Question II: Concerning the Signification of the Form

I. The form signifies the use and effect of the power of the keys, that is, the remission of sin itself or of fault made by the minister, so that the sense is: I truly remit the fault to you. - This is indicated by the definition of the Council of Trent, sess. 14, can. 9; whence "the thing and effect of the sacrament, as regards its force and efficacy, is reconciliation with God" (Council of Trent, sess. 14, c. 3).

II. Therefore the sense of the form is not:

1. I show or declare you absolved, namely, in the face of the Church.

Thus against Protestants, who said that sin is remitted by faith alone, not by force of the sacrament, and that absolution "is not a judicial act, but the bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring that sins have been remitted to the one confessing, provided only he believes himself absolved," which was expressly condemned by Trent (can. 9). And against Peter Lombard and other old writers who asserted the same thing, but in a very different sense, since they admitted the assisting virtue of God, operating by itself alone interiorly what is signified by exterior absolution, without attributing true instrumental causality to the minister or to his sentence as regards the remission of sin, but only as regards remission in the face of the Church; yet this does not sufficiently cohere with the doctrine of the Council of Trent.

And indeed a) the sacraments effect what they signify; but the form of Penance signifies the remission of sin; therefore it effects it. Therefore just as the form of Baptism: I baptize you, does not signify: I show you washed, but washes; so the form of Penance not only shows a man absolved, but absolves (III, q. 84, a. 3, ad 5);

b) for otherwise the power of the keys would be weakened: it would have been given fruitlessly to the Apostles if they could do nothing except show, since every learned and prudent man (by discussion of conscience) could do this.

2. Nor is the sense: I absolve you from punishment, as Richard of St. Victor and certain scholastics, and Baius, interpreted.

For a) it is against the obvious sense of the form and John XX, 22: from sins; b) according to the Council of Trent, sess. 6, c. 15, eternal punishment is remitted together with fault; therefore if the form does not remit fault, neither does it remit eternal punishment; c) according to the same Council, sess. 14, c. 1, the priest has power for reconciling the faithful who have fallen after Baptism; but reconciliation is made by the remission of fault and not of punishment alone (cf. condemned propositions 57 and 58 of Baius). And d) then "there would not be required the will of receiving the effect of the keys for the remission of fault, just as the vow of receiving other sacraments is not required which are not ordered to the remission of fault but against punishment" (Quodl., q. 18, a. 1).

3. Nor is the sense: I absolve you from the obligation of again subjecting sins to the keys, as St. Bonaventure has it, IV Sent., dist. 18, p. 1, a. 2, q. 1.

For a) it is against the obvious sense of the form and John XX, 22: to loose from sins; b) absolution from venial sins, or from sins already remitted, would now have no signification and would not be valid.

4. Nor is the sense: I give you grace remissive of sin of itself, as Suarez says, de Poen., disp. 19, sect. 2, n. 13-20.

For the words directly signify remission of sin and only indirectly grace, because in the present order a grave offense is not remitted without the infusion of grace. Namely the words of themselves, that is, from human institution, do not directly signify the conferral of grace, although they produce it from the institution of Christ according to sacramental signification. Therefore the sense rather is: I remit your sins to you through the infusion of grace. - Nor does it stand against this that then remission precedes the infusion of grace. For remission, as the yielding of divine right to aversion, precedes the infusion of grace in reason, and the taking away or expulsion of sin follows this infusion.

III. The true sense of the form is: I judicially impart to you the sacrament (or sacred practical sign, or title and cause) of absolution (that is, remission), as St. Thomas has it, q. 84, a. 3, ad 5, and in the little work on the form of absolution, c. 3; in other words, I judicially cause that it is owed to you that you be freed from sin. Whence the sense of absolution is verified, even if someone is already in the state of grace, or if, from defect of the subject, grace is not conferred.