Case 21. Feigned Absolution of an Accomplice

Titius, a priest, goes to a certain house of Regulars to devote himself to spiritual exercises. After some days there he makes his confession to Father Caius, who was giving him the exercises. Among other sins he confesses that he had indecent conversations with Philip, a friend who belonged to the flock committed to him, and afterwards absolved him; furthermore, that he sinned shamefully once and again with Mary, Philip’s daughter, and once pretended to absolve her after she confessed to him. On another occasion in the confessional, when he suspected from the sound of her voice that she was present, but refrained from questioning her lest he become more certain, he then actually absolved her; afterwards, however, when she sought Holy Communion, it became certain that she had been present in the confessional. Titius adds that he is exceedingly sorry for the past, most firmly resolves amendment of life, and asks for absolution. Hence it is asked:

1. What does Benedict XIV establish in the Constitution The Sacrament of Penance?

2. What is to be said of the faculty of absolving from the cases contained there?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. What does Benedict XIV provide in the Constitution The Sacrament of Penance?

Benedict XIV in the said Constitution treats of the crime of solicitation and of the attempted absolution of an accomplice. Concerning

Regarding solicitation, it is decreed that Ordinaries are to be held to inquire and proceed against priests who are involved in the matter of solicitation in the sacred tribunal; all confessors who know their penitents to have been solicited by others in the sacred tribunal are to be held to admonish them regarding the obligation of denouncing the solicitors; the power of absolving those who falsely accuse priests of solicitation is reserved to the Supreme Pontiff. Concerning the attempted absolution of an accomplice, he establishes that a priest guilty of this crime incurs an excommunication likewise reserved to the Supreme Pontiff.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 210 ff.

2. What is to be said of the faculty of absolving from the cases contained there?

Absolution from the censures contained in the Constitution The Sacrament of Penance is reserved to the Holy See in a most special manner, so that the faculty of absolving from them is not included even in a faculty of absolving from all cases specially reserved to the Holy See.²

2 Ibid., 206.

3. To the case. Titius had indecent conversations with Philip and afterwards absolved him. If the speeches were so indecent that they constituted a grave sin against chastity, the absolution was null and void, and Titius incurs the case of reservation (the Sacred Office, 28 May 1873). By feigning the absolution of Mary, Titius did not avoid excommunication, according to what was often declared by the Sacred Penitentiary and the Sacred Office.³

3 Génicot, vol. ii, n. 353.

By abstaining from questioning so that he would not recognize the accomplice, and afterwards absolving her, Titius seems to have acted with gross and supine ignorance, and consequently to have incurred the censure again, according to the response of the Sacred Office of January 13, 1892.

Hence Titius incurred several times the excommunication reserved in a most special manner, and cannot be absolved without a faculty specially obtained from the Sacred Penitentiary, to which it must be declared how many times Titius absolved accomplices.