§ 1. On the Sacramental Forum in Clerical Religions

— The sum is this:

1. Several confessors, in individual houses, are to be deputed. How many in number? As many as the number of members demands. It is necessary, however, that individual religious obtain an option among several. And so the Superior could not constitute several confessors in such a way that one alone is assigned to the various parts of the community. And it is clear that a similar abundance of choosing must be given to household members, who besides enjoy greater liberty.

2. The constitutions are confirmed which command or recommend confession, to be made at stated times before determined confessors.

By what obligation? By the very obligation of the constitutions, which can command or merely recommend the matter. Nevertheless, with attention to the moderation immediately added, that precept cannot be grave.

3. "If a religious, even exempt, for the quiet of his conscience approaches a confessor approved by the local Ordinary, even if not numbered among those designated, the confession, any contrary privilege being revoked, is valid and licit" (c. 519).

If he approaches: understand, in a licit manner, according to the rules. For the right is not conferred on the religious that he may approach in any manner whatever, but, when an occasion is offered, within or outside the convent, he can use it. Wherefore, he can neither demand that the Superior call another, nor can he himself, for approaching the confessor, leave the convent for any other reason than that by which departure is permitted through the rules and constitutions. According to the various case it will or will not be expedient that the Superior concede departure or deny it according to the rules; but the faculty of departing cannot be denied for this reason, lest the religious approach another confessor.

For the quiet of his conscience. That condition is sufficiently fulfilled whenever the religious seriously wishes to open his soul to such a confessor. For every confession seriously made, in some true sense, tends to quiet of conscience; and serious choice of a confessor is directed to greater quiet of conscience; and besides, the reasonable mind of the legislator, who studied to promote quiet, must be that this condition, concerning an intimate matter, furnish no occasion for scruples.

But a confession of this kind does not of itself dispense the religious from observing the rules concerning confession to be made before designated confessors. For thus c. 519 itself has at the beginning: "The constitutions remaining firm which command or recommend confession at stated times before determined confessors."

4. For novices, a single ordinary confessor can be designated, who cannot be the master of novices or his associate (c. 891), or the Superior of the house, with attention to c. 518, §2. This ordinary confessor must dwell in the novitiate house itself. Besides, others are to be designated whom the novice, in particular cases, can freely approach. At least four times in the year, an extraordinary confessor is to be constituted, to whom all novices must approach, at least to receive his blessing. Finally, no less than for the others it is whole for novices to approach any confessor approved by the local Ordinary.

5. Confessors constituted by the Superior of an exempt religion must be furnished with habitual power of absolving also from cases reserved in the religion (c. 518, §1). But the confessor approved by the local Ordinary whom a religious approaches has from the law itself the faculty of absolving from sins and censures reserved in the religion (c. 519).

And so this is the difference between the two kinds of confessors: that the former, constituted by the religious Superior, do not have by the law itself that power over reserved cases which c. 519 grants to the latter.

Yet lest the discrepancy be strange, the power of absolving from reserved cases, of which c. 518 speaks, embraces the power of absolving from reserved sins and censures, of which c. 519 speaks. The latter more explicitly, the former more briefly, signifies the same thing.

6. Religious Superiors, neither by themselves nor through another, can induce any subject to confess sins before themselves (c. 518, §3). Nevertheless they can absolve subjects who spontaneously and of their own motion have sought their ministry. "But without grave cause let them not do this by way of habit" (c. 518, §2).

Can a Superior be appointed ordinary confessor in his own house? The question is not usefully posed except about that Superior alone who of himself does not already have jurisdiction: as, for example, about a minister or dependent Superior.

Regularly such a one cannot be appointed; but a grave cause, for example a scarcity of suitable men, can render this licit, provided that the complete liberty of the subjects has been safeguarded.

The subjects of whom there is question here are all those numbered in c. 514. And so resident students (outside vacations), but not external students, come under this name. Indeed, from c. 891, the prohibition of hearing resident students in confession sounds more severe: their Superiors cannot of themselves be habitual confessors.

7. As is sufficiently gathered from other canons, and is expressly said in cc. 874, 875, jurisdiction for hearing the confessions of persons of whom in c. 514 can always be conferred by the local Ordinary; in an exempt religion it is conferred also by those Superiors whom the Constitutions designate.

Moreover, jurisdiction conferred by a religious Superior, contrary to the jurisdiction which proceeds from the local Ordinary, is not affected by the reservations of the local Ordinary.

8. From c. 239, §1, 1°, Cardinals always have ready jurisdiction over all religious, however exempt, with ample power over reserved cases. Cf. n. 455.

9. Before the Code, religious belonging to an exempt clerical religion had to confess to a suitable companion on a journey. This disposition is not confirmed in the Code; so that without an express disposition of the Constitutions or delegation of the Superior, the companion, as such, is now furnished with no jurisdiction. For a tacit concession cannot suffice, by force of c. 879. But they can confess either to their Superior, or to the confessor of their house, or to any confessor approved by the local Ordinary.