Case 7. Confessions on Board Ship

Titius, a regular priest and missionary in a certain English diocese, was sent by his superiors with a scholastic and a lay brother to southern Africa to cultivate the vineyard of the Lord there. While he was awaiting the departure of the ship in a certain house of the Order, a question arose concerning Titius’s faculties for hearing confessions during the journey. Some Fathers thought that he already had everything required to hear the confessions both of his companions and of outsiders on the ship; others thought that he required a special delegation of the Father Provincial and that this sufficed; finally, others said that for outsiders he ought to seek faculties from the Bishop of the port from which the ship would sail. Hence it is asked:

1. What is required and sufficient so that Titius may hear the confessions of his companions during the journey?

2. Are the said companions bound to confess to him, and could Titius permit them to confess to any other priest?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. What is requisite and sufficient to enable Titius to hear the confessions of his companions during the journey?

Regulars on a journey must confess to to a suitable companion, if they have one. It is commonly held that a priest is idoneus who is neither under censure nor irregularity, even though he has no special approbation.¹

1 St. Alphonsus, lib. vi, 575.

2. Are the said companions bound to confess to Titius, and could Titius grant them leave to confess to any other priest?

If Titius were not superior there would be no difficulty; his companions would be bound to confess to him as he is the only priest in the party. But by a decree of Clement VIII, May 26, 1593: “ Regular Superiors are not permitted to hear the confessions of their subjects except when the subjects have committed some reserved sin, or the subjects themselves spontaneously and of their own motion have requested it from them.” Hence some authorities think that if Titius is Superior of the party, his companions are under no obligation to confess to h m, and that they may confess even without special leave of Titius to any suitable priest. If Titius is Superior with the faculties of other local superiors, he can grant leave to his subjects to confess to any suitable priest.²

2 De Arcos, Appendix Theol. Moral, n. 53.

3. The case. Titius has all that is requisite and sufficient for hearing the confessions of his companions if he is idoneus, as we presume him to be. In order to be able to hear the confessions of externs on board ship he must have faculties either from the bishop of the diocese where he was last stationed, or from the bi hop of the port of embarkation, or from the bishop of any other place at which the ship touches. We presume that he had faculties in the diocese where he was stationed, so that he has all that is requisite for hearing the confessions of anybody who comes to him on board.³

3 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 187.