§ 1. With Regard to the Three Parts of the Sacrament

— 1. The confessor, as minister, physician, and neighbor, must take care that the penitent make a morally complete accusation. For as minister he must procure the integrity of the sacrament; as physician, perfect healing; as neighbor, the spiritual alms of instruction.

2. Yet his obligation is less grave than that of the penitent. For to the penitent belongs of itself the diligent accusation of all grave sins; only accidentally does it belong to the confessor. Wherefore they do not judge that a confessor sins gravely who, in a series of confessions to be received, once or twice omits a necessary question.

3. But the confessor must supply the examination, not such as the confessor himself would have to procure in his own cause, but such as the penitent can make according to his quality and instruction without excessive inconvenience. Therefore inquiry will have to be made only about those species which the penitent, according to his condition, easily distinguishes. Numerical calculation will have to be obtained such as, for the elapsed time and the more or less confused state of conscience, is morally possible.

And attention must also be given to the spiritual fragility of the penitent. Therefore care must be taken lest our diligence become too burdensome to the penitent, and render confession hateful to him. For thus we would sin against the primary rule of acting of a good confessor, which is that he act in that manner which the salvation of souls seems to demand.

The confessor "should beware lest he detain anyone with curious or useless questions, especially concerning the sixth precept of the Decalogue, and especially lest he imprudently question younger persons about those things which they do not know" (c. 888, §2).

For unless our questions are few and cautious, we can give occasion to accusation or suspicion, imprudently dissipate or offend ignorance, and expose ourselves or the penitent to danger of sinning.

4. When the penitent himself has in some way prepared his confession, let the confessor allow the penitent to narrate his matters in the order and manner which the penitent himself has chosen, lest, disturbed, he already be unable to say from memory the things which he had prepared, and thus depart less integrally confessed and less content. Wherefore also let him interpose nothing except a very brief little word to which an answer is most easily given. For example, if the penitent says that he sinned with women, it will be possible to ask: even married women? Therefore the confessor himself will endeavor to note in his mind the things which then will have to be asked, certainly with some danger of forgetfulness; but this will be abundantly compensated by the hope of a better and fuller confession on the part of the penitent.

Nor from the beginning are circumstances to be sought which afterward will easily be detected, for example, that the penitent is married, or is bound by some vow.

— 5. These things especially come into use in hearing a general confession. A general confession which is made from devotion must be distinguished from one which is necessarily to be made.

When it is made from devotion, the penitent should immediately be admonished about the faculty left to him of keeping silent about what he wishes, with the counsel added that he say in few words those things which can beget greater confusion, so that a richer fruit of humility may be received.

But if it is necessary, the cause is sometimes one single sin besides which other grave sins were not committed. Then sufficient accusation is made most easily, with that sin declared and with the frequency of the sacraments added, if any were received sacrilegiously.

But if many grave sins from a long time must be accused, the more expeditious method will be that the course of life be divided into several parts, each of which is of a sufficiently homogeneous tenor. Then let the penitent say what chiefly happened in the individual spaces of time. Or let him also describe his life by the week, or the month. From this it will sufficiently become known what he did in other weeks or months, through which he led a sufficiently similar life. Then let the confessor ask the penitent whether he perhaps thinks something must be added.

If, warned by the penitent or because of another indication, the confessor knows or suspects that there is something which the penitent is especially ashamed to reveal, let him give him courage to accuse it at once, so that, relieved of the burden, he may make an exomologesis grateful and full of solace. Otherwise, it must be feared lest in the course of confession he yield to timidity and confess sacrilegiously. Not so rarely an experienced confessor can conjecture a shameful matter sufficiently certainly. It will help then that the confessor himself indicate the matter and thus spare the penitent a longer explanation. If he suspects someone studiously to be mixing old sins with recent ones, let him act, and regularly let him keep his own suspicion silent.

At the end of such a confession rightly made, let the confessor not omit, for the more perfect quiet of the penitent, to make him more certain: a) concerning the remission of all sins, even of those which have fallen from memory, so that these alone, if they are restored to mind, must be accused; b) concerning the faculty which he has of no longer repeating examinations, since it is enough that he wish to declare the things not yet accused which occur of themselves; c) concerning the legitimate presumption of a completed confession, especially since the confessor often in confused accusation has touched individual things sufficiently so that nothing now has to be repeated. But he who has made a general confession twice or three times should be forbidden now to examine his conscience about past things, but should indicate only those things, if any occur, which are certainly mortal and most certainly not accused. For too frequent general confession would remove peace of soul and impede spiritual progress, while from Christ's institution that sacrament ought to strengthen peace and help us that, with expanded heart, we may run the way of the commandments of God.

N.B. Lacroix, n. 1882, observes that there are some who would be terrified by the name of general confession, and from whom, nevertheless, almost without their knowing it, a general confession can be elicited by the help of questions.

— The Various Sentences of the Sacramental Judge. 1. He can grant, deny, or defer absolution.

Whether absolution is granted or denied, the examination of the cause is finished, and the confessor has discharged his function: of itself he is not bound to admit the penitent again. But if absolution is deferred, the judgment is suspended; the right remains to the penitent of returning to the confessor, who, from justice, must hear him and bring the cause through to the end. Thus it is seen what difference there is between denied and delayed absolution, although the penitent is held by the same material obligation of obtaining absolution from his grave sins, and enjoys the same liberty of changing confessor.

2. The granting can be conditional, or without a condition added.

A condition concerning the future, for example "if you will restore," no less than in other sacraments, and for the same reason, is excluded (cf. n. 180 and 184). Reasonable addition of a condition concerning the past or the present, when it regards either the present competence of the confessor, or the words of absolution well pronounced, or a fact extrinsic to the judgment itself and presupposed, "if the penitent lives," is subject to no difficulty. But if it regards the object itself of the judgment, that is, the disposition of the penitent, to many it has seemed inept and illicit, for example to Cajetan, Summula, word Absolution (p. 3, ed. 1571). This question was moved in the fifteenth century. And it can be objected that by a conditional sentence the matter is left in the state of doubt from which it ought to escape through the sentence. This difficulty would be serious enough, if the sentence ought merely to declare some fact. But concerning a sentence which gives a right, it must be said otherwise, provided he to whom it pertains can know whether the condition has been fulfilled or not. Thus, in Roman law, the praetor (magistrate) by his formula gave to the other party a conditional right, the condition which the judge of fact then examined. But since nothing lies hidden from God, the sacramental sentence can usefully be subordinated even to the condition of sincerity or interior sorrow.

By a certain opposite excess, Ballerini, Op. theol. V, 21, judged absolution to be intrinsically always conditional, or to be borne, "if in reality the required dispositions are present, which God alone knows with certainty, but the confessor more or less probably." Yet this agrees little with the nature of the institution. Why has the accusation of the penitent been prescribed? why has the right of questioning been given to the confessor, unless so that, judging about disposition in a human manner, he might pronounce the sentence simply, certainly subject to error like every sentence of a human judge, but not therefore conditional?

The confessor assuredly does not have the will of giving absolution through right and wrong, just as a priest consecrating has no positive will of consecrating inept or illicit matter. Yet the sentence or consecration does not become conditional on that account. But, after prudent examination has been premised, it is consecrated and pronounced absolutely. Nor is the matter practically indifferent. He who administers a sacrament conditionally posits the sacramental sign itself only conditionally; wherefore, the condition failing, nothing has been done, nor could the sacrament be valid and unformed. But he who administers a sacrament without condition wishes to posit the sacramental sign simply, and indeed efficaciously, insofar as depends on himself.

Wherefore, since we admit, on the part of the penitent, that it suffices for validity that he accuse sins with some true supernatural sorrow (provided he is in no bad faith concerning the degree of sorrow above all things), it can further be asked to what condition of disposition the validity of absolution must be subordinated, when the sacrament is administered conditionally. And to no other, unless we are mistaken, except to that which suffices for the validity itself. Therefore the condition about which we now treat will have to be explained thus: "if, the accusation and attrition having been considered, he can validly receive absolution," although, on account of the deficient quality above all things, grace is not going to follow immediately. Another manner of understanding the condition would beget many anxieties.

3. Absolution can remit sins directly, or give place to indirect remission, which they are accustomed to say more briefly: absolution can be direct or indirect.

Those are directly remitted which, after sufficient accusation, are remitted to a disposed penitent by virtue of the keys; but those are indirectly remitted which are not remitted by virtue of the keys, but only because, one mortal fault remaining, sanctifying grace could not be infused, to which infusion, however, the penitent, considering his disposition and the absolution received, has an immediate right.

Of itself the Lord could have so ordered that sacrament that mortal sins would be absolved singly by one or several confessors, so that the former absolutions would merely give a title to grace and reconciliation with God, which would be perfected by the last absolution. But now one grave sin cannot be absolved without the others, so that the cause must be submitted completely to one confessor from the beginning. Yet if any things, because of forgetfulness or just cause, have in no way been declared, these nevertheless are remitted indirectly to a disposed penitent, with the burden remaining of confessing the same things in the next following confession, unless the same obstacle impedes this. Nor is it repugnant that the same sin be remitted directly and indirectly. Suppose that a penitent remembers that a sin has not yet been accused by him, which he knows to be grave, yet in such a way that he is ignorant of its species. That sin, under the generic account of grave sin, will be directly remitted by absolution, but indirectly insofar as it is such a sin, so that the obligation remains of accusing the species. For only direct remission obtained through this sacrament removes the burden of accusation.

— Common norms concerning the ministering of absolution. Come then, these brief rules concerning the administration of absolution are commonly proposed: to the disposed penitent absolution is to be given; to the indisposed it is to be denied; for the doubtfully disposed it is to be deferred (cf. c. 886, about which we have already spoken above). Therefore:

To the disposed, absolution is to be given, and indeed of itself immediately, so that the disposed penitent who asks it has the right of obtaining it without delay, as we are taught by c. 886 itself.

Yet no one denies that there are just causes for deferring the same for the spiritual utility of the penitent. And we have indicated as a just cause the opportunity of urging, before absolution, the execution of a difficult obligation, which otherwise would scarcely be fulfilled.

— But a particular question is moved concerning those in occasions and recidivists. And concerning those in occasions, or those who are placed in an occasion of sin, the matter is dispatched in few words. What an occasion is; how it is distinguished; what and how great the obligation of deserting an occasion is, has been said in I, 452-456. Therefore either the penitent has a grave obligation of deserting the occasion, or he is held by no certain obligation. He who, bound by a grave obligation, does not wish to fulfill it, is not worthy of absolution, unless he is in good faith, and the confessor judges that admonition must prudently be omitted or deferred. But if he is held by no certain obligation, he preserves his right to receiving absolution. Nor is it in the power of the confessor to add a new obligation by some precept of his own.

Nevertheless, if a permanent occasion, or one which stands in being, can and must be deserted, and the penitent has an easy faculty of returning, regularly it will be expedient that the penitent, before he is absolved, remove the occasion. This, at least when the penitent is not unwilling, must be done gently by the confessor as physician. In some parts (but by no means everywhere), even when there is question of an occasion not to be approached, absolution can usefully be deferred, until the penitent by some reason has demonstrated his constancy in purpose.

If, on the contrary, the penitent who had to dismiss the occasion has deceived trust in this matter several times, then often he cannot prudently be judged disposed by the confessor as judge, before he has executed the obligation, so that absolution must be deferred for him, or given only under condition (when this is lawful). And unless grave necessity stands in the way, the confessor as physician will then have to recur to that remedy.

— Concerning recidivists. 1. The custom of sin itself of itself does not effect a special difficulty. Indeed, since it increases fragility, the presumption of unworthiness which relapse begets is more easily destroyed in the customary sinner than in another relapsing person.

2. A recidivist, by force of the word, is he who repeats a sin, especially after amendment proposed in confession. But in the present matter, he is treated strictly as one "who after confession, although admonished, relapses into the same sins without any or almost any amendment" [d'Ann., III, 338 (9)].

If he has so relapsed that his present disposition has become doubtful, and at the end of confession he does not seem better disposed in soul, absolution will have to be deferred for him, unless there has been place for conditional absolution. St. Alph., VI, 459, denies that a recidivist who returns with the same depraved habit can be absolved unless he brings extraordinary signs of his disposition.⁽¹⁾

If in the present he has demonstrated himself sufficiently disposed, or he has relapsed from intrinsic fragility, from the very force of custom, etc., all wish that he be treated benignly. Nor should suitable exhortation and admonition ever be omitted. And regularly he is to be absolved, unless from a penitent well known to him the confessor can have a prudent persuasion that from delayed absolution no damage is going to arise and that hope of greater horror of sin will be born. To this end, he could test what the threatened denial of absolution effects. Yet let him have greater hope in the sacraments, according to those words of St. Thomas, Suppl., q. 25, art. 1 ad 4: "It must be said that a greater remedy is furnished against sins to be avoided from grace than from the habituation of our works."

Or he has relapsed because of a voluntary occasion in which he remained. Then the things said in 542 return.

Or he has relapsed from a necessary occasion. If apt remedies have not yet been prescribed, they will have to be prescribed.

If remedies were prescribed but were not applied, their use will have to be efficaciously urged, unless the penitent in rigor can desert the occasion, and prefers to desert it. Many here teach that delay of absolution must be employed. And we shall not deny that this can sometimes profit. Yet it seems preferable, unless the penitent is opposed, that he indeed be absolved, but that there be imposed on him (under grave or light sin, according to the case), as penance, a new confession after a brief time, in which he may give an account concerning the very use of the remedies. For thus, besides the stimulus of good will, he will meanwhile enjoy sacramental grace.

But if progress made gives hope of amendment, let the confessor take care that he depart absolved and made more erect for the fight. This progress is held by St. Alph., II, 460, for an extraordinary sign of disposition. Concerning progress of this kind St. Leonard of Port Maurice writes: "If on the days assigned for return penitents fall somewhat more rarely than usual, grant them absolution... When they have furnished this little bit of better fruit, it is verified that hope of amendment is now present." (In Berardi, De recidivis, n. 136.)

But what if the use of remedies seems fruitless, and better remedies in the concrete are not at hand? The supposition admitted, which Ball.-Palm., V, 119 ff., think rather must be denied, some then deny the obligation of deserting the occasion, either by their very silence or by express words. For if, thus they say, the penitent "could be absolved the first time, he will be able also the second" (Tamb., Exped. conj., III, 3, 10, who thinks this probable), since sorrow and purpose are no more lacking in the second case than in the former, and because in a physically necessary occasion, all ought to be content with this present disposition. Thus approximately Lugo, d. 14, n. 156, who inclines to this opinion. Others, not few, oblige to deserting the occasion, because formal flight of the occasion alone then gives hope of amendment, and Christ said: "If your eye scandalizes you, pluck it out," etc. Others, as Suarez, in 3 p., d. 32, §2, St. Charles, Instr. conf., deny that a general rule can be given. Gury, n. 631, thus distinguishes: flight of the occasion must be commanded if practically it seems easier to desert the occasion than to remain in the same without sin. Berardi, in some rare case, in which the confessor, having known the moral strength of the penitent, judges the means proportioned to his powers, thinks that flight of the occasion must be imposed, notwithstanding great inconvenience.

Thus therefore we shall say: as often as the matter seems possible in some way, flight from the occasion itself, or the safer parts, should be advised to be followed by every effort. And unless a most grave inconvenience stands in the way, this flight seems of itself to have to be imposed: for, considering the gravity of spiritual ruin, the necessity of the occasion seems eliminated, so that it is morally converted into a free occasion (cf. the notions handed down, I, 452). Yet with most grave inconvenience of life, fortune, etc., the confessor does not seem able strictly to impose flight, since, because of disagreement among authors, the obligation cannot be called certain (cf. Lugo, Paen., d. 25, n. 115).

N.B. Let delay of absolution, where it seems expedient, be very brief: for hours, one or another day, eight days, at most fourteen. For of itself it is grave that someone remain in the state of mortal sin. Yet St. Alph. says that a greater delay, for the sake of experiment, is sometimes necessary. We greatly doubt that this can be valid today.

⁽¹⁾ These signs are numbered by him: greater sorrow disclosed through tears, sighs, and cordial words; a lesser number of sins, in the same difficulties; longer abstinence from sin, or resistance to temptation; zeal applied toward amendment; solicitude concerning remedies to be known and applied; spontaneous confession; an extraordinary reason by which he was brought to confessing; more accurate accusation; reparation of damage; greater horror of sin conceived and demonstrated, or fear of divine vengeance.

— Conditional absolution, that is, given under a condition not concerning the future, but concerning the present or the past: "if you are capable or disposed; if I have the faculty," can be conferred when great utility or a certain necessity will advise it. Wherefore, unless certainly efficacious absolution can be procured, he is to be absolved under condition:

a) who is placed in danger of dying without absolution: in grave illness, before a long voyage, dangerous use of the scalpel, etc. Nor in this case does it matter to distinguish whence the doubt arises: whether from uncertain life, doubtful presence, received baptism, disposition of the penitent, or from jurisdiction of the confessor or absolution perhaps already conferred;

b) who, unless he were absolved, would remain long in mortal sin, or would be deprived long of sacramental grace; or who is pressed by necessity of receiving a sacrament of the living: Confirmation, the Eucharist, Matrimony. This certainly must be done, if opportunity is lacking for the penitent to dispose himself better.

Hence children and the half-witted, in doubt about sufficient discretion, are to be absolved conditionally whenever they bring matter probably grave, and sometimes in the year, according to the prudent estimation of the confessor, indeed as often as they wish to confess, with moderate frequency. So also those from whom an accusation of certainly sufficient matter about which they are sorry is obtained with difficulty: both if they accuse a doubtfully grave sin (then from St. Alph. you must confer absolution), and several times in the year (then from St. Alph. this can be done but need not be done; and he himself permits monthly absolution). Yet for the most part certain matter is easily obtained if the confessor himself positively suggests defects to which morally all of us are liable.

Hence he who truly doubts about absolution rightly given, which the penitent probably needs, will repeat it; and we shall use doubtful jurisdiction with sufficient cause.

He will be absolved conditionally who, while he judges himself disposed, is doubtfully disposed, and unless he is absolved seems about to profane Confirmation, Matrimony; or concerning whom it is to be feared lest he desert confession and waste away in sins, which is easily to be feared in those who in Paschal time have with difficulty been brought to confession.

N.B. On account of the controversy about valid and unformed confession, the condition, as we have already warned in n. 540, should be referred to the disposition necessary for the validity of confession.

— The account of penance. From the most ancient time, this was the doctrine of the Church: that sins after baptism are no longer fully, that is, as to guilt and punishment, of themselves remitted except laboriously, that is, with suitable expiation offered for the temporal debt. For the temporal debt, I say, for the eternal is always and necessarily taken away gratuitously together with the fault. At the same time the Church recognized in herself the power of binding the guilty by penalties and fully loosing the same even from temporal debts: which power, however, since it has not been given for dissipating, is subject to prudent use.

Whether in the first age there was the formal intention of the Church that through the grave and long-lasting penances which were then imposed, with the proper force of her absolution added, insofar as there was need, she should certainly free penitents from every debt of punishment, this historically is by no means certain (cf. d'Ales, La doctrine des indulgences, Etudes, t. 145, p. 40 ff.). But for many centuries certainly she no longer intends to join the full remission of sins with far milder sacramental penances.

That discipline is most clearly demonstrated in St. Thomas, Quodlibet III, art. 28, and formally approved in Trent, Sess. XIV, c. 2, 3, 8, 9; Sess. XXV, Decree on Indulgences. But indulgences have been annexed to pious works to be performed freely, which can suffice for extinguishing temporal debts.

Therefore the constant tradition of the Church has been of absolving, from the power of jurisdiction, even from punishment, with a payment offered partly from the works of penitents, partly from the merits of Christ and of the saints. Yet formerly the principal payment was customarily sought from definite penances, while today non-commanded works seem to have obtained the principal place, and indulgences are expressly available to all as supplements. Therefore today, by a formally double use of jurisdiction, by which she imposes sacramental penances and grants indulgences, the Church works toward the perfect remission of sins more gently, more fully, and more perfectly than formerly through penitential discipline. More gently, I say, because without so much coercion, and partly through voluntary acts; more fully, for Christians formerly were as it were left to themselves for less grave sins; more perfectly, because in a greater light there shine both the various accounts by which the Church can bind and loose, and the sacraments and their power, and the merits of Christ and of the saints, and the communion of saints, and the various dignity of works and the excellence of the spirit of love and charity.

— Obligation and rights of the confessor. The principle is placed by canon 887: "For the quality and number of sins and the condition of the penitent, let the confessor enjoin salutary and suitable satisfactions."

Therefore: 1. The confessor must impose penance: a) as minister of the sacrament, that he may take care for the integrity of the sacrament, of which satisfaction is an integral part; b) as judge, constituted by God and by the Church, that he may observe the order of divine justice, to which the Church necessarily conforms itself; but divine justice does not gratuitously remit temporal punishments to be paid for sins committed after baptism; c) as physician, solicitous about the spiritual health of the penitent, who is to be freed from punishments and preserved from sins.

Nor, on the occasion of gaining a plenary indulgence, is the obligation of imposing penance removed: today this is beyond controversy, after Benedict XIV (Const. Celebrationem, January 1, 1751, §65), on the occasion of the jubilee itself, confirmed the necessity of giving penance.

2. The confessor imposes penance by using his jurisdiction, as judge, not as priest. He can create this obligation alone; other obligations he does not effect but declares. He can impose this both before absolution and immediately after, when the judgment is not yet morally finished. Yet it is better that he impose it before absolution.

3. The sacrament demands penances by which provision is made for its honor and dignity; divine and ecclesiastical justice wishes that penances correspond to the accusation, that is, to the sins accused and to the disposition of the penitent, which can be excellent, truly good, and scarcely sufficient; harmless and salutary medicine is demanded.

But by grave words by which he explains the excessive indulgence which, because of the penitent's infirmity, he uses, the confessor can provide for the honor of the sacrament; and he observes the order of divine and ecclesiastical justice, if he does not intend to remit punishments beyond the merit of the work performed, so that he can principally attend to imposing salutary penances (cf. Galtier, S.T., La penitence a imposer, Nouv. Rev. Theol., 1923, p. 1 ff.).

Hence it is understood how today the custom of imposing modest satisfactions has grown strong. For those which today are reputed grave should rather be called light in themselves. For today that penance is judged grave by which a work is imposed which, if it were a common precept of the Church, would have to be furnished under grave guilt. Thus assistance at Mass, fasting or abstinence for one day, recitation of the third part of the Rosary. (Yet the recitation of any little hour of the breviary would not be a grave penance, since the omission of a little hour is imputed under grave obligation to those who are held by the obligation of the breviary, not on account of quantity alone, but on account of peculiar considerations.)

4. Even today the confessor must regularly impose a grave penance, in the present meaning, for grave fault, and must have some account of the quality of the faults. Yet, on account of the difficulty of the matter, proportion between degrees of fault and degrees of penance is now not customarily observed so accurately.

We are taught this by the sufficiently common usage itself of approved confessors. But these at the same time know how efficaciously to procure true interior penance.

For venial faults the confessor cannot impose a penance, whether it was light or grave, under grave obligation; while he can bind under light obligation to doing a grave penance imposed for grave faults.

For grave faults to enjoin a very slight penance (without an excusing cause) would be grave. But they judge that a confessor sins venially who imposes no penance on one accusing light things.

5. A work already commanded can be enjoined, a mental work, a work to be defined by the choice of the penitent, a bestowal of money; a work cannot be imposed by which the things accused in confession are in some way revealed, as if one should command a young man that, after confession, he ask pardon from his parents for his disobediences. Counsel of doing thus could indeed be given. But a grave penance which the guilty person executes gladly can usually be found without trouble.

6. The same confessor can always, as if perfecting his judgment, commute the preceding penance; another must first sacramentally know the cause and therefore absolve. Therefore, standing by principles, a simple confessor does not seem able to commute a penance enjoined for reserved things: yet the matter is controverted (cf. Lehmkuhl, II, 475).

But the penitent himself cannot commute the work enjoined, not even into something better. But if by two confessors whom he successively approached in numerically the same cause two diverse penances have been imposed, he has the option of either one.

7. Causes of lessening penance can be taken from the fervor of the penitent, from the occasion of gaining an indulgence, from the physical infirmity of the penitent; from his moral infirmity, as if he is not going to accept a greater one; from his spiritual utility, if from this he is enticed to more frequent use of the sacraments; from the will of the confessor to satisfy for the penitent.

— Counsels concerning salutary penance. That penance may truly be salutary, care must be taken not only lest by its weight it turn the penitent away from the use of the sacraments, but also: a) lest by its lightness it deceive the penitent about the gravity of his faults and draw him to relapse more easily; b) furthermore care must be taken lest, from negligence of the confessor, excessive punishments to be paid in the future life remain to the penitent who would now have preferred to expiate his debts; c) finally, it must be procured that penance prepare a stable conversion of the penitent, and by this reason also be truly medicinal.

Now: a) a minimal penance simply imposed for grave faults would of itself lessen the consciousness of grave guilt. Wherefore of ourselves we cannot be content with imposing such a one. But what is desired in penance can be supplied through admonitions and exhortations.

b) In sacramental penance there is a satisfactory value which surpasses the value of similar works freely done by the faithful. Wherefore pious penitents themselves can usefully be advised to ask greater penances from the confessor, by which they may satisfy more abundantly and thus in some way exercise what St. John Berchmans had proposed to himself: "for small defects to do great penances."

But many today are little solicitous about this great utility. At least let us exhort them to gain indulgences which are offered abundantly, and to multiply pious works. Besides, with these freely done works the confessor can join the value of penance, by saying, for example: "Whatever good you shall have done for two days will be to you for penance."

c) Medicinal penances, or remedies against relapses, can be recalled to three heads: some lessen the force of the occasion or temptation, as consideration of eternal truths, access to the confessor before a danger which recurs after fixed intervals, flight from idleness or from a person attracting to sin; others weaken the force of passion, as interior and exterior mortifications; others increase spiritual strength, as almsgiving, prayer, more frequent invocation of the Sacred Heart, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the guardian Angel; purposes renewed with great soul, indeed, in certain circumstances, vows, sometimes fenced about with a penitential clause; more frequent approach to the sacraments. If this can be obtained, it will greatly help to advise a purpose in the morning, for example before the image of Christ crucified, and an examination in the evening, with thanksgiving for progress, if there was any. Penances which beget a pious custom of renewing acts of faith, hope, and charity are also very profitable.

Among these, today the following seem especially to be commended: more frequent use of the sacraments; frequent renewal of acts of faith, hope, and charity; almsgiving, whose efficacy for redeeming sins the Sacred Scriptures themselves teach. Let the designation be left to the penitent to define; let the utility of deputing a part to the celebration of Masses be suggested.

Penance is too uniformly reduced to a certain recitation of prayers: this custom seems to have to be corrected by a prudent but constant effort.

Finally let us observe these things. If in part it is understood in what way today it has come about that, in the administration of the sacrament, penance occupies a secondary place, nevertheless its true place must be preserved for it: especially where there is question of penitent priests. Certainly the stricter discipline of the Sacred Penitentiary is by no means destitute of its efficacy, when grave crimes are referred to it.

Certainly care must be taken that the penitent truly accept the penance; which, where it is doubted, can be learned by a courteous question. This good will can be helped by the addition of some intention, for example of praying for the deceased of the family. But we ought to be less moved by fear of inculpable forgetfulness. It is better that the sinner become forgetful of the penance than of the gravity of his sin.

Therefore the confessor who indiscreetly always imposes the same small penance can in no way be approved, nor does he obey the laws of the Church; but it is necessary that, taught by zeal and experience, he know at once to oppose at least certain remedies to vices.

Excessive facility of confessors diminishes the name and efficacy of Christianity.