§ 3. With Regard to Repairing Defects

— These principles must be held. 1. No violation of the sacramental seal is excused by the necessity of repairing a defect. But of itself he does not violate the seal who merely admonishes the penitent that an invalid absolution was conferred by him from error; or who, on account of a grave cause, simply asks from the penitent the faculty of adding something to the things said in confession.

2. Every defect which can be repaired without inconvenience must be repaired, and this under grave obligation, if grave damage is to be averted.

But if reparation brings inconvenience, the quality of the obligation must be weighed: of justice or of charity; the gravity of the inconvenience to be sustained; the damage to follow from omission, which damage can be of the sacrament, or of the penitent or of a third person. But the obligation will have to be estimated from the rules of justice or charity, while observing that the obligation varies according to the diverse fault or excuse of the confessor. But fault varies not only in gravity, but also in manner, according as it was committed by acting positively, or negatively, by omitting something owed.

— Rules to be followed. Defects are to be distinguished as damaging or non-damaging; damaging defects can be such to the penitent or to another person; they can render the confession invalid, or not remove the validity of the confession.

1. From a tacit pact with the penitent, the confessor owes it from justice to procure for one rightly disposed a valid confession and absolution. Therefore reparation of invalidly given absolution is an obligation of justice, and grave indeed if grave spiritual damage is to be feared for the penitent, as if the dying person cannot receive another sacrament. This obligation of justice itself will press more strictly or less strictly, according as the error was culpable or not culpable. For a culpable error will have to be repaired even with equal damage of the confessor, and will be removed only by a truly graver one. But reparation will also be able to be made outside confession, by supplying the absolution invalidly given. Yet if some interval of time has intervened, it will not be lawful to absolve the penitent again unless a new confession has been premised, when new grave sins are prudently to be feared. But when another confession has been made, that damage of valid absolution not received, at least as grave, has been morally certainly removed; and pious reception of a sacrament of the living probably effects the same. Therefore, if the confessor will easily be able to bring the invalidly absolved penitent to a new confession, he will repair the damage even without any admonition of the penitent. But if the damage of the penitent was only light (for deprivation of absolution is always in some way damaging), the confessor for the most part will be excused by the inconvenience itself of admonishing.

2. If the error was about the integrity of confession, reparation is owed rather to God than to the penitent, since of itself all damage of the penitent consists in the obligation not known. Yet the confessor who positively deceived the penitent (by saying what is false), according to the more common opinion, must correct the error even outside confession, after obtaining the penitent's permission, unless he is excused by grave damage or scandal. And because for the most part this will not be done without notable damage, and from elsewhere the penitent in other confessions will have a probable occasion of knowing the error committed, this obligation scarcely seems in practice to be urged. But in confession it will have to be fulfilled prudently (cf. Ball.-Palm., V, 558-561).

In confession also it will be enough that the integrity of the former confession, which was wanting because of the negative negligence of the confessor, be prudently procured.

Prudently, I say, because also, as Ball.-Palm., V, 562, notes, it will be little pleasing to the penitent to observe the tenacious memory which the confessor bears concerning sins accused to him. Therefore it will be good, if a sufficiently long time has elapsed, that the confessor explain that this memory is to be attributed to a special cause.

3. An error otherwise damaging to the penitent, as concerning the obligation of deserting an occasion of sinning, will have to be repaired from justice, if the confessor was culpable for the positively committed error; which also seems to have to be said when without fault of his own he positively deceived; but then the obligation will be excused by a lesser inconvenience. If the confessor merely neglected to admonish the penitent, the obligation will be from charity alone. This does not oblige with a relatively grave inconvenience.

4. An error damaging to another person will not be imputed to the confessor from justice unless it was committed by positive action, and that culpable, or unless the omission of diligence in correcting the error of a positively given response was culpable. For he is held by no positive office toward another person.

Those errors of which in n. 3 and 4, both outside confession, with the law of the seal preserved, and within confession, if the occasion is had, must be repaired. But as often as it can be done, it will be better to reserve the correction for a following confession.

— You ask about the connected obligation of restitution.

The confessor himself must repair damage, even by restitution: a) which he did to a penitent whom with grave fault he unduly obliged to making restitution. And even if grave fault was absent, after he has known the error, he must correct it from justice insofar as he can furnish this without grave inconvenience;

b) which he did to another, while he positively declared the penitent immune from a certain obligation of restoring: whether then he was gravely culpable, or with grave fault of his own he did not retract even an involuntary error.

But what if the penitent, by denying the faculty of speaking about confession, impeded retraction?

Then the confessor himself is dispensed from retracting an error that was not culpable; but he will continue to bear the damages of a positive and culpable error. I say damages. For if the penitent, admonished, does not seem to have been going to make restitution, the error now will not be damaging to another person.

— The action of the confessor. I. With regard to the three parts of the sacrament.

1. With regard to the accusation of the penitent. As minister, solicitous for the integrity of the sacrament; as physician, for complete healing; as neighbor, as giver of spiritual alms, the confessor must take care that the penitent make a complete accusation. Yet he himself is held to this accidentally and secondarily. The examination must be supplied such as the penitent, according to his quality and instruction, can make without excessive inconvenience, attending to the fragility of the penitent, for whom confession is not to be rendered odious, abstaining from curious or useless questions, especially about chastity, and taking care lest the ignorance of younger persons be imprudently dissipated.

Let the penitent be allowed, for the most part, first to set forth his state in his own manner, with interruption which disturbs memory avoided.

If a general confession is made from devotion, let the penitent be admonished about his faculty of keeping silent what he wishes, with the counsel added of saying in few words the things which may beget the fruit of greater humility. In a necessary general confession, let the sin, if perhaps the only one on account of which it is commanded, be declared, with the frequency of sacraments added which perhaps were received sacrilegiously. If many sins must be accused, it will be better to divide life into various epochs. Let the confessor make effort that as soon as possible there be indicated by the penitent what he would declare with more difficulty, by giving him courage, or even by conjecturing concerning what kind of cause there is question. At the end let him strengthen peace of soul, by admonishing that those things which have slipped from memory have now been remitted, that examinations are no longer to be repeated, that the presumption of completed confession favors the penitent. He who has confessed generally twice or three times should be prohibited from a new discussion of conscience, lest, contrary to Christ's institution, peace of soul be removed by the very remedy of peace.

2. With regard to absolution: a) that absolution is called conditional whose condition, on account of reverence toward the sacrament, is expressly, at least mentally, conceived; b) just as by absolution granted, so by absolution denied, the cause is finished, while by absolution delayed it is suspended: then the right remains to the penitent of approaching the confessor, who is held from justice to hear him through to the end; c) in direct absolution, sins are remitted by force of the keys. They are indirectly remitted through grace owed to the disposed penitent, which cannot be infused unless all mortal sins are taken away. But then the obligation remains of submitting to the keys, in the next confession, the sins thus remitted; d) to the disposed penitent absolution is to be given, and of itself immediately. For the spiritual utility of the penitent it can be deferred.

Absolution under a condition concerning the present or the past (never concerning the future): "if I have the faculty, if there is present to the penitent the disposition necessary for validity," can be given on account of great utility or necessity, for example to him who is placed in danger of dying without absolution, or who would remain long in mortal sin, or who is pressed by necessity of receiving a sacrament of the living; or who, if absolution were deferred, seems about to desert the sacraments. Thus, besides several penitents of little piety, children and the half-witted in doubt about sufficient discretion will have to be absolved conditionally; penitents who do not bring certain matter about which they are sorry, when they bring matter probably grave, or sometimes during the year.

3. With regard to sacramental penance, a) the confessor, as judge, must impose penance either immediately after absolution or, and this better, before. And he can create only the obligation of penance; b) regularly he must impose a grave penance for grave fault, and have that account of the quality of faults which our times permit. That is judged grave which corresponds to reciting the third part of the Rosary. To enjoin a very slight penance for grave sins would be grave, an excusing cause excluded; c) every work, even one already commanded, can be imposed; not, however, one by which the things accused are in some way revealed; d) the same one who gave it can always commute the penance, as if perfecting his judgment; another must first know the sacramental cause, and therefore absolve. Not even into a better work can the penitent commute the penance; e) the highest account of the penance to be imposed is that it be salutary; therefore, lest the confessor lessen the consciousness of grave sin, nor leave too great a debt to the penitent; and that it be medicinal, insofar as it either breaks the force of occasion or temptation, or weakens the force of passion, or increases spiritual strength. Care must also be taken that the penitent truly accept the penance.

Finally, the confessor cannot be approved who always indiscreetly imposes the same small penance on all.

II. With regard to the persons of penitents.

1. Different action for different persons. The confessor must adapt his action to individual persons. These things can be stated generically: a) theologically uneducated persons, such as several are even cultivated in other matters, are not to be dismissed unprepared, but are to be helped so that, questioned, they may furnish, according to their capacity, sufficient confession and sorrow. This is much more valid concerning the half-witted; b) it must be procured that children confess sincerely and sorrowfully, and form for themselves a right conscience; that they confess without danger; that they be taught simple modesty, not scrupulous or suspicious modesty. And occasions of sin must be removed from them; c) pious penitents are to be brought to more perfect things and apostolic zeal; d) observance and solid virtues are to be inculcated in religious; e) the sick are to be visited in time, so that the dying can be comforted and well helped; f) those of little piety are to be treated dexterously, so that in a few moments they may sufficiently accuse themselves and, fortified by paternal counsels, depart more pacified, instructed, and content. These, unless they are certainly indisposed, should be absolved under condition rather than dismissed; g) those in occasions who must and can desert a permanent occasion, and have a sufficiently convenient faculty of returning, are regularly to be gently induced to dismiss the occasion before they demand absolution. If they have several times deceived trust, they are to be deferred until they have executed the obligation, unless it is a case of absolving them conditionally; h) concerning recidivists these things are to be observed.

They are called recidivists who, after confession, although admonished, relapse into the same sins in the same morally equivalent manner.

A recidivist from intrinsic fragility is to be treated benignly, and regularly absolved, if, in the present, he demonstrates himself sufficiently disposed. The remedy of delayed absolution can be tried, at least in some regions, if a greater horror of sin, a greater effort against temptation, greater constancy of purpose can prudently be hoped for from it. The confessor could also use a threatened denial. Yet let us have greater hope in the sacraments and in more frequent confession or Communion, which can be imposed on him.

A recidivist from a voluntary occasion is to be treated as we were just saying about those in occasions.

A recidivist from a necessary occasion, if he has made some progress, is to be absolved, with exhortation and congratulation added, by which he may come out more upright for the fight. If there is no amendment, opinions vary. The safer parts, or flight from the occasion, which is possible in some way, should altogether be advised; indeed, unless a most grave inconvenience stands in the way, of themselves they should be imposed. With most grave inconvenience, they do not seem able to be strictly imposed.

2. General rules. Let the confessor carefully procure for himself, in this ministry, the purest intention, empty of every human consideration; let him strive to render confession easier for all; let him question so circumspectly that he promotes sincerity, yet disturbs no good faith, renders no soul anxious. If he judges that absolution is to be deferred, let the delay be very brief, for hours, for a day, not beyond fourteen days, since of itself it is grave to remain in the state of sin. Not content with absolution, let him arouse penitents to more perfect things; let him cultivate the seeds of a more sublime vocation and have the spiritual utility of the penitent for his supreme rule.

After confessions have been heard, after examination has been made, it will help to study progress in his art.

III. With regard to repairing defects. 1. Principles. With the seal uninjured, every defect must be repaired, an excusing inconvenience excluded, and this under grave obligation, if grave damage is to be averted. If reparation has inconvenience, the quality of the obligation, the origin, the inconvenience of repairing, the damages of omitted reparation will have to be weighed.

Reparation is better made in confession, if the occasion is had. This lacking, let it be made outside confession, after asking, where there is need, permission to speak about confession. If this has been denied, the confessor is dispensed from retracting an error which was not culpable; but he will continue to bear the damages of a positive and culpable error. For he must repair, even by restitution, damage which with grave fault he inflicted on a penitent whom he unduly obliged to restitution, or on another, if he badly declared the penitent immune from the obligation. The same is valid if, with grave fault, he omitted to retract even a non-voluntary error.

2. Applications. Absolution invalidly given is to be supplied from justice, with confession premised, if after the confession new mortal sins are to be feared. Yet the damage of the penitent has already probably been removed after a sacrament of the living has been received, and morally certainly after a new confession. An error about integrity will rarely have to be repaired outside confession. In a new confession this will have to be done prudently, especially if the penitent has been positively deceived by the confessor.

An error otherwise damaging to the penitent or to another will have to be repaired from justice if the confessor positively deceived the penitent; and it will urge more gravely the confessor who is culpable. Mere omission of admonition will have to be repaired from charity. But the obligation will be stronger toward the penitent than toward an outsider, to whom the confessor owed nothing from office.