Article Two. Concerning the Obligation of Teaching and Warning Penitents.

384. Obligation of Teaching. 1. By force of his office the confessor is bound to teach the penitent those things which are required for receiving the sacrament here and now rightly, because as minister of the sacraments he ought to procure their valid and licit administration. Therefore, if the reception of the sacrament cannot be deferred to another time, he ought to teach the penitent: a. the truths which must be believed by necessity of means for salvation; b. the dispositions necessary for receiving the sacrament with fruit, namely sorrow, purpose, and formally integral confession of sins. But those things which must be known and believed only by necessity of precept need not be learned by the penitent from the confessor in the confessional; rather, it suffices if he grieves for past negligence and conceives the purpose of learning them soon.

2. It is not necessary that the confessor instruct the penitent about necessary things in such a way that afterward he knows them and can give an account of them, but only in that way which here and now is required and suffices for receiving the sacrament, namely by proposing the articles of faith to be believed so that he may elicit an act of faith concerning them, by examining conscience with him, by eliciting sorrow and purpose, and by warning him to learn these same things more accurately as soon as possible.

385. Obligation of Warning. 1. Penitents who, from an erroneous conscience, think that what is not a sin is a sin, or that what is venial is mortal, must be warned; for this ignorance is harmful to them, because they remain in danger of sinning formally.

2. Penitents who are in vincible and gravely culpable ignorance must be warned, even if no amendment is hoped for; for on the one hand the admonition cannot harm, since the penitent is already in a state of sin because of culpable ignorance or because of the doubt with which he acts, but on the other hand the warning can profit, because it is permitted to hope for the fruit of amendment.

a. If the penitent asks, the confessor is bound to manifest the truth; for then his ignorance is no longer invincible, and the silence of the confessor would confirm him in evil.

b. Ignorance is compared to vincible ignorance, so that a warning must be made, in the following cases:

a. If it induces proximate danger of sinning or of persevering in sins, as if the penitent is ignorant that pollution is a sin.

b. If it concerns laws which cannot long be unknown.

g. If it concerns those things which by necessity of means, either certainly or probably, must be known and believed.

3. A penitent who is in invincible ignorance must be warned if fruit from the warning is hoped for, either immediately or at least afterward, and no greater evil is feared. But if no fruit is hoped for from the warning, the warning must ordinarily be omitted and the penitent left in good faith; for from two evils the lesser must be chosen, namely material sin rather than formal sin, which the penitent, not about to obey, would commit.

a. The warning must be omitted even if the silence of the confessor tends to the harm of a third party as a particular person, if, e.g., it is foreseen that a penitent warned about restitution will not obey; for the warning would profit no one and would harm the penitent.

b. If the penitent is indeed hoped to be about to obey, but from the warning grave harm to a third party, e.g., harm to children, is at the same time foreseen if an invalid marriage is dissolved, the warning must be omitted. For just as the obligation of warning does not urge with grave harm to oneself, so neither does it urge with grave harm to another, provided the thing itself, because of invincible ignorance, is done without sin.¹

c. In doubt whether the warning will profit or harm, it must be omitted, unless a much greater utility is hoped to follow from the warning.

4. Nevertheless, the penitent must be warned, even if no fruit of amendment is hoped for, whenever from the warning being omitted a greater evil follows than from the warning being made, as if ignorance would bring on graver harm or public scandal.

Note. It belongs to the confessor, as physician of souls, prudently to investigate the roots of sins, prescribe fitting remedies, and offer warnings of salvation. But in fulfilling these things, let him remember that, besides the penance, the confessor cannot impose a strict obligation on the penitent unless he declares those things which the penitent is already bound to perform from another source, e.g., that restitution must be made or the occasion of sin must be abandoned. For only in imposing penance does he act as judge; in other things he acts as physician, "whose office is not to command, but to counsel."²

¹ Cf. Lugo, disp. 22, n. 27.

² Cf. Lugo, Responsa moral., l. 1, dub. 8, n. 5. Ballerini-Palmieri V, n. 126.