Question I: Concerning the Essence of the Form of Absolution

St. Thomas, III, q. 84, a. 3; Opusc. 22.

I. Thesis I. The fitting and legitimate form is: I absolve you, or words formally equivalent, e.g.: I remit to you, I pardon..., let Peter be absolved from sins. - Thus the decree of the Council of Florence for the Armenians; and the Council of Trent, sess. 14, c. 3.

It is proved from St. Thomas, III, q. 84, a. 3:

"Since the sacraments of the New Law effect what they signify..., it is necessary that the form of the sacrament signify that which is done in the sacrament proportionately to the matter of the sacrament. Whence the form of Baptism is: I baptize you, and the form of Confirmation: I sign you with the sign of the cross and confirm you with the chrism of salvation, because sacraments of this kind are perfected in the use of the matter; but in the sacrament of the Eucharist, which consists in the very consecration of the matter, the truth of the consecration is expressed when it is said: This is My Body. But this sacrament, namely of Penance, does not consist in the consecration of some matter, nor in the use of some sanctified matter, but rather in the removal of a certain matter, namely sin, insofar as sins are said to be the matter of Penance... Moreover such removal is signified by the priest when it is said: I absolve you; for sins are certain bonds... Whence it is clear that this is the most fitting form of this sacrament: I absolve you." "Therefore it must be said that this form is taken from the very words of Christ by which He said to Peter (Mt. XVI, 19): Whatever you shall loose on earth" (ib. ad 1). "Yet because the priest absolves as minister, something which pertains to the first authority of God is fittingly added, namely, that it be said: I absolve you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (ad 3).

Briefly: the form must express the exercise of the power of the keys, or of the power of remitting sins, conceded to the ministers of the Church, to be exercised in the name of God, of which the sacrament of Penance is the use and effect; which the form furnishes: I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, etc.

II. Thesis II. The form must express the exercise of the power of the keys, or the power of remitting sins by the minister himself, the priest. Whence 1) a merely deprecatory form does not suffice; but, 2) if apparently, materially, and as to the mode of speaking it sometimes was or is deprecatory, at least according to the sense it must be formally indicative.

The first is proved: a) The form must indicate the exercise of the power of the keys, or of loosing sins. But to ask is not to loose. Therefore a merely deprecatory form does not suffice, but the form must be indicative at least as to the sense.

b) The pronouncing of the form is a judicial act (Council of Trent, sess. 14, c. 6 and can. 9). But a judicial sentence is not a deprecation: for to judge is the act of one having power; to deprecate is the act of one supplicating. Therefore the same act is not a judgment and a deprecation under the same respect.

The second is proved: A form deprecatory according to grammatical construction must, according to sense, partially be equivalent to an indicative or enunciative form. For sacramental absolution is a judicial sentence. But it would not be a judicial sentence unless in some way there were signified a) judicial power in the one pronouncing, b) the use of this power, and c) the actual effect, namely, the right conceded in order to the remission of sins. Therefore.

III. Conclusions. - Hence 1) an expressly and formally indicative form is fitting, which states the actual use of judicial power in order to the remission of sins furnished in the present. For, as St. Thomas says, a. 3:

"This form is taken from the very words of Christ, by which He said to Peter (Mt. XVI, 19): Whatever you shall loose on earth. And the Church uses such a form in sacramental absolution" (ad 1). But "in certain absolutions which are made publicly in the Church, as at Prime and Compline, and on the Lord's Supper, the one absolving does not use indicative prayer, so that he says: I absolve you, but deprecatory prayer, when he says: May almighty God have mercy on you, or: May almighty God grant you absolution and remission" (Objection 1). "But absolutions of this kind made in public are not sacramental, but are certain prayers ordered to the remission of venial sins. Whence in sacramental absolution it does not suffice to say: May almighty God have mercy on you, or: May almighty God grant you absolution and remission, because through these words the priest does not signify absolution to be made, but asks that it be made" (ad 1).

2. Nevertheless, of itself a deprecatory form can be valid, if by reason of the circumstances it sufficiently shows that the minister absolves and remits sins, or if the Church has attached this sense to it.

This is established a) from history: For at the beginning and through the first ten centuries, in both Churches all forms which are known to have been employed were deprecatory, e.g.: God, pardon him, absolve him or release him, etc.

This is established from the Sacramentaries (e.g., the Gelasian) and Penitentials; and from the concordant testimony of the Fathers, e.g., Ambrose, de Spiritu Sancto, III, 18; Jerome, in Ps. 28; c. Lucif., n. 5; Augustine, de Bapt. c. Don., V, 20; serm. 99; Leo the Great, ep. 108 ad Theod., etc.; who always allude to the deprecatory mode of the formula, never to the indicative. - But from the eleventh century, in the Latin Church a transition begins from deprecatory formulas to indicative ones, and both are used together so that an indicative formula is added to the deprecatory. Nevertheless the use of the deprecatory formula endured, so that at the beginning of the thirteenth century it was still in vigor, which we know from the testimony of William of Auxerre, William of Paris, and Hugh the Cardinal, and from the very little work of St. Thomas on the form of absolution, who, while defending the indicative form, nevertheless could not simply deny this (c. 2 and 5). But a little later, the indicative form was commonly received; yet in such a way that the accompanying prayers are a vestige of the ancient discipline. - But in the Eastern Church, after the thirteenth century, the deprecatory form remained, and today remains among non-united Greeks, indeed among united Greeks who are outside Europe, and in the Coptic Church of Alexandria. But many, even among Schismatics, have borrowed the indicative form from the Latin Church, such as the Jacobites, Armenians, Copts, Russians, Romanians; likewise the united Greeks who are in the parts of Europe, and the Maronites: but the schismatic Ruthenians use a form which is at once deprecatory and indicative.

b) by reason: A deprecatory formula, with the intention of absolving, and by reason of adjuncts, namely: the cause having been known, by one who has the power of remitting, and is held by all as a judge who truly remits, although not by his own authority but by God's, sufficiently shows (whether implicitly, or even by explicit words, e.g.: "through my ministry," or by mention of the power of the keys conceded) that the priest is the minister of God and absolves only by His authority; nor does it impede this that the priest is a judge and truly absolves ministerially, especially if the Church so prescribes or tolerates and the use is common. Then the sense will be: "May you be absolved or may you be loosed by me, through my ministry." Thus also the formula: May almighty God bless you, uttered not by a layman but by a priest, from whom a blessing is sought according to the accustomed rite of the Church, signifies: I bless you by the authority of God; likewise absolution from censures is often given in a deprecatory mode, and nevertheless is a judicial act. And the words: Let the servant of Christ be baptized, are equivalent to the form of Baptism: I baptize you.

Nor does it stand in the way that the Church cannot change the matter and form of the sacraments instituted by Christ, because not all forms of the sacraments were always altogether determined by Christ according to material uniformity, but only according to signification; whence if the Church has the right of defining the ultimate determination of the form, nothing prevents a deprecatory form, with the manifested intention of bearing a judicial sentence, from being able to be valid. But those who would think otherwise would have to see how they could reconcile their theory with the facts. Therefore the indicative form is more express and more befits judicial power, which belongs to the ministers of the Church, because it is certain that they not only ask that remission be made but, as instruments of God, effect it authoritatively; but the deprecatory form can also be legitimated, because the minister remits not in his own name but in the name and authority of God; whence he says as if imperatively: May God absolve you, that is, in the name of God I pronounce that God ought to absolve you.

3. Nevertheless, practically in the Latin Church only the indicative form can be employed. For since in the Western Church already for several centuries the use of the indicative formula has been prescribed, one can deservedly doubt concerning the value of the deprecatory formula in the Latin Church.

For the Church can prescribe one form as valid, and can declare another not to be legitimate, and therefore no longer to have an indicative sense; she can establish the conditions of exercising a judicial act and the one authentic form: for she can choose not to concede jurisdiction except for the indicative form. But whether this was the intention of the Church is not certain, but doubtful. Whence, because this is at least uncertain, one must abstain from a deprecatory form as doubtful.¹

¹ There are also imperative forms, but these are reduced to deprecatory ones if, namely, they are directed to God, e.g., May God absolve you, may He forgive, they are valid as: God, pardon him, forgive; others are reduced to indicative or enunciative ones, if they are directed to the penitent, e.g., be absolved by me, be absolved by God, that is, God through my ministry absolves you.