§ 2. On the Sacramental Forum in Lay Religions

— A. On Religions of Men. The governance consists in these points, from c. 528.

1. Religious validly confess before any confessor approved by the local Ordinary.

2. One or several confessors are to be deputed for them, at the judgment of the local Ordinary, or of the Superior of an exempt religion.

3. Besides, an extraordinary confessor must be deputed. Religious, however, except novices, do not have to approach him, not even to receive his blessing.

4. A special habitual confessor is easily to be conceded by the Superior to those asking.

5. Jurisdiction proceeds from the Ordinary of the place in which the religious house is. In an exempt religion, the Superior proposes the confessor to the local Ordinary. Peculiar privileges, if there are any in this matter, are not abrogated.

— B. On Religions of Women. Although the canons do not yet grant to nuns and sisters that free option of confessors which, after the Council of Trent, was granted first to seculars, then to religious men, nevertheless the Code not only confirms but also somewhat extends the more benign norms which Pius X introduced, not without grave counsel, and indeed, as we have heard, from his own persuasion of mind, and which the very use of daily Communion seems to demand.

Moreover, since religious women can have ordinary, extraordinary, special, supplementary, and occasional confessors, and a greater option is left to Sisters gravely sick, it seems that first the various confessors, then the sick Sisters or nuns, must be spoken of in order.

— I. On the Ordinary Confessor. 1. For all religious women there is confirmed the principle which, with attention to common law, was for a long time proper to nuns, according to which a single ordinary confessor is to be assigned to individual houses of religious women (c. 520, §1).

Nevertheless, plurality of confessors is admitted on account of the number of religious women or another just cause (c. 520, §1).

Another just cause seems to us to be present if, on account of circumstances, the local Ordinary cannot change the ordinary confessor after stated intervals. But if because of a greater number of religious women several ordinary confessors are constituted, nothing prevents the bishop from dividing the community among those several, so that to individual parts one alone is ordinary.

Besides, since in the canon it is not said "even in non-formed houses," words which are accustomed to be added when the matter could be doubted (for example in c. 597, on cloister), the response given by the Sacred Congregation on Religious, July 3, 1916, to the bishop of Liege, ad III: "There is no obligation of appointing an ordinary confessor for Sisters, if their community does not attain the number of at least six Sisters" (cf. for example Archiv f. K. KR., t. 97, pp. 85-87) still seems to be in force, at least in this respect, that the Ordinary can then permit the Sisters to confess after the manner of seculars in a public church; in which case, no ordinary confessor is to be designated.

2. The ordinary confessor can be chosen from either clergy, supposing, for a religious confessor, the license of Superiors; he must be forty years old, "unless a just cause, in the judgment of the Ordinary, demands otherwise"; nor can he have any power in the external forum over the same religious women (c. 524, §1).

Wherefore the office of ordinary confessor is not to be committed to that priest to whom some power is attributed of moderating the Sisters, for example as mistresses of schools, prefects of a hospital.

This reason already advises that, in places where two or three Sisters instruct girls, the pastor not be formally appointed ordinary confessor of those Sisters. For although he is not strictly their Superior, nevertheless he is endowed with great authority in the Catholic school, and easy conflicts can arise between him and the Superiorissa. I would judge it more satisfactory, unless another more suitable person can be designated, that the Ordinary appoint no ordinary confessor, and simply allow the Sisters freely, in the parish church or another, to approach some confessor. Nevertheless the Ordinary, for whom there can be just causes of ordering the matter otherwise, must be obeyed.

Moreover, to every confessor, both ordinary and extraordinary, c. 524 §3 recommends that he in no way involve himself in the external governance of the community.

3. Jurisdiction proceeds from the local Ordinary. If, however, the house is subject to a regular Superior, he presents confessors to the Ordinary. But the Ordinary supplies for a negligent Superior (c. 525), by appointing without presentation.

4. Of itself the office of ordinary confessor of religious women is conferred for three years. Nevertheless a scarcity of confessors or the vote of the greater part of the religious women gives a just cause on account of which the Ordinary can confirm the confessor for a second, indeed for a third, three-year period. But the vote of the religious women must be expressed through secret ballots, even of those who in other affairs lack active voice, as, for example, lay sisters. If the vote was not unanimous, provision must be made otherwise for the dissenting, if they wish (c. 526).

Besides, an ordinary confessor cannot be appointed extraordinary immediately; nor, beyond the cases just enumerated from c. 526, can he again be deputed ordinary in the same community except after a year from the completed office (c. 524, §2).

That law concerning change after three years does not affect ordinary confessors of religious men, since these perpetually have greater option; nor the confessor of novices, if they have a proper one, since the novices are going to depart after one or another year, so that he is never constituted beyond three years for the same persons.

If the confessor seems to be confirmed beyond the third three-year period, the Holy See is to be approached. It sometimes dispenses bishops from the law of varying confessors. Thus, by indult of September 2, 1913, the bishops of Belgium obtained for five years that they could confirm ordinary confessors of Sisters in office for the time well-seeming to them and without voting of the Sisters (cf. Per., VII, 369).

But in the petition itself the petitioning bishops placed this clause: "all other dispositions for safeguarding the liberty of consciences being observed."

Therefore Sisters for whom the stability of the confessor is less acceptable must easily obtain a special confessor, according to c. 526.

5. For a grave cause, the local Ordinary can remove the confessor, after warning the regular Superior if the nuns are subject to regulars. The cause of removal is to be signified only to the Apostolic See, if it is required by it (c. 527).

— II. On the Extraordinary Confessor. 1. To every community of religious women an extraordinary confessor must also be given, endowed with the same age and qualities as the ordinary, who at least four times in the year approaches the religious house, and to whom all the religious women must present themselves, at least to receive his blessing (cc. 521 and 524, §1).

The very manner in which the canon is written demonstrates that it is of the mind of the legislator that one and the same priest offer himself as extraordinary at least four times in the year. The reason is added, that the Sisters, if they prefer, can be directed in spirit by the extraordinary in a sufficiently stable and continuous way. Nevertheless there are places where, suitable persons lacking, the local Ordinary is compelled to order the matter otherwise, and sends now this, now that priest for receiving confessions as extraordinary.

Nor does it seem to be contrary to the law that once in the year, for example during spiritual exercises, the priest who gives the exercises receives confessions as extraordinary.

But that the extraordinary, as such, should approach more than four times, the authority of the Ordinary is needed, to whom it belongs to define the greater frequency. Whenever, however, he fulfills his office of extraordinary confessor, all the religious women must present themselves to him.

2. Nothing prevents the extraordinary confessor from being immediately appointed ordinary of the same community (c. 524, §2); nor must he himself be changed after three years.

It is to be expected from the prudent zeal of the local Ordinary that he take care lest, through too many years, the Sisters have habitual supply of only two priests, so that, except for the interval now prescribed by the law itself, the ordinary and extraordinary confessors seem almost to exchange the office between themselves. We say this unless the exceptional gifts of the confessors bring it about that the very stability of persons is pleasing to all and truly desirable.

3. By the same reason as the ordinary confessor himself, the extraordinary can be removed by the local Ordinary (c. 527).

— III. On the Special Confessor. We call special confessor a priest, distinct from the ordinary confessor, to whom some Sister habitually confesses. To one asking for such a one, the Ordinary is easily to assent, provided that this seems to contribute either to the quiet of her soul, or to her greater spiritual progress. But at the same time abuses, if any creep in from this, are to be cautiously and prudently eliminated by the Ordinary, yet in such a way that liberty of conscience remains safe (c. 520, §2).

Therefore the Code does not wish that, on account of some abuse, the faculty be immediately taken away; but it advises the Ordinary that he study to compose all things prudently.

The special confessor is freely appointed by the Ordinary, whether secular or religious; nor must he be presented by the religious Superior; nor is a peculiar age required in him. And he can be the ordinary himself who has fulfilled the office (Sacred Congregation on Religious, April 20-22, 1917. Per., VIII, p. 229).

— IV. On Supplementary Confessors. From c. 521 §2, in places in which religious communities exist, some priests must be furnished with habitual faculties, so that in particular cases they can be called without the necessity of approaching the local Ordinary.

A particular case can be that of some Sister who wishes once to confess to another, or of the community itself, as if the ordinary is absent or sick.

Whenever, moreover, some religious woman asks for either an extraordinary or a supplementary confessor, it is lawful for no superior "neither by herself nor through others; neither directly nor indirectly, to inquire into the reason for the petition, to resist the petition by words or deeds, or to show in any way that she bears it ill" (c. 521, §2).

We said: "whenever she asks for either an extraordinary or a supplementary confessor." For after it treated in §1 concerning an extraordinary confessor, in §2 concerning supplementary confessors, canon 521 in §3 says: "If some religious woman asks for any one of those confessors." Therefore these words are referred to both preceding paragraphs, so that the extraordinary is counted among those confessors.

And so the local Ordinary could not prohibit that a priest whom he stably gave as extraordinary be called as supplementary by some religious woman.

It belongs to the supplementary confessor to warn a Sister who has summoned him without reasonable cause; concerning external abuses, the local Ordinary is to be warned.

Supplementaries are freely designated by the local Ordinary, also for those communities which are subject to regular men. Nor must they have a peculiar age.

— V. On the Occasional Confessor from c. 522. Besides the ordinary, extraordinary, special confessor, and besides supplementary confessors, provision is made for the liberty of religious women, or rather for the security and tranquility of their conscience, by a new reason, by permitting that in certain circumstances they approach any confessor approved for women. For thus sounds c. 522, in almost the same words which canon 519 used concerning men.

"If, notwithstanding the prescription of cc. 520, 521, some religious woman, for the tranquility of her conscience, approaches a confessor approved by the local Ordinary for women, the confession made in any church or oratory even semi-public is valid and licit, any contrary privilege being revoked; nor can the superior prohibit this or inquire about that matter, not even indirectly; and the religious women are bound to report nothing to the superior."

Concerning this canon we observe these few things.

1. The respect of the present concession is somewhat different from the respect on account of which the other options of cc. 520, 521, 523 were given. Here the legislator wished to provide for a more accidental anxiety; and the offered facility coheres sufficiently with the diffused use of daily Communion in all religious communities. Wherefore:

2. this approach is an accidental fact of some religious woman. The canon says: "If some religious woman." Therefore the Superiorissa could not ask any confessor approved for women to supply for her community an absent or impeded ordinary or extraordinary confessor. Confessions thus made would be invalid, since c. 876 requires special jurisdiction;

3. the religious woman has no right of demanding that the superior call such a confessor, unless she herself is gravely sick. In this point it again appears how this confessor differs from the supplementary one approved for religious women. For he, when a religious woman asks, must be called;

4. a priest whom the religious woman has approached without sufficient reason must warn her to conform herself to common discipline.

5. It has been doubted whether the circumstance of place was required for validity, or only for liceity. The Pontifical Commission for interpreting the Code, having been asked about the matter in these words: "Whether the words of canon 522, 'the confession made in any church or oratory even semi-public is valid and licit,' are to be so understood that confession made outside those places is not only illicit but also invalid," on November 24, 1920, responded thus: "Canon 522 is to be understood in such a way that the confessions which religious women make for the tranquility of their conscience before a confessor approved by the local Ordinary for women are licit and valid, provided they are made in a church or oratory even semi-public, or in a place legitimately destined for hearing the confessions of women."

Nevertheless not every controversy has been removed by this response. This will have to be observed if perhaps some new authentic declaration pronounces about the doubts more strictly or more benignly. Meanwhile:

a) there are not lacking those who, even after the response of November 24, 1920, think that the condition of place is not required for validity. For, so they say, while by the simple word "Affirmatively" or "Negatively," every doubt would have been removed, the Pontifical Commission seems to have declined a direct response, by asserting positively: that "the confessions are licit and valid, provided," etc. From this form of responding this one thing is strictly established: confessions made otherwise are at least illicit.

This benign opinion in the year 1922 was publicly defended at the University of Louvain, among theses proposed for attaining the grade of mastery; and in Rome it was said to be solidly probable by R. P. Goyeneche, who brings seven authorities for it (cf. Commentarium pro religiosis, 1921, pp. 22 and 337).

Nevertheless it is sufficiently established for us that this was the mind of the Commission: that confessions outside the indicated places are to be held neither licit nor valid. Wherefore it employed the word dummodo, which, from c. 39, expresses an essential condition. Besides, in c. 876, by which peculiar jurisdiction is required for receiving the confessions of religious women validly and licitly, it is not doubted that the condition of special jurisdiction is required for validity. Why should we understand otherwise the force of that formula in canon 522 and in the response of the Commission? Ambiguity is excluded by usage itself;

b) the place legitimately destined for hearing the confessions of women is understood by not a few to mean only a place where secular women also can be heard, and therefore to exclude a confessional which is reserved for religious women. Thus Ferreres (Inst. canonicae, 1920, I, n. 832); Fanfani, O. Pr. (De iure religiosorum, 1920, n. 110, and in the Italian work of the same argument); and, in Bollettino diocesano di Padova, 1922, p. 5 sqq., R. D. Cerato, who still thinks that by the word "approaches" there are equivalently restored the words "outside her own house," which, placed in the decree Cum de sacramentalibus, February 3, 1914, were deliberately omitted in canon 522. For they observe that secular women are designated when there is question of a priest approved for women; therefore secular women also must be understood when there is question of a place legitimately destined for hearing the confessions of women. Besides, unless the faculty of c. 522 is so limited, the necessity of special jurisdiction solemnly affirmed by canon 876 practically vanishes.

But the first argument rather favors the opposite opinion. For what c. 522 permits to one simply approved for hearing secular women, by a stronger reason it permits to a priest who is also approved for nuns. Therefore, if the word women is to be taken with the same extension in both cases, what is said of a place where seculars can be heard will be said by an equal or stronger reason of a place where religious women and nuns are accustomed to confess.

Besides, why were the words "outside the house" omitted in the canon? This explanation offers itself spontaneously: so that religious women who never leave the house may also be able to use the benefit of c. 522. But cloistered religious women will not be able to do this (unless, as happens for example in Sicily, their confessor has his seat in the church itself) if you exclude by the faculty a place destined for hearing them. Moreover what of itself appears most probable has been confirmed to us by trustworthy testimony, that is, that this was the mind of those who prepared the Code: that even cloistered women might enjoy the benefit of an "occasional" confessor.

Besides, from the declaration of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, November 25, 1874, ad 3 (Collect. de P.F., n. 1424), confessionals furnished for cloistered nuns are judged also approved for outside women. They are therefore numbered among places legitimately destined for hearing the confessions of women, even if only secular women are understood.

Nor for this reason does c. 874 perish. For, as Noldin says (De Sacramentis, n. 350), there is question only of a confession which is sometimes undertaken for obtaining tranquility of conscience.

Wherefore with others, for example with Noldin, l.c.; Genicot-Salsmans (II, p. 303, ed. 9); Aertnys-Damen, of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Theologia mor., n. [OCR/print uncertain: number not visible after "Theologia mor."]), we think this broader interpretation is to be held.

Nevertheless the Vicariate of the City prefers and practically follows the stricter opinion, which excludes cloistered nuns, in their monastery, from the use of c. 522.

Finally, R. P. Maroto (Comment. pro religiosis, 1921, p. 36 sqq.) observes this: "if, according to the norm of c. 910, in a case of true necessity... a confessor approved for women receives the confession of some religious woman outside the confessional seat in a place where he would receive in a like case the confessions of secular women, that place is likewise to be judged legitimately destined, since it is chosen by the confessor himself and by the religious penitent, according to the norm of the law, that is, c. 910."

In the present cause, it must not be passed over how much greater facility of confession is necessary so that, without too much danger of sacrileges, the so laudable use of daily Communion in communities can prudently be urged.

— VI. On Sick Sisters. A nun or sister gravely sick, although danger of death is absent, can call any priest approved for hearing the confessions of women and, while the infirmity endures, confess to him as often as she wishes, "nor can the superior prohibit them either directly or indirectly" (c. 523).

A grave illness is one which greatly afflicts, or can easily become dangerous; an indication of a grave illness can be if it compels one to lie in bed for one or another week. Although an illness also can be grave in which one is prevented from lying down.

— VII. All Cardinals, from their promotion in consistory, enjoy the faculty of hearing confessions everywhere in the world even of religious of either sex and of absolving from all sins and censures even reserved, except censures reserved to the Apostolic See in a most special manner and those which are annexed to the revelation of the secret of the Holy Office (c. 239).

— I. In clerical religions, to individual religious, if you except novices, free option must be given among several confessors designated by the competent Superior. Rules or Constitutions can command or recommend that religious confess to those confessors; nevertheless all, even exempt and novices, can always validly approach any confessor approved by the local Ordinary. Confessors approved by the local Ordinary have by the law itself power over cases reserved in the religion; but those constituted by the Superior of an exempt religion must habitually be endowed with the same power.

For novices a single ordinary confessor can be designated, dwelling in the novitiate house itself, who cannot be the master of novices or his associate, or the Superior of the house. But others are to be designated whom the novices may freely approach in particular cases; and four times in the year an extraordinary is to be designated, to whom all must approach, at least to receive his blessing.

Superiors can induce subjects neither by themselves nor through another to confess before them; nevertheless they can absolve those who ask this voluntarily; but without grave cause let them not do this habitually.

II. In lay religions of men, jurisdiction proceeds from the Ordinary of the place of the convent. Nevertheless the Superior of an exempt religion proposes the confessor to the local Ordinary. One or several confessors are to be deputed, besides an extraordinary, whom nevertheless only novices must approach. A habitual special confessor is easily to be conceded; and confession to anyone approved by the local Ordinary is always valid.

III. In religions of women:

1. A single ordinary confessor is to be designated for individual houses of religious women, unless the number of persons or another just cause advises plurality. He, to be chosen from either clergy, is forty years old (unless a just cause, in the judgment of the Ordinary, demands otherwise), free from every power of the external forum over the same religious women, and constituted for three years. On account of scarcity of confessors or on account of the vote of the community, then to be given by all Sisters, he can be confirmed by the Ordinary for another or a third three-year period. If the vote was not unanimous, for those dissenting, if they wish, provision is to be made otherwise. After the time has elapsed, the ordinary confessor cannot immediately be appointed extraordinary, or again, except after a year, be deputed ordinary in the same community. In a house subject to a regular Superior, he presents ordinary and extraordinary confessors to the local Ordinary, who alone gives jurisdiction, and also, on account of grave causes, can remove confessors, after warning the regular Superior if the nuns are subject to regulars.

2. Besides, an extraordinary is to be given, furnished with the same age and qualities as the ordinary, who at least four times in the year or more frequently, according to the direction of the Ordinary, approaches, and to whom then all religious women must present themselves, at least to receive his blessing.

3. To a Sister asking, a special confessor is easily to be given by the Ordinary, to whom she may habitually confess. Abuses in this matter are to be prudently eliminated by the Ordinary in such a way that liberty of conscience remains safe.

4. Besides, supplementary confessors are to be designated, who can be called in particular cases. Whenever, however, a religious woman asks for an extraordinary or supplementary confessor, no superior is permitted to resist that petition in any way.

5. Finally, from c. 522, a religious woman for the tranquility of her conscience is permitted to approach, in any church, in any oratory at least semi-public or in a place legitimately deputed for confessions of women, any confessor approved in the place for the confessions of women.

6. A gravely sick religious woman can, while the infirmity lasts, as often as she wishes, call any confessor approved for women and confess to him.

7. In danger of death, religious women can be absolved by any confessor, just like the rest of the faithful.

The faculty of Cardinals has already been recalled above.