Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article Five. Concerning Absolving Habitual Sinners.
392. Notion. 1. A habitual sinner, or one habituated, is said to be one who, from the repetition of sins of the same kind, has contracted a depraved inclination or habit of committing the same sins. A habit or custom of sinning is a certain facility and propensity, induced from repeated sins, of committing the same sins.
To constitute a habit, two elements essentially concur: frequency of sins of the same kind and a certain distance and at the same time proximity between the individual lapses; for sins repeated more often do not induce a habit if they are too distant from each other, nor if they are too close, as if they were committed on the same day but afterward omitted.
- When a depraved habit is considered contracted cannot be accurately defined, because this depends both on the character of the one sinning, and on the longer or shorter time which intervenes between sinful acts, and especially on the nature of the sin: for the more easily some sin is committed, the more acts within a certain time are required to contract a habit; and since internal sins (to which sins of the mouth are also referred) are committed more easily than external sins, generally more acts are required to induce a habit in internal sins (and sins of the mouth) than in external sins.
a. He who for a notable time, e.g., for a whole year, has committed an external sin five times in a month, indeed in the matter of lust even he who has sinned five or once in a month for a year, is considered to have contracted a habit.
b. He who once daily for a longer time sins by depraved desires or blasphemies is a habitual sinner; indeed also he who commits these same sins three or four times in a week for some time must be called a habitual sinner.
393. Norm of Absolving. Any habitual sinner can and ought to be absolved, even if no amendment has preceded, provided he seriously proposes amendment; for a depraved habit is not a sin, but an inclination to sin, and therefore can be consistent with a true disposition of heart.
a. They are stricter than is just who, before they grant absolution, require from the penitent that he have laid aside the depraved habit and amended the relapse. For although amendment of life is the best sign of disposition, it is nevertheless not the only, and therefore not the necessary, sign of disposition; rather, before amendment and without it a true disposition can be present. Indeed, not even from this, that someone immediately after confession relapses into the same sin, is a defect of sorrow and purpose rightly inferred. For it can happen that a soul, drawn away from worldly things and considering again the eternal truths, with the help of grace conceives true sorrow and purpose, but immediately afterward, when worldly things and occasions of sinning present themselves again to the senses, the same soul, vehemently attracted and excited, such being its mutability and weakness, adheres again to sin, so that he who had just now been converted to God is now again converted to creatures. Nevertheless, if a penitent, already more often warned, returns without any amendment, a prudent doubt concerning the defect of true disposition is suggested, even though he affirms that he is sorry.
b. If a habitual sinner refuses to confess more frequently, absolution per se cannot be denied to him, both because more frequent confession is not prescribed, and because other means of amendment can be enjoined. But if other means were not judged sufficiently effective, as can happen with those habituated in vices of the flesh, then certainly absolution would have to be denied to him who refused to use a morally necessary and not very difficult means of amendment.