Chapter I. The Nature of Penance

PENANCE is both a virtue and a sacrament of the New Law. For as the Council of Trent teaches: ‘‘ Penitence was indeed at all times necessary in order to attain to grace and justice for all men who had defiled themselves by any mortal sin, even for those who begged to be washed by the sacrament of Baptism: that so, their perverseness renounced and amended, they might with a hatred of sin and a godly sorrow of mind detest so great an offence of God. Wherefore the prophet says, ‘Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not be your ruin. The Lord also said, ‘Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish ’; and Peter, the prince of the Apostles, recommending penitence to sinners who were about to be initiated by Baptism, said, ‘ Do penance and be baptized every one of you.’”’¹ God, therefore, has always required repentance or penance on the part of the sinner as a necessary condition for forgiveness. The virtue of penance may be defined as a habit inclining the sinner to hatred and detestation of his sin. He may be moved to this hatred and detestation by various motives, as, for example, by the thought of the goodness of God, who deserves better treatment than to be offended by the sinner, by the feeling of gratitude toward God for his benefits and mercies, by the sentiment of justice which induces the sinner to make reparation for the wrong which by sin he has inflicted on the majesty of God. Penance may thus be a general virtue with various motives, but theologians agree that it is also a special virtue with a particular motive of its own. More commonly they assign as this motive the hatred of sin as being an offence against God, something at which God is rightly and justly angered and displeased, and for which satisfaction must be made to God before peace and harmony can be again established between him and the sinner.

Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance, by which the sins committed after Baptism might be forgiven on the sinner’s repentance. As the Council of Trent teaches: “‘ Nevertheless, neither before the coming of Christ was penitence a sacrament, nor is it such since his coming for anyone previously to Baptism. But the Lord then principally instituted the sacrament of Penance when being raised from the dead he breathed upon his disciples, saying, ‘ Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained. By which action so signal, and words so clear, the consent of all the Fathers has ever understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and their lawful successors for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after Baptism.”²

Penance may be defined as a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ after the manner of a judicial process for the remission of sins committed after Baptism by a priest’s absolution given to the contrite sinner who has confessed his sin to him.

This sacrament is instituted after the manner of a judicial process, which may be gathered from the very words of institution: ‘‘ Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained,” said our blessed Lord; not, of course, that the Apostles were empowered to forgive or not to forgive sins according to their own pleasure. They were bound to exercise the power entrusted to them according to the intention of him who had given it, so that as faithful dispensers of the mysteries of God they were to forgive the sins of those who were worthy of forgiveness, and to dismiss without forgiveness those who were unworthy. But how could they know who was worthy and who was unworthy, and what sins they could forgive and what they could not? Evidently only by the sinner acknowledging his sins and showing that he repented of them, or on the contrary by his showing the want of the necessary dispositions. And so we gather from the words of institution of this sacrament what the tradition of the Church teaches, that for the forgiveness of sin in the sacrament of Penance the sinner must in sorrow confess his sin, and then it will be forgiven by the absolution of the priest. In this we have the substance of a judicial process, inasmuch as the sinner is the criminal who is witness against himself, and the priest is the judge who, according to the merits of the case, absolves the sinner and remits the sin in the name of God, or by not absolving the unworthy sinner retains his sin and condemns him to go unpardoned.

¹ Sess. xiv, c. 1.

² Sess. Xiv,'C. 1s

The effects of a fruitful reception of this sacrament are the forgiveness of all mortal sins and of all venial sins which are confessed with due sorrow, the consequent remission of the eternal punishment due to mortal sin, and a partial remission according to the dispositions of the penitent of the temporal punishment which his sins have deserved.

Sins which are confessed to a priest who has the requisite jurisdiction to absolve them are forgiven directly by virtue of the power of the keys. On the other hand, if without fault on the part of the penitent some sin is not confessed and the penitent has the requisite sorrow, the sin will be forgiven indirectly, inasmuch as the absolution will take its effect and infuse sanctifying grace into the soul, and this sanctifying grace expels all grievous sin from the soul... The absolution will also be indirect when the priest has not faculties for some sin or sins confessed, but for some special reason he is justified in giving the penitent absolution.

The Council of Trent’ teaches that “ This sacrament of Penance is for those who have fallen after Baptism necessary unto salvation, as Baptism itself is for those who have not as yet been regenerated.” This sacrament, then, like Baptism, is a necessary means for salvation for all who have committed grave sin after Baptism. There is, consequently, for all such a divine precept which obliges them to go to confession. They must fulfil this precept at any rate before death, and the Church, using the power given her by her divine Founder, has obliged all who are conscious of being in mortal sin to go to confession at least once a year (Can. 906). If there is no opportunity of going to confession, one who has fallen into grievous sin can through the mercy of God obtain pardon for it by making an act of perfect contrition or of pure love of God. These acts implicitly contain a desire to receive the sacrament of Penance and to fulfil all other obligations imposed by God and by lawful authority. Even after sin has been forgiven by an act of perfect contrition or of pure love of God, there will always remain the obligation of confessing it, if it be mortal, when the time for the annual confession arrives or the opportunity occurs. Those who do not fall into grievous sin are under no obligation of going to confession, though, of course, they are the last to neglect the use of so powerful a means as frequent confession to attain purity of soul and to obtain great graces from God.