distinguish leprosy from leprosy; which error (he adds) drags confessors and penitents together into eternal perdition."

III. Observations. - 1) Lest errors be committed when difficult cases occur, it is not expedient to solve them at once, but the penitent must be told that he should give time for considering the matter more maturely and for consulting books and those more learned; yet meanwhile he can be absolved, provided that he is prepared to obey the decision to be given or to approach a more learned confessor.

2. Likewise it is very useful for new confessors, even when they had to solve a case at once, to consult books and those more skilled concerning the same case, so that they may at once know whether they acted rightly or not: for thus defects admitted can be repaired and future errors guarded against.

3. Likewise here the ecclesiastical conferences concerning theological dogmatic and moral matters are especially to be commended.