Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Article I. On the Minister and His Power in General.
335. Minister of Penance. The priest alone is the minister of the sacrament of penance: for Christ said to the apostles alone and to their successors in the priesthood: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them."1 Therefore the Council of Trent condemns with anathema those who say that priests are not the sole ministers of absolution.2
From these things it follows: a. He who has been invalidly ordained a priest cannot absolve from sins. b. The Church cannot grant the power of absolving from sins to one who is not a priest, because the Church cannot change the things which have been instituted by Christ. c. It is false that deacons ever, from a grant of the Church, had the power of absolving from sins.3 d. A sinner in no case whatever is bound to confess his sins to one who is not a priest, because he cannot be absolved by him.
1 John 20:22, 23.
2 Sess. 14, c. 6, can. 10. Cf. on this dogmatic question Pesch, VII, n. 410 ff.
3 On non-sacramental confession made to deacons, cf. Benedict XIV, De synodo l. 7, c. 16, n. 4 ff.; Pesch VII, 415 ff.; Gillmann, Zur Frage der Laienbeicht (Katholik, 1909), p. 435.
336. Power Required in the Minister of Penance. For valid absolution in the minister of penance there are required: the power of order or sacramental power, and the power of jurisdiction or judicial power, whether ordinary or delegated, over the penitent, Cn. 872.
a. The power of order is required because penance is a sacrament which, from the will of Christ, can be administered by priests alone.
b. The power of jurisdiction is required because the remission of sins in this sacrament is produced through a judicial sentence; but jurisdiction is necessary for passing judgment.
The power of order necessary for validly absolving is of divine law; the power of jurisdiction is of natural law. The priest receives the power of order in ordination itself, which power is indeed the true power of remitting and retaining sins, but it cannot yet be exercised by the priest unless jurisdiction is added. The power of jurisdiction is conferred outside the sacrament of order through the external grant of the ecclesiastical superior.