§ I. On Inquiry into the Name of an Accomplice

Canon 888, § 2 establishes: "Let the confessor take care altogether not to inquire into the name of an accomplice." This canon takes the place of the ecclesiastical documents¹ which before the Code governed this matter. Therefore, of itself it is forbidden to induce the penitent to reveal the name of an accomplice, and indeed under grave sin or, as commonly happens, under light sin, according as, considering the rules on defamation of neighbor (vol. I, n. 1069), it is grave or light to reveal the sin of a third person to one upright man. Scandal can be added, and the danger that the penitent may be somewhat alienated from the sacrament. Moreover, of itself it is always a grave sin to inquire into the name of an accomplice under denial of absolution.

And so the matter stands of itself, since, when a proportionate cause is added, inquiry into the name becomes licit.

Corollary I. It is lawful for the confessor to inquire into the name of an accomplice if the penitent is bound from another source to denounce the accomplice, and either the confessor is the superior to whom the accomplice must be denounced, or the denunciation cannot conveniently be made except through the mediation of the confessor, who has been made certain of the accomplice's name. But commonly, even in these cases, it is better that the name be revealed outside confession. If it is done through the mediation of the confessor, it can commonly be done without the name of the accomplice being manifested to the confessor, namely by handing to him a closed note on which the name of the accomplice is written, or even by handing to the confessor a closed note which contains both the facts to be manifested and the name of the accomplice, and which is handed over by the confessor to the one to whom it belongs by law.

Corollary II. The confessor can and must question the penitent insofar as the integrity of confession and the prudent ministration of the sacrament require it, even if from this he comes to knowledge of the accomplice, as was explained in n. 328 (St. Alphonsus, VI, 491, 492).

¹ The documents were: the Constitutions Suprema of Benedict XIV, July 7, 1745; Ubi primum, June 2, 1746; Ad eradicandum, September 28, 1746; and the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis of Pius IX, October 12, 1869. The law, however, not only prohibited inquiry into the name of an accomplice, but also, when the conditions were posited, established penalties; these have now been removed.