What sins may be reserved, and by whom

Principles. - I. There exists in the Church a power of reserving certain cases or causes of graver crimes from which inferior Confessors cannot absolve without a special faculty. For, as was said (preceding article), the power of conferring and limiting jurisdiction belongs to the Church; therefore the power of reserving cases also belongs to her. This is established, moreover, from the definition of the Council of Trent, session 14, chapter 7, etc.

II. The power of reserving sins belongs only to Prelates of the Church who have jurisdiction in both the internal and the external forum ¹. The reason is that it belongs to those alone who can confer jurisdiction in the society of the faithful to limit the same.

¹ You would say more accurately that whoever has ordinary jurisdiction, even for the forum of conscience alone, and can delegate it to another with greater or lesser restriction, can reserve sins to himself. For, as Lugo says (On Penance, disp. 20, no. 1), since in this sacrament there is required... jurisdiction, which must be communicated to inferiors by Superiors, it follows that a Superior can limit this jurisdiction more or less, giving it for more or fewer causes as seems good to him: this is to reserve to himself the absolution of those causes which he does not grant to the inferior.

From this the same author concludes (ibid., no. 2): Hence it is established that the Supreme Pontiff, by reason of his supreme and universal power, can reserve certain sins to himself for the whole Church; Bishops likewise, speaking in itself, can do so for their episcopate; and finally a pastor (who otherwise does not have jurisdiction in the external forum) for his parish. He observes nevertheless (ibid.) that this power of a pastor is almost useless, and therefore pastors are not accustomed to use this power. For this difference exists among the Pope, a Bishop, and a Pastor: when the Pontiff reserves, no one can absolve except with the permission of the Pontiff himself; when a Bishop reserves, others can absolve with the permission of the Supreme Pontiff; and finally, if a pastor were to reserve, others could absolve with the permission of the Pope or the Bishop. Therefore, unless the Bishop, while granting jurisdiction, at the same time provides that those sins which the pastor has reserved to himself are not to be absolved, just as the Supreme Pontiff prohibits Regulars to whom he grants jurisdiction from absolving from sins which Bishops reserve to themselves, pastors would reserve sins to themselves in vain. And therefore, says Lugo (ibid.), pastors are not accustomed to reserve, because that reservation would be almost useless, just as the faculty of granting jurisdiction has become almost useless, according to the things said above (no. 546, Principle III). I said almost; for, as the same Lugo observes (disp. 21, no. 4), a Bishop could approve someone to hear confessions and nevertheless confer no jurisdiction upon him, but only render him capable of receiving jurisdiction; wherefore, if he had from elsewhere a general privilege of his Order, or a special privilege of hearing confessions, once the Bishop's approval was in place he could... receive from the pastor jurisdiction to hear the confessions of his subjects. See also the Salmanticenses (On Penance, chapter 13, no. 2).

Hence: 1. the Pope can reserve cases throughout the whole Church; 2. Bishops can reserve them in their own diocese; 3. others having episcopal jurisdiction can reserve them with regard to their own subjects.

III. By the custom of the Church, three things are required for a sin to be considered reserved, namely, that it be: 1. mortal ²; 2. external ³; 3. consummated in act, and not merely attempted, unless something else is established from an express declaration of the one reserving ⁴. - Thus commonly; St. Lig., no. 582.

² Mortal is understood not only by reason of the object, but also by reason of the malice in the act of the will.

³ It is called external insofar as, in addition to the grave malice of the internal will, the external action must also have gravity in itself.

⁴ When a work ought to be considered consummated, and therefore as falling under the reserving law, must be determined from the words of the law itself. Hence it can happen that, with reservation taken into account, a work must be considered consummated which otherwise does not seem consummated in its own genus. Thus, for example, if any external lapse of the flesh is reserved, even acts imperfect in the genus of lust will fall under the reservation, provided that the external action of itself bears the character of grave sin.

IV. Reservation immediately affects the Confessor ⁵, and mediately the penitent, because it immediately touches and restricts the power of the Confessor. - St. Lig., nos. 580, 581, and others commonly, against some.

⁵ The contrary manner of speaking could therefore seem probable, because in fact it sometimes happens, according to the different condition of penitents, that one and the same confessor can at one time absolve from one and the same sin, and at another time cannot. Thus, for example, a Regular who is accustomed to hear the confessions both of domestic Religious and of secular persons will be able to absolve a secular person from the crime of perjury, but not a Religious, since this crime will be reserved for a Religious but not for a secular person. Likewise, a secular confessor will be able, even among secular persons themselves, to absolve Andrew from the same crime of writing a defamatory libel, because, as a perpetual member of the household of Religious, he is not subject to episcopal reservation (see the note above at no. 173), but he will not be able to absolve Andrew's brother Christopher, who is subject to the reservation. In fact, however, these things detract nothing from the general principle that reservation, as a mere limitation of jurisdiction, immediately affects the confessor. For in the foregoing and other similar cases the reason for the difference between penitent and penitent is that one is subject to one Ordinary and the other to another. Therefore, insofar as two different Prelates, the Regular Prelate for his own subjects and likewise the Bishop for his own, confer upon one

Now most episcopal cases are simply reserved without a censure, while almost all papal cases have a censure and are reserved principally because of the censure, so that in them the censure is immediately reserved and the sin itself mediately or accessorily. Hence, in papal cases, when the censure is reserved, the sin also remains reserved; but, on the contrary, when the censure is removed, for example because it was unknown, neither is the sin reserved, because, when the object of the reservation, that is, the censure, has been removed, the sin no longer remains reserved. - St. Lig., no. 580. But there are two cases which the Pope reserves without a censure: the first, namely, that of one who receives gifts from Regulars of either sex ⁶ (from the Constitutions of Clement VIII and Urban VIII); the second, if a woman calumniously accuses or denounces an innocent Confessor of solicitation (from a Constitution of Benedict XIV).

⁶ The reservation of this case consists only in this: that whoever has received gifts from Regulars (understand this in grave matter) cannot be absolved unless the things received are restored to the monastery or Order. Therefore, if someone has already restored them, or at least has the intention of restoring them, the reservation ceases. Where, and to what extent, the Constitutions of Clement VIII and Urban VIII have been received in practice, see Diana (vol. 7, tract 3, resolutions 1, 2, 29, and 33), and the Salmanticenses (On Restitution, chapter 6, no. 10).

Concerning reservation to be made by Bishops, those matters are opportunely to be noted which we have in Benedict XIV, On the Diocesan Synod, book 5, chapter 5.

Although indeed (he says at no. IV) a certain rule to be observed everywhere cannot be prescribed concerning this matter...; nevertheless certain general admonitions and Decrees which have issued from the Sacred Congregations of the City concerning this matter can serve as a rule.

The Sacred Congregation appointed over the affairs of Bishops and Regulars, on January 9, 1601, decreed that the local Ordinaries were to be admonished thus: Lest the local Ordinaries, to whom this right of reserving cases belongs, be burdensome by more reservations than are necessary to their subjects or to Confessors cooperating in procuring the salvation of souls, let all be admonished to reserve few cases, and only those which, according to the state and quality of each diocese, they judge must necessarily be reserved for maintaining Christian discipline and the salvation of the souls entrusted to them. - And it decreed that the same admonition be repeated on November 26, 1602: But lest the local Ordinaries, to whom the reservation of cases belongs, exceed the measure in this matter, the same Sacred Congregation judges that they must again be earnestly admonished to reserve, not indiscriminately, but when it appears expedient for the common good, the absolution only of more atrocious and graver crimes,

and they confer upon the same Confessor jurisdiction more or less circumscribed, he will be able to absolve the subject of the one from the same sin but will not be able to absolve the subject of the other. the reservation of which contributes to maintaining Christian discipline and tends to edification, not destruction, lest otherwise, with the power of the Ministers of the Sacrament of Penance restricted, an effect contrary to the pious intention of holy mother Church should follow. It also prohibits them from superfluously reserving to themselves cases contained in the Bull customarily read on the day of the Lord's Supper, or other cases specially reserved to the Apostolic See.

Encyclical letters from the same Sacred Congregation, given to the Bishops on the same day, November 26, 1602, also read in this manner: The Sacred Congregation judges that these things especially must be admonished: that the Ordinaries themselves see that they do not indiscriminately reserve those cases to which is annexed a major excommunication imposed by law, absolution from which is reserved to no one, unless perhaps because of frequent scandal or another necessary cause some cases of this kind appear to require reservation by name; nor those cases in which absolution is not conferred except with restitution or the execution of those things to which penitents are bound; nor those which, although they induce mortal sin, nevertheless concern matters of small moment and frequently occur among the unlearned, such as damage inflicted and similar things. In reserving carnal sins also, let them employ much circumspection because of the danger of scandals, especially in those persons upon whom some suspicion can fall because of access to extraordinary Confessors or frequent return to the Ordinaries. Finally, let them especially enter upon and follow that course which, after the morals, nature, and inclination of each province and people have been diligently considered, will appear more expedient in the Lord.

The Decisions of the Sacred Congregation of the Council agree with the Decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. For when it was reported to the former that the Bishop of Bellicastro had increased the catalogue of reserved cases beyond measure, on January 29, 1661, it ordered all the others to be removed from the catalogue except ten, or at most twelve, of the graver cases, to be designated at the Bishop's judgment.

Thus far Benedict XIV. To the replies of the Sacred Congregation brought forward by him may opportunely be added the one given to the Bishop of Mirepoix on July 3, 1677. For when he had consulted the Holy See concerning certain Ordinances established by himself, and among them this also was proposed: Because many of the Clergy were more inclined to lust, we reserved this case to ourselves, and that severity greatly benefited the amendment of morals, the Sacred Congregation replied: It is not approved.

Questions. - QUESTION 1. Does ignorance of a reservation or censure excuse one from incurring it?

Reply 1. Affirmative as regards a censure, concerning which matter there will be fuller discussion where Censures are treated.

Reply 2. As regards reservation, it is disputed. St. Lig., with not a few others, denies it; the reason is that, they say, reservation restricts the power of the Confessor ⁷. But the Salmanticenses, tract 18, chapter 6, no. 12; Lugo, On Penance, disp. 20, no. 11; Sanchez, On Matrimony, book 9, disp. 32, nos. 17 and 18; Beati ⁸, Moral Questions, q. 18, no. 25; Jacobus Graffius ⁹, Pract. quinq. cas., book 2, chapter 40, no. 29; Sporer, On Penance, no. 755; Roncaglia, On Penance, q. 7, chapter 2, q. 4; Viva, On Penance, q. IX, art. 3, no. 3; Burghaber, cent. 3, case 31; Quarti, On Reserved Cases, sect. 2, chapter 3, q. 6; and Quintanadvenas, Singular Theology, tract 3, singular IX, no. 1, judge the affirmative opinion probable. - Joseph de Januario, Selected Resolutions, res. 1; John Marin, Speculative and Moral Theology, disp. XI, sect. 2, nos. 90-120. - Add Diana, and Nicholas Mazzotta, who (tract 6, disp. 2, q. 3, chapter 2, q. 2) alleges for the same opinion also Navarrus, Coriolanus, Chapeauville, Malderus, Reginaldus, and Bassacus. Besides others, to these can be added Fagundez (On the Precepts of the Church, book 8, chapter 1, no. 28), Thomas Hurtado (Various Resolutions, vol. II, tract 12, chapter 1, no. 1123), Peter Hurtado (On II-II, vol. I, disp. 84, sect. 1), Merolla (Disputations on Universal Moral Theology, vol. 1, disp. 1, chapter 2, doubt 2, nos. 50-52), Mendoza (in Illsung, tract 6, disp. 6, no. 223), Palaus (tract 2, disp. 1, point 17, no. 8), etc., etc.

⁷ This reason, which is usually brought forward as either the sole or at least the principal reason for that opinion, proves nothing. For we all say that reservation is a restriction of jurisdiction; but whether a reservation or reserving law comprehends even a sin committed in ignorance of the reservation, just as one committed from grave fear, or committed outside the territory, etc., these questions are not resolved from the fact that reservation is a limitation of jurisdiction. In brief: that reservation is a restriction of jurisdiction (which is the definition of reservation) contributes nothing toward deciding to what cases that restriction extends, or what sins are reserved, as Viva well observes (On Penance, q. IX, art. 3, no. 3), just as, namely, from the fact that a law has the force of obliging it would be wrongly concluded that this or that case is comprehended by the law itself.

Some others were moved by fear that in this way both Christian and religious discipline would be relaxed. But this difficulty also is very slight. For when the penitent first confesses that fault, he will be admonished by the confessor concerning the reservation, and thus the way to relaxation of discipline will be closed for the future; but as regards the past, under neither opinion can it be brought about that an unknown reservation imposes a restraint.

⁸ Gabriel Beati taught moral Theology in the Roman College and published these Moral Questions, dedicated to Cardinal Chigi, at Rome in the year 1663, with the approval of John Paul Oliva, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, and Raymond Capisucchi, then Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace and afterward enrolled among the Cardinal Fathers. He speaks thus concerning this question: It is inferred, thirdly, that one invincibly ignorant of some new Constitution in which the absolution of some sin was reserved does not incur it.... For although he knows that he sins, he nevertheless does not know that he sins against the Constitution, since he is ignorant of it. Therefore he cannot incur the reservation, which is a penalty imposed by that Constitution. - Sanchez, On Matrimony, book 9, disp. 32, no. 18.

⁹ This Author, most renowned for his knowledge of Theology and the Sacred Canons, has these things concerning the present matter: Those who are ignorant are not bound by the Constitutions or Statutes of Bishops, although they may be bound by other penalties..., and consequently not by this reservation of a case, since it is a penalty.... The things which Navarrus said in chapter 27, no. 80, support this. And the reason is that ignorance occurring in the one for whose sake the reservation was made entirely excuses him from that reservation.

But that some, distinguishing between penal and medicinal reservations, would excuse the ignorant from incurring the former but not the latter, seems difficult to others. For, as the Acts of the Synod of Tusculum of the year 1763 observe according to the common opinion (part 3, chapter 10, art. 9, no. 2), all reservations, whether Pontifical or Episcopal, seem to be mixed, that is, at once penal and medicinal.

Hence the Salmanticenses (loc. cit. in the text): The second opinion says that every reservation is penal, and thus that ignorance excuses... from every reservation. We adhere to this opinion. And they say that they are moved by this reason: in the case a reservation cannot even be called medicinal, because, they say, with respect to one who did not know that the sin was reserved, reservation would in no way restrain him from committing it, and the end intended by the Superior in such a reservation would entirely cease. Therefore, just as with respect to the ignorant person the end of the reservation ceases and it is not a medicine restraining him from sin, so with respect to him the reservation ceases. Indeed, for this reason John Marin (loc. cit. in the text, no. 113) judged that the argument could be turned back upon the adversaries.

Therefore ignorance (he says) does not excuse according to the adversaries because reservation is medicinal.... But that reservation is medicinal proves that it is not incurred by one invincibly ignorant; and he concludes with the words of Sanchez (loc. cit. in the text, no. 13) concerning censures: It would not be medicine, but would rather do harm, if it were incurred while unknown.

** The VV. expend twenty columns (pp. 515-525) against this Note, yet in such a way that you could almost say that everything contained in them serves merely to increase the bulk of the volume, so entirely do they lack anything having even the appearance of some moment. We shall dispose of the matter briefly.

Against the first Note added to this question the VV. object (p. 519) that the whole question must be resolved entirely from the definition of reservation, which is a restriction of the jurisdiction of Confessors; they add only this one thing, that it remains merely to inquire whether legitimate titles exist by reason of which Confessors can sometimes validly absolve from reserved cases, and that these titles are reduced either to an express or tacit concession of the Superior, or to the probability that in certain circumstances the Superior cannot or does not wish to comprehend something under the reservation. - Reply. The question whether there is a Declaration of the Church, or tacit consent of the Church or of the Bishops, that Confessors sometimes absolve from reserved cases; likewise whether it is probable that in certain circumstances a Superior cannot or does not wish to comprehend some sin under his reservation: this question, I say, is not resolved from the reason that reservation is a restriction of jurisdiction. Therefore it is most true, and the VV. themselves admit what they seem to wish to attack, namely, that in resolving the question whether a sin committed in ignorance of the reservation is comprehended by the reserving law, the definition of reservation, namely that it is essentially a restriction of jurisdiction, is objected in vain, as was indicated in the Note.

The VV. insist (loc. cit.) that it cannot be proved by any reason, not even a slight one, that Bishops cannot or do not wish to comprehend those who are ignorant of the reservation. And on p. 517 they bring forward the words of Amort saying: In all ancient rituals in which reserved cases are treated, absolution from a reserved case is declared invalid without any exception for ignorance. - Reply. The will of the Legislator is gathered from the words of the law, with the common principles and rules for the interpretation of laws being employed, which are not presumed to be unknown to Legislators. Therefore, when something is established from common principles concerning the force of laws in circumstances either of ignorance or of grave fear, full satisfaction is assuredly given to the mind and will of the legislator. But someone would rightly call the observation added from Amort almost puerile. For surely, because when absolution from some censure is reserved to the Apostolic See no exception for ignorance is made, may it therefore be concluded that one who, while offending, was ignorant of the censure annexed to the offense cannot be absolved by others?

The VV. renew (pp. 521-522) the objection already touched upon in the Note, namely, that certain authors distinguish between a penal and a merely medicinal reservation, but that sins committed in ignorance of the reservation are touched by the latter. - Reply 1. These authors, therefore, consider a sin of this kind immune from reservation when the reservation is penal. Therefore even they regarded as false the argument sought against it from the nature and definition of reservation, namely, that it is a restriction of jurisdiction, which nevertheless is the principal, not to say the sole, argument usually brought forward against this opinion.

Reply 2. Do not the VV. themselves finally agree (p. 518) that every reservation from its nature must in some manner be called penal?

Aversa speaks well (q. 17, sect. 1): Generally every reservation is made to deter men from perpetrating such sins, and in this way in hatred of the offense and for the correction and a certain just vexation of the delinquent. And in fact the distinction by which some reservations are said to pertain to the good administration of the Church, others to be medicinal, and others penal, indicates not so much diverse species of reservation as the multiple end of every reservation: namely, insofar as this contributes to the good government of the Church, that reservation, through fear of punishment and of a more difficult absolution, restrains and withdraws from a fall. Therefore, just as ignorance excuses from incurring censures, which do not cease to be penalties although they are medicinal and are imposed for the good government of the Church, so also reservation, however much it is referred to the good administration of the Church, nevertheless, because it has the character of a penalty, is not incurred by one ignorant of it, from the more general principle; and all the more because, when knowledge of the reservation is absent, it then also ceases to be a medicine restraining from sin. For the rest, it can seem remarkable that certain Authors here do not excuse one ignorant of a reservation when the reservation is also medicinal and not merely penal; but, when treating the penalty of irregularity from a delict, they contend that ignorance of the penalty does not excuse from incurring it because it is a mere penalty and not also medicinal! What consistency worthy of a theologian is there here in establishing principles?

Here, however, the VV. (p. 518) turn their strength also to attacking the general principle concerning ignorance which excuses from penalties. They therefore allege: 1. John Corradus, who denies that ignorance excuses from incurring suspension, interdict, and irregularity, but that it excuses from incurring excommunication only when all fault is absent in the forum of God; 2. they then allege Suarez, who denies that ignorance of the penalty alone excuses from irregularity arising from a delict. Reply. Let the whole pass. St. Alphonsus (book 7, no. 351) teaches that this opinion of Suarez can be set aside; indeed, the holy Doctor (ibid.) observes that even the opposite opinion is judged probable by Suarez. But as regards those anomalous opinions of John Corradus, the VV. ought plainly to know that they are not approved by the holy Doctor Alphonsus.

The VV. object (p. 517) that Jacobus de Graffiis undeservedly alleged Navarrus for himself, and therefore in this matter in no way proved himself to be what he is represented as in the Note above, namely, an author most renowned for his knowledge of Theology and the Sacred Canons. Reply. Let the Antecedent pass; and I deny the Consequent. I said, first, let the Antecedent pass. For in the allegation of Navarrus a mere error either of the printer or certainly of memory is found; since Navarrus in fact clearly proposes in that chapter 27, no. 16, and again at no. 274, to which he refers in the former place, those principles from which the conclusion of Graffius flows spontaneously. I said, secondly, I deny the Consequent; and the VV. cannot disprove this. For if even one less exact allegation suffices so that in that question all weight of authority is entirely lacking to a Writer, what indeed would have to be concluded concerning the authority of the holy Doctor Alphonsus in so many controversies?

The VV. object (p. 523) that, according to Cardinal de Lugo (On Penance, disp. 20, no. 9), it is the practice of all Religious Orders that ignorance of the reservation does not give the faculty of absolving a penitent who was ignorant of the reservation. Reply. Let the Antecedent pass; I deny the Consequent. For it is not equitable to derive and measure the norm of common law from those things which in Religious Orders may at some time have been customarily observed for the special end of religious perfection and for the more diligent observance of regular discipline. For the rest, what the VV. (p. 523) relate on this matter from Gobat, whose words they transcribe (Ex Tract., 7, no. 561), is almost amusing: Nor do I judge that a Regular Confessor would render the fidelity which he owes his Prelate if, having encountered a penitent involved in such a case and ignorant of the reservation, while absolving him according to the opinion of Quintanadvenas he did not expressly say: I shall indeed absolve you this time; but know that in the future you cannot be absolved by me without the express faculty of the Superior. For after he has indicated to the penitent that that sin is reserved, does not the reason by which the confessor was able to absolve him from the reserved sin cease by that very fact?

The VV. object (p. 523) with Leonard Jansen: The ignorance of the penitent does not bring it about that the Confessor receives jurisdiction over a sin over which he otherwise did not have it; and certainly, if this opinion held, only the sins of Theologians would be reserved, since they alone know the cases reserved in species. - Reply. Either this Leonard Jansen could have known how much force arguments of this kind, or rather ineptitudes, possessed, or he did not possess so great a power of judgment. If the first, then knowingly and deliberately he wished to deceive; if the second, why did he thrust himself into writing about theological matters with Minerva entirely unwilling? Whichever of these is said, he is not the kind of writer whom it was fitting to call upon the stage. No one ever said that ignorance of reservation brings it about that a faculty which was lacking is added. What is rightly said is that a circumstance of this kind brings it about that the case does not fall under the law of reservation, or, in other words, that the reserving law does not comprehend a sin committed in ignorance of this penalty. - To the second, however, it can be replied that, if one must indeed be a theologian in order to know the reservation of some sin, all the faithful will easily become theologians in this manner; for when they confess a fault of this kind for the first time, they will then return home adorned with this theological knowledge.

Finally, that we may omit more useless things, the VV. object (p. 524): 1. that their own negative opinion can with the best right be called the most common; 2. that the defenders of the contrary opinion are few, and that most of them are not numbered among the more distinguished and better known, and those possessing greater authority. Reply. The VV. enumerate fifteen who held the negative opinion absolutely; we shall grant that certain others can be added. Nevertheless, since at least as many adversaries can easily be enumerated, as is clear from those cited in the text, to whom several others also can be joined, according to what canons, I ask, can that opinion with the best right be called the most common? Moreover, the VV. finally produce these names for the same opinion (pp. 523-524): Illsung, Mendo, Potestas, Herincx, Concina, Holzmann, Engel, Antoine, Ferraris, Voit, Reuter, Croix, Leonard Jansen, and Cuniliati. With this supply of Authors, then, does there any longer remain to them a place for reproaching the contrary opinion because it has patrons most of whom are not numbered among the more distinguished and better known and those possessing greater authority?

But enough now concerning these things. This one thing must not be passed over: that while the VV. boast of so many and such great patrons for themselves, they found in no one any intrinsic reason which they could here produce for their own opinion. Why is this, unless because the arguments which can be considered the strongest are entirely of that weight which we saw above to be present in the arguments of Leonard Jansen?

QUESTION 2. Does ignorance at least excuse from reservation when it is joined with a censure?

Reply 1. Affirmative for papal cases, because papal cases, with the exception of a false accusation of the crime of solicitation, are reserved because of a censure, from which ignorance excuses, as was just said. Therefore, when the censure has been removed, no reservation remains. - St. Lig., no. 580, and others commonly.

Reply 2. For episcopal cases the opinion of the Doctors is not one. For the affirmative, among others, Aversa asserts that the Doctors commonly agree in this doctrine ¹⁰. Suarez, however, concludes better, On Penance, disp. 29, sect. 2, no. 7, that the words of the reservation, custom, and the power of the one reserving are to be considered ¹¹.

¹⁰ A censure could indeed simply be removed while the reservation of the sin remained. In reality, however, and concomitantly, the matter stands thus: when the censure has been removed, by that very fact the reservation of the sin also ceases...; and if someone is excused from incurring the censure, although not from the fault, as can happen through ignorance, he is likewise excused from the reservation of the fault itself.... And in this doctrine the Doctors commonly agree. Thus Aversa (On Penance, q. 17, sect. II, section six).

For the contrary opinion this reason is usually brought forward (see St. Alph., book 6, no. 582): that papal cases differ from episcopal cases in this, that in papal cases the censure is reserved principally and indivisibly; but in episcopal cases the case is reserved principally and in itself, and the censure is annexed to it, etc. Yet these things, as is evident, do not present an argument by which the opinion is established, but repeat the opinion itself in other words.

¹¹ I say that even in excommunications reserved to Bishops through their Statutes or sentences, it is not immediately established that the sins themselves remain reserved in themselves; because, as I said, those two things are distinct; indeed, sometimes the censure and not the fault can be reserved. Therefore the words of the reservation, custom, and the power of the one reserving are to be considered. Thus Suarez.

For the rest, whoever thinks the doctrine related above (preceding question), which generally excuses the ignorant from reservation, to be sufficiently probable, will think that there is not much moment in this second question.

n. 572.

- QUESTION 3. Is a sin to be considered reserved when there is doubt about the reservation?

n. 572.

Reply 1. Entirely negative if the doubt is one of fact, that is, if the sin was doubtfully committed or is doubtfully grave. The reason is that reservation is of strict interpretation, and therefore is to be understood of certainly grave sins. For the Church does not intend to reserve sins unless they are certainly committed and certainly mortal, since she is accustomed to reserve only more atrocious sins. - Thus most commonly with St. Lig., no. 600.

n. 572.

Reply 2. Negative also if the doubt is one of law, that is, if it concerns the existence of the reserving law or its extension. The reason is the same, namely, because reservation is of strict interpretation, and therefore in doubt it is to be regarded as null. - Thus commonly; St. Liguori, no. 600; Lugo, ibid.; Elbel, no. 343, etc. - Against Antoine, etc.

- QUESTION 4. Can the subject of another diocese be absolved if the case is reserved only in the place of confession?

Reply. More commonly the recent authors deny it. Their reason is that the Confessor has jurisdiction restricted by his own Bishop.

Others, however, affirm it ¹², with the most common opinion of the ancients. The reason of these authors is ¹³ that the Confessor absolves this penitent by jurisdiction indirectly communicated by the latter's Ordinary; and since this Ordinary did not reserve that sin to himself, by that very fact he did not restrict jurisdiction with regard to it. Thus Armilla, Cajetan, Navarrus, Bartholomew Ugolinus (On the Office and Power of a Bishop, chapter 39, section 6), Bartholomew Medina (Instruction for Confessors, translated by the Spagnuolo, book 1, chapter 10, section 3), Dicastillus (On Penance, disp. XI, no. 242), Alphonsus Vega (in Leander, On the Sacraments, vol. 1, tract 5, disp. 12, q. 27), Fagundez (On the Second Precept of the Church, book 8, chapter 8, no. 21), Mendo (On the Bull of the Crusade, disp. 23, chapter 2, no. 23), Matthew Stoz (Tribunal of Penance, book 2, q. 2, no. 64), Pellizarius (in Mazzotta, tract 6, disp. 2, q. 3, chapter 2, q. 4), Peter de Ledesma (On the Sacrament of Penance, chapter 12), Jacobus Graffius (in Leander, loc. cit.), Naldi (On Reserved Cases, sect. 2, chapter 4, q. 2, and Summa, word Reserved Case, no. 8), Quarti (On Reserved Cases, sect. 2, chapter 4), Joseph de Januario (Selected Resolutions, res. 1, no. 8, and res. 8), Paul Mezger (Scholastic Theology, vol. 4, tract 18, disp. 49, art. 2, section 2, no. 15), Baucius (in Quarti, loc. cit.), Louis Engel (Manual for Pastors, part 3, chapter 2, section 2, no. 7), Marcus Struggl (Moral Theology, tract 11, q. 3, art. 4, no. 48), Louis Babenstuber (tract 8, part 6, disp. 6, art. 4, section 2, no. 26), Diana (vol. 1, tract 5, resolution 39, no. 3); Dominic Viva (On Penance, q. 9, art. 3, no. 4), Mazzotta (loc. cit.), Reuter (On Penance, no. 371), and Elbel (On Penance, conference 14, no. 375) also admit that it is probable.

¹² Marcus Struggl, an excellent Theologian of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin and a contemporary of St. Alphonsus (Moral Theology, tract XI, q. 3, art. 4, no. 48), speaks thus concerning this matter from the common opinion, as he says: A traveling penitent can be absolved by any legitimate Confessor when he brings a case reserved in the diocese of the Confessor but not in the diocese of the penitent. Thus Babenstuber commonly, with Mezger and others. Suarez first introduced the opposite opinion with reasons assuredly weak, and for that reason he did not have even one author whom he could allege for it.

¹³ The reason is sought from the doctrine which is held as an axiom among all, namely, that Jurisdiction must be given by the Superior of the one who is to be absolved, as Dicastillus says (tract 8, disp. 10, no. 245).

But who is this Superior? Fagnanus (on chapter Omnis utriusque, no. 52 and following) explains thus: Observe that sacramental confession must be made only to one's proper priest, and not to an alien one except with the permission of one's proper priest.... Because sacramental confession is a judicial act.... But the nature and reason of judgment require that sentence be pronounced only upon subjects, since no one can be bound or absolved by one who is not his judge.... Hence it was always believed in the Church of God, and the Tridentine Synod confirmed it as most true..., that an absolution which a priest pronounces upon one over whom he does not have ordinary or subdelegated jurisdiction must be of no moment. And that these things are to be held from divine law was indicated above (in the Note at no. 555).

Hence Fagnanus deduces the consequence (ibid., no. 70) that by common law travelers cannot of themselves be absolved: By common law no priest can absolve a penitent not subject to him, even in the diocese in which he is approved. From this Eusebius Amort (Moral Theology, tract 13, section 17, q. 5, 6), to the question, Does a Bishop or another confessor have jurisdiction over the diocesans of another Bishop?, replies without circumlocution (q. 6): He does not have it, nor can he delegate it to others over the subjects of another Bishop without the express or tacit concession of that Bishop.... It is evident from the Acts of the Councils, where Bishops are prohibited... from receiving an alien... diocesan to the Sacrament without the consent... of his proper Bishop. And he had prefaced concerning the same matter: It is proved from the constancy of the observance of the Church which flourished throughout the whole world until the fifteenth century, etc. Therefore visitors can be absolved only by authority which has been delegated in some manner by the Ordinary of the penitent. Hence Pichler (book 5, tit. 38, no. 14): Those who absolve travelers and visitors... hearing their confessions obtain a power tacitly delegated to themselves.

But if a priest absolves travelers by power delegated by the Ordinary of the penitent, he must attend to how much this Ordinary communicated to him, and not to the kind and measure which his own Ordinary granted him for his own subjects. Schmalzgrueber speaks excellently (book 1, tit. 29, no. 31): The power of the delegate must be measured from the authority and power of the one delegating, and from the mandate granted. For the delegate, in the jurisdiction granted to him, takes the place of the one delegating. Therefore the greater or lesser restriction of jurisdiction, namely the mode and measure of reservation, when there is question of absolving a visitor or traveler, must be taken from the laws of the diocese to which the latter belongs, and by no means from the laws of reservation which the Ordinary of the priest established for his own subjects.

John Stoz (Tribunal of Penance, book 2, q. 2, section 5, no. 64) most aptly applies these principles, which plainly accord with the divine economy of this sacrament, to the present case of a sin reserved in the diocese of the Confessor but not in the diocese of the penitent: A Confessor absolves a traveler coming from another diocese through jurisdiction delegated by the Bishop or pastor of the traveler from received custom. But (by hypothesis) this has not been restricted by them in any way. Therefore, although the confessor by virtue of his own ordinary jurisdiction* (which he has from his own Ordinary) cannot absolve his own subject from a case reserved in his own Diocese, he can nevertheless, by virtue of delegated jurisdiction, absolve a traveler from another Diocese in which that case is not reserved. Reuter also gives this reason (On Penance, no. 371), saying: because he absolves by virtue of jurisdiction delegated by the Bishop who does not reserve that sin.

Ugolinus touches in another manner upon the reason why, in the case, a visitor is immune from the reservations of the alien diocese in which he confesses, where he writes (On the Office and Power of a Bishop, chapter 39, section VI, no. 1): First, therefore, one who is not the subject of him who reserved the cases does not fall into those reserved cases. And Marcus Struggl (loc. cit.) gives the same reason for the preceding thesis: The reason (he says) is that the reservation of sins is valid only concerning the subjects of the reserving Bishop.

Nor indeed do these things pertain to singular opinions, but to common principles. And surely Arriaga (On Penance, disp. 40, no. 4), asking Whose sins can be reserved?, replies: The sins of all those over whom the one reserving has jurisdiction. Cardinal de Lugo likewise establishes the same as a general canon (On Penance, disp. 20, no. 9): The sins of those who are subject to the one reserving can be reserved. Therefore Amort most aptly defines reservation thus (On Penance, disp. 9, q. 1): It is a restriction of jurisdiction over SUBJECTS. Indeed, the Tridentine Synod establishes this very thing, saying that Bishops can reserve sins by the authority delivered to them over SUBJECTS.

Engel, moreover, admirably presses the patrons of the opposite opinion thus (Manual for Pastors, part 3, chapter 2, no. 7): I ask: when the case of the penitent is not reserved in his own diocese, should he be sent to his own Bishop or to the Bishop of the place where he confesses? Not to his own, because that Bishop did not reserve the case to himself; nor to the Bishop of the place where he confesses, because he is not subject to him, and reservations of cases are understood only concerning subjects (Trent, session 14, chapter 7); for they are introduced so that each Bishop may keep his own subjects, not those of another, in their duty. Paul Mezger argues in like manner (Scholastic Theology, tract 18, disp. 49, art. 2, section 2, no. 25): A reservation of cases made by a Bishop exists only concerning his own subjects; but by hypothesis the one confessing is not a subject of the Bishop in whose diocese he confesses; therefore the reservation is not valid concerning him. And to whom would such a penitent be sent? To his own Bishop? But with him the case is not reserved. To an alien Bishop? But the latter has no jurisdiction over the alien subject.

These things, although too few for the gravity of the question, suffice for the brevity of an annotation. For the rest, the difficulties by which the recent authors have entangled a matter most simple in itself and among the ancients would assuredly furnish matter worthy of the labor of a longer treatment.

** It is surely remarkable that the VV. wrote only eighteen columns (pp. 525-533) against this Note, although otherwise the question could only have seemed to them of the gravest moment.

They therefore object that it is undeservedly affirmed in the Note, as an axiom held among all, that jurisdiction must be given by the Superior of the one who is to be absolved. - Reply. That assertion is to be held as an axiom because it is certain doctrine of the Church defined in Ecumenical Councils, as was already shown above (in the Note at no. 555, q. 13), and at the same time (ibid., nos. 12, 15) the nullity of the little argument brought forward against it by the VV. was disclosed. A reply to certain words which the VV. (p. 527) added from Coninck was omitted there. Let the VV. have their reply in these other words of the same Coninck (On Penance, disp. 8, no. 31): When a penitent is granted the faculty of choosing a confessor for himself, or of confessing to some certain one..., the penitent himself does not give any jurisdiction to the confessor, but only designates him TO WHOM THE SUPERIOR, by the very fact that he is chosen, GIVES JURISDICTION. For by the very fact that a Superior grants to someone the power of choosing a confessor, HE GIVES JURISDICTION TO THE ONE CHOSEN under this condition, if he is chosen. Does Coninck not clearly say that jurisdiction is bestowed by the Superior of the penitent?

To the remaining things which are read in the Note, the VV. write (p. 528): The general principles which Father Ballerini brings forward here are certain and established and received by all, no one contradicting. Hence there was no need to bring forward the testimonies of individual Authors for them. Reply. Thanks be to God! But if these principles are certain and received by all, then, by their own admission: 1. it is certain that confession must be made to one's proper priest, and not to an alien one except with the permission of one's proper priest. Why, then, did they contend (p. 511) that no inquiry is to be made whether the Bishop of the visitor consents and has not objected? 2. It is therefore certain that the nature of sacramental judgment by divine law requires that sentence be pronounced only upon subjects. Why, then, do the VV. say with Voit (p. 530) that for absolving the visitor a faculty can be sought from the Ordinary of the place, of whom the visitor is not a subject? - 3. It is therefore certain that a Bishop does not have jurisdiction over the subjects of another Bishop, and consequently cannot delegate it to others; and thus that a priest who absolves travelers and visitors hearing their confessions obtains power tacitly from the Ordinary of the visitor. Why, then, do they contend (p. 511) that jurisdiction is from custom and by no means from the will of the Bishops of the visitor, and that their dissent is not to be considered? - 4. It is therefore certain, by their own admission, that the power of a priest delegated to absolve a visitor must be measured from the power of the one delegating, namely the Ordinary of the visitors, and from the mandate granted; and thus that the measure of jurisdiction and reservation must be taken from the laws of the diocese to which the visitor belongs, and not from the laws of reservation which the Ordinary of the place, to whom the visitor is in no way subject, established. Why, then, do the VV. themselves throughout this whole controversy always contend that it is to be inquired whether the priest hearing the visitor's confession has jurisdiction restricted by the Ordinary of the place, who has no jurisdiction over the visitor which he can restrict or not restrict?

Nevertheless, since the aforesaid principles, certain, established, and received by all, are expressed in the Note in the words of Fagnanus, Amort, and Schmalzgrueber, the VV. object from Fagnanus (p. 528) that by the reservation of cases only the person of the Confessor, whose jurisdiction is restricted, is affected, and the penitent only indirectly. Therefore, say the VV., a Confessor from whom jurisdiction concerning certain sins has been removed absolutely and without distinction, that is, was not granted by his Ordinary, cannot absolve any penitent confessing sins of this kind, nor accept or execute any delegation, whether tacit or formal, of an alien Bishop. - Reply. I concede the Antecedent, which is Fagnanus's (on chapter Omnis utriusque, no. 85); and I deny the Consequent and the Consequence, which are not Fagnanus's. Jurisdiction is power OVER SUBJECTS. Therefore a Bishop can restrict the jurisdiction of a Confessor with regard to absolving his own subjects, because he himself grants this; but with regard to aliens or non-subjects, I deny the supposition, namely, that the Bishop has jurisdiction which he either confers, restricts, or relaxes. Do the VV. now contend that this confessor is incapable of receiving jurisdiction delegated by another Bishop? But do they not admit among the certain principles that this also is received by all: that a priest who absolves travelers and visitors hearing their confessions obtains power tacitly delegated to him by the Ordinary of the visitor? Or perhaps can the Bishop of diocese A restrict the jurisdiction which the Bishop of diocese B delegates for absolving his own subject? Can a Bishop restrict the jurisdiction of a secular confessor whom a Regular Prelate has chosen to hear the confessions of his own subjects? Let this be the conclusion: a cause which rests upon no other supports than those which the VV. employ makes its condition sufficiently and more than sufficiently manifest.

The VV. object (p. 529): Amort with Schmalzgrueber absolutely denies that travelers can be absolved by a simple Confessor from a sin reserved in this diocese, although not in that of the penitent. Reply. In that place (tract 13, section 22, q. 26) Amort gives this reason: because a Bishop can prudently deny jurisdiction to confessors concerning graver crimes, etc. He says these things not of the Bishop of the penitent, for by hypothesis the latter did not reserve that sin, but of the Ordinary of the place where the visitor confesses. Yet Amort (see his words related above in the Note) absolutely denies that a Bishop has or can delegate any jurisdiction over the diocesans of another Bishop, and the VV. agree that this is a certain principle received by all, no one contradicting. Therefore Amort is less than consistent with himself, and his reply rests upon a false supposition; for the traveler is absolved by jurisdiction delegated by his Ordinary, or tacitly conceded. But it belongs to the one who grants jurisdiction to restrict it, not to others who have no jurisdiction over the penitent. Therefore. Amort adds (ibid.): I add that in the first twelve centuries it was lawful for no one, in relation to sacramental absolution, to subject himself to an alien Bishop or pastor without the permission of his own pastor or Bishop. But did he himself not write (see his words in the Note) that this was observed until the fifteenth century? And, what is the chief point, was he ignorant that this is a doctrine not disciplinary but dogmatic, defined by the Ecumenical Councils as of divine law, namely, derived from the essence of the sacrament instituted by Christ? But there is now no need to spend time and labor refuting Amort; he sufficiently refutes himself by his own contradictions.

Let us come to Schmalzgrueber. He gives this reason for his opinion (book 5, tit. 38, no. 58): because reservation affects not so much the penitent as the confessor, from whom it removes jurisdiction over the reserved case. - Yet the VV., as we saw, agree that it is a certain principle that jurisdiction for absolving travelers proceeds not from the Ordinary of the confessor but from the delegation of the Ordinary of the travelers, who by hypothesis does not restrict jurisdiction. Therefore the reason employed by Schmalzgrueber labors under a false supposition. - Schmalzgrueber adds allegations of Suarez and Cajetan. - Reply. Concerning Suarez a little below. But the allegation of Cajetan, taken from Suarez, here labors under a twofold defect: 1. because it is adduced by Suarez for another purpose, namely, where he treats of a sin reserved in the diocese of the traveler; 2. because Cajetan is also wrongly alleged for that purpose. - Schmalzgrueber had better prefaced (loc. cit.) that there were those who judged that even in this case a traveling penitent can be absolved by ordinary confessors, because, since he is not subject to that Bishop, the reservation made by him does not seem to touch a traveler of this kind. And here this excellent man indeed touched the matter to the point. But touching the question very lightly and in passing, he allowed himself, like several others, to be carried away by the authority of Suarez; and in this he was not consistent with himself.

Let the same reply be made as regards Pichler, produced by the VV. (loc. cit.), because he said (book 5, tit. 39, no. 14) that it is more probable in the case that the traveler cannot be absolved. - Reply. Pichler brings forward the reason that reservation regards not so much the penitent as the confessor, from whom it removes jurisdiction. Suarez; Cajetan. Yet it is evident that he transcribed this from Schmalzgrueber and, moreover, unhappily contradicts himself. For he now supposes that jurisdiction flows from the Ordinary of the confessor; yet a little before he had prefaced: Those who absolve travelers and visitors hearing their confessions obtain a power tacitly delegated to themselves..., since from general custom the tacit consent of the proper Bishop (of the visitors) is judged to be present. What indeed do votes and voters of this kind contribute to the cause when they themselves fight with themselves?

The VV. object (p. 529) that the testimony of John Stoz is brought forward truncated in the Note. For (loc. cit.) there follows: But I speak here only of a traveler and not of a sojourner. For the latter, since he has a quasi-domicile in the place of his sojourn, is subject to the ordinary jurisdiction of that place. - Reply. The question was and is about penitents who are not subjects of the Ordinary of the place. Therefore what Stoz has concerning sojourners who contract a quasi-domicile in that place, such as, for example, students who for the sake of studies remain for the greater part of the year in another diocese are commonly considered among the Authors, did not pertain to the matter; therefore we did not bring forward the text of Stoz truncated, but it did not seem equitable to us that pages be filled with useless things.

The VV. object (pp. 529-530): Father Ballerini alleges several texts from Ugolinus, Arriaga, Cardinal de Lugo, and Eusebius Amort to prove the affirmative opinion, which nevertheless have nothing to do with the matter. - Reply. The sense of the texts brought forward in the Note is this, to use the words of Ugolinus: One who is not the subject of him who reserved the cases does not fall into the reserved cases; or, in the words of Cardinal de Lugo: The general rule is that the sins of those who are subject to the one reserving in this sacramental forum can be reserved. And since the question is whether those who are not subjects of the one reserving are subjected to the reservation, why or how do those texts not pertain to the matter? Do they not render a negative reply to the question directly and openly?

The VV. add (p. 530) that Voit (vol. 2, no. 840) replied thus to those things which were brought forward in the Note from Engel and Mezger: A visitor can be sent to any confessor of his own diocese, where he will easily be absolved, since he does not have the case reserved there; or he can be sent in the alien diocese to another confessor who has the faculty of absolving from reserved cases; or at least the Confessor should seek permission from the Ordinary... to absolve from the reserved case. To these things the VV. say: Voit admirably! But another perhaps will say: Not admirably! For is it not, as we saw above and as the VV. admit, a certain principle that a Bishop does not have jurisdiction over the subjects of another Bishop? Therefore does Voit admirably send the confessor to seek the faculty of absolving from that Ordinary who has no jurisdiction over that penitent? Or is the penitent admirably sent to another confessor, one indeed endowed there with a faculty for reserved cases, but a faculty given by that Ordinary who by hypothesis cannot delegate jurisdiction which he himself does not have? Finally, did Voit admirably find no other remedy than that the penitent be sent back to his own diocese, so that, for example, a Roman visitor might be sent back from the city of New York in America to Rome in order that he may be absolved? And does doctrine of this kind perhaps have any appearance of verisimilitude, not to say truth?

To what had been said in the Note, that Suarez first introduced the opposite opinion with reasons assuredly weak, and therefore did not have even one author whom he could allege for it, the VV. reply (p. 531): Whether the negative opinion is supported by reasons assuredly weak we have already seen above. - Reply. But whatever the VV. have brought forward for that opinion has already been set forth here.

But whether they have brought forward any firm reason, the equitable reader has already been able to see with his own eyes up to this point. Yet it is altogether fitting now to examine the reasons brought forward by Suarez, from which it will also become evident how remarkably the patrons of this opinion, in defending it, perpetually fight both with themselves and among themselves; this surely is not an indication of truth.

Suarez (On Penance, disp. 30, sect. 1, no. 6) brings forward a threefold reason for this innovation of his; otherwise he does not treat this most grave question laboriously, but touches upon it most lightly and in passing in a few words. First, he produces his thesis as a consequence of the preceding thesis, in which, relying upon three false allegations, he had established generally that a visitor bringing a sin reserved in his own diocese can be absolved by a simple confessor of another diocese if the same sin is not reserved there. - But in this Suarez deduced from a false antecedent a gratuitous and entirely rejected consequence, adding a false allegation of Cajetan and of others whom he does not name, and could not name.

Concerning the antecedent, indeed, there will be discussion in its place. But the consequence must be called gratuitous, because if some thought that a penitent of another diocese could for some special cause or necessity be absolved from his own reserved sins, as, for example, Paludanus, St. Antoninus, and Cajetan, they nevertheless employed principles which can provide no occasion or reason suitable for deducing the Suarezian consequence. I said gratuitous and entirely rejected, because if any before Suarez spoke of this case, they stand without any controversy against Suarez, as, for example, Bartholomew Medina and Ugolinus, Peter Ledesma, Vega, and Graffius, alleged by Leander (vol. 1, tract 5, disp. 12, q. 27). I said, if any before Suarez, etc.; for among the remaining ancients not even a word concerning this case is found. But why? Because a question of this kind in itself could rightly have seemed nothing but absurd to them. For they knew that a visitor is absolved by virtue of jurisdiction conferred by the Ordinary of the visitor and in no way restricted by hypothesis; to what purpose, then, would they ask whether another Bishop restricted jurisdiction for his own subjects? It would be just as if someone were seriously to ask whether Ubaldus, deputed by a Regular Prelate to hear the confessions of exempt Nuns and at the same time sent by the Bishop to hear the confessions of girls dwelling in a boarding school, could not absolve the girls from certain sins because the Regular Prelate reserved those sins to himself with regard to the Nuns. Would not everyone call this question and doubt concerning Ubaldus absurd? But is the question in our case any less absurd, since here also there is question of two distinct jurisdictions conferred by different Ordinaries for different respective subjects?

Suarez seeks a second reason from the general principle which he himself elsewhere defends more sharply, namely, that visitors are bound by the laws of the places where they stay or through which they pass. Hence he writes (loc. cit.): Although he otherwise is not a subject, nevertheless he is then judged as a subject and as an inhabitant of that place; therefore according to the manner and jurisdiction granted there.

But: 1. even St. Alphonsus (book 1, no. 156) regards that general principle as less probable and less commonly received. 2. Suarez teaches absolutely that jurisdiction for absolving a visitor is bestowed by the Ordinary of the visitor; and concerning this matter he adds (disp. 30, sect. 1, no. 4): These things which we have said concerning the concession of jurisdiction made directly to the confessor have place in the same proportion in a faculty granted to the penitent to choose a confessor. What, then, does he mean when he now says that a visitor is judged according to the jurisdiction granted there, namely, in the place of confession? For either he signifies that jurisdiction is then granted by the Ordinary of the place, and thus he manifestly contradicts himself, no less than we saw above that Schmalzgrueber, Pichler, and Amort fight with themselves; or he understands jurisdiction bestowed by the Ordinary of the visitor, and behold, even Lugo (disp. 20, no. 73) proclaims that, if the visitor is absolved by virtue of jurisdiction conferred by his Ordinary, his Bishop alone could by reservation remove or limit the jurisdiction of the delegated Confessor, and not that other Bishop upon whom he does not depend. Dicastillus speaks no otherwise (disp. 11, no. 241): If we treat of voluntary jurisdiction outside the contentious forum, such as this is, then, if that confessor had jurisdiction, at least delegated, in that Episcopate in which there is no reservation, he can absolve the aforesaid penitent even if the cases are reserved in the Episcopate in which he is while he confesses; for he can absolve him by using the jurisdiction which he has in the Episcopate of the domicile of the penitent, in relation to which jurisdiction that case is not reserved.

And the Doctors plainly give this same reason why a Pastor in another diocese can absolve his own subject from sins which are indeed reserved there but not in his own diocese: namely, because he does not use jurisdiction received from the Ordinary of the place. Thus Arriaga (On Penance, disp. 39, nos. 33-34): Because the proper pastor has the power of absolving, not from the Bishop of the place where they now are, but from the Bishop of the place whence they departed; but there that sin was not reserved. Likewise Edmund Simonnet (On Penance, disp. 9, art. 6, reply 7): The case in which someone there confesses to his proper pastor is to be excepted; for there he could be absolved by him, because his jurisdiction IS ENTIRELY INDEPENDENT of the Bishop of the place in which the case is reserved; and thus he cannot be impeded from absolving by a reservation made by the Bishop of the place in which his subject confesses to him. And Lugo concerning the same hypothesis (disp. 20, no. 73): I reply by denying the consequence. The reason for the difference is that the former pastor does not have jurisdiction from this Bishop, but from his own Bishop or dependently upon him. And, to omit others, even the Salmanticenses (On Penance, chapter 13, no. 27): If the proper pastor were to come together with this traveler who is his subject, he could absolve him there without permission for reserved cases from that sin which was not reserved in his own diocese, although it was reserved here.... Indeed, if that confessor has jurisdiction at least delegated in the Episcopate of the domicile of the penitent from which the traveler departed, and in which there was no reservation, he can absolve the aforesaid penitent even if the cases are reserved in the Episcopate in which he is while he confesses; because he can absolve him by using the jurisdiction which he has in the Episcopate of the domicile of the penitent, in relation to which jurisdiction that case is not reserved.

And here we shall subsume: But any confessor absolves a visitor only by using jurisdiction indirectly granted to him by the Ordinary of the penitent, as Suarez himself and all with Suarez must concede according to the things said. Therefore it is wrongly established that the measure of jurisdiction, as Suarez said, is to be taken from the reservations of the Episcopate in which the visitor confesses. - But you will say: Do not Arriaga, Simonnet, and the Salmanticenses agree with Suarez in the remaining matters if you except the aforesaid case of the pastor, although they also admit with Suarez that a visitor is absolved by jurisdiction granted by his Ordinary? Reply. Entirely so; but from this finally conclude what everywhere strikes the eyes in this question, namely, that as many as abandoned the unanimous doctrine of the ancient Doctors, most plain and resting upon certain principles, after the most unfortunate footsteps of Henriquez and Suarez, involved themselves in perpetual contradictions and must continue to involve themselves in them.

Finally Suarez proposes the third reason thus (loc. cit.): Likewise, because in order that

a concession be just, it ought to be equal on both sides; and he who is freed from one burden ought to feel another which follows from it. But such a person can be absolved by any confessor from sins reserved by his Bishop if they are not reserved there; therefore, conversely, he cannot be absolved by the same confessors from sins reserved there, even if they are not reserved by his Bishop.

Reply 1. If this reasoning were admitted, the argument could be turned back most excellently. For since, according to the laws, as we shall see below, a visitor who has not obtained special permission for this from his Ordinary cannot be absolved from his own reserved sins, consequently, in order that equity be preserved, since the visitor bears the burden of his own diocese, he must be said to be immune from the burden of the other diocese, and therefore not subject to its reservations. For the rest, not only the Minor proposition but also the Major of the Suarezian argument must be denied. For it is generally false that one who is exempted from one burden must necessarily undergo another burden. This plainly appears in one who departs from his own territory. For according to the common opinion, once he has departed from his own territory he is not bound to observe its special laws; nor nevertheless is he thereby bound to observe the laws of the alien territory. Likewise, while a visitor is said to be exempt from observing the laws of the alien territory, the Doctors commonly teach that he can nevertheless enjoy the privileges of the same place. See St. Alph., book 1, no. 161. Therefore it was not gratuitously asserted in the Note that Suarez introduced that new theory only with plainly weak reasons.

But to return to the VV., they finally allege (pp. 531-533) many Authors who went over to the opinion of Suarez. - Reply. Let it now be passed over whether all who are alleged there pertain to the matter, which can be entirely denied, for example, of Dicastillus, Filliucius, and Illsung. It is better to employ a briefer and peremptory reply to this argument. We shall therefore answer: let the reasons by which those Authors seem to have been moved to follow that opinion be produced and weighed; then let it be shown how many and who they are whose reasons do not conflict with those firm and universally admitted principles which they themselves, being in no way consistent with themselves, admit and profess. Then indeed something can be conceded to their authority; otherwise, let permission be given that their authority be set entirely aside without reproach.

The Reply of the Sacred Penitentiary dated November 21, 1873, which the Analecta Iuris Pontificii relate (fasc. 121, February 1875), must also be considered here. The case is proposed in these words: Titius, a priest, approaching the tribunal of penance, discloses sins partly simply reserved, and partly also reserved with an episcopal censure in the diocese of the confessor. He grieves for him here (so!!) and humanely admonishes his brother to present himself to one having the faculty; but the latter presses for absolution and says that the confessor, since he is not a judge of opinions, can and must absolve a penitent who wishes to follow an opinion not only probable but even most common among ancient and living theologians. The confessor, firm in his own opinion, does not acquiesce and dismisses the penitent without absolution. - It is asked: 1. Did the confessor conduct himself well? 2. Can he always conduct himself thus in the case? The Sacred Penitentiary, having considered the things set forth, replies: To both, affirmatively.

This case, no less than the other proposed at the same time concerning a simple priest who absolves a penitent in danger of death even from sins with reserved censure, although another confessor endowed with faculties would not otherwise be lacking, these cases, I say, were contrived, as is sufficiently evident, to stir up odium against opinions which do not please the proposer; and therefore in each case even living theologians are brought upon the stage.

Let us omit the second case, concerning which the Sacred Penitentiary replied: Let the petitioner consult approved authors; a few things concerning the first, which according to the mind of the proposer pertains to the argument of this Note. I said, according to the mind of the proposer; for although this is in no way expressed, the proposer nevertheless, by an entirely inept contrivance, wishes it to be inferred that the priest penitent is of another diocese, and attempts tacitly to insinuate this by the words "in the diocese of the confessor"; but unskillfully, because this manner of speaking is aptly employed also for distinguishing reservations of common law, or of a province, or of the whole Church. Indeed, when he adds episcopal censures, he rather intimates and supposes that the penitent is of the same diocese; for we shall not consider the writer of the little story so unskilled in theological matters as to be ignorant that visitors are not subject to the particular censures of a diocese, unless perhaps there is question of one imposed by sentence in the external forum, absolution from which, however, neither is customarily nor can be sought from a simple confessor.

Meanwhile the distinguished Writer of the Analecta judged that these things should be prefaced in French. He places this title: Decision of the Sacred Penitentiary. Cases reserved in the diocese of the confessor, but by no means in the diocese of the penitent. Then he proposes this question: Can a Confessor absolve a penitent from cases reserved in the diocese (understand: his own, where he hears the confession) but not reserved in the diocese of the penitent? And he replies: The Sacred Penitentiary, asked for its judgment concerning this question, judged that in those circumstances the confessor cannot absolve without a special faculty of the reserving Ordinary. Hence it follows that it is not lawful to follow theologians, both ancient and recent, who think otherwise.

May the most distinguished man allow these things to be answered candidly. 1. I deny the Antecedent. For the Reply of the Sacred Penitentiary extends no further than the proposed question necessarily and clearly requires. But the words by which the question is proposed, whatever finally may have been the mind of the inept proposer, neither necessarily nor manifestly require that they be understood of a priest who is a visitor in that diocese; indeed, those things are unskillfully mingled there which of themselves suggest that the penitent is of the same diocese as the confessor and altogether require the penitent to be a subject of the Bishop imposing the censures. Therefore both the proposed question and the Reply of the Sacred Penitentiary are wrongly drawn into the controversy concerning a case reserved only in the diocese of the confessor but not in the Episcopate of the penitent. Hence the consequence deduced from it by the distinguished man must likewise be denied, namely, that after this Reply of the Sacred Penitentiary it is not lawful to follow the opinion of the ancients and the recent authors who hold that diocesan reservations can in no way impede or prevent a visitor from being absolved from those sins which his Ordinary did not reserve for his own subjects. And another most grave reason indeed counsels this. For by what means could anyone finally prove that the Sacred Roman Congregation wished to disapprove a practice which, resting upon the unshaken principles of Catholic dogma, flourished in the Church through all past centuries until Suarezian novelties gradually began to increase and, through an accumulation of mutually contradictory assertions, to take root?

But, 2. let it also be permitted to reply: I deny the hypothetical consequence, namely, even if someone wished to suppose that the Reply of the Sacred Penitentiary was rendered to that question as the distinguished man fashioned it, that it nevertheless follows therefrom that it is not lawful to follow theologians who profess another opinion. For in the first place, who is ignorant of what the Salmanticenses also have (On Censures, chapter 2, no. 56), namely: When a Sacred Congregation pronounces decisions resting upon a probable opinion, it does not remove the probability of the opposite opinion so that it is not lawful to follow it? And in fact, did not even the holy Doctor Alphonsus sometimes set aside Replies of the Sacred Penitentiary and adhere to the opposite opinion? See book 6, no. 556.

Moreover, these things ought to avail all the more in the present matter, since the Sacred Penitentiary is presented as judging not concerning doctrines but concerning the act of the confessor, whether or not his manner of acting is to be disapproved. And surely this confessor in the hypothesis would have thought it lawful for himself to follow a doctrine which St. Alphonsus (book 6, no. 588) called more common and far more probable. But if the matter stands thus, how could the Sacred Penitentiary have disapproved this, when elsewhere, to the Question proposed to it, Is a Confessor who follows all the opinions of Blessed Alphonsus de Liguori in the practice of the tribunal of sacred Penance to be disturbed?, it had replied on July 5, 1831: Negatively? But was it, or can it now be, the mind of the Sacred Penitentiary that while it does not disapprove a Confessor who in the practice of the tribunal of penance adopts the opinion of the holy Doctor Alphonsus, for that very reason it thereby denies that it is lawful for others to follow the opposite opinion? Yet the Sacred Penitentiary itself rejects a consequence of this kind, and indeed rejects it in precisely the same Reply, for it continues: Without, however, judging those worthy of reproach who follow opinions handed down by other approved authors. Therefore the consequence which the distinguished man deduces in his hypothesis is not admitted by the Sacred Penitentiary itself.

Let this also not be omitted here: that it is less pertinent, indeed unskillful, in the case to introduce the priest penitent objecting to the confessor that the confessor, since he is not a judge of opinions, can and must absolve the penitent who wishes to follow an opinion not only probable, etc. For in the case there is in no way question of an absolution denied to the penitent because he wishes to follow a probable opinion. But this and no other is the case concerning which both St. Alphonsus and the theologians commonly establish that absolution cannot be denied to a penitent of this kind.

Finally, with regard to the argument of this Note, it is fitting to dispel a doubt which you will seek in vain in the books of theologians, but which is carried about on the lips of certain persons. Some say, namely, that a visitor cannot be absolved from sins reserved in the diocese of the confessor, not because jurisdiction conferred by the Ordinary of the visitor, who did not reserve those sins, is lacking, but because the confessor lacks the approval of his own Ordinary. For, they say, when the Ordinary reserves certain sins, by that very fact he restricts the approval of the confessor with regard to those sins. Therefore, when approval is lacking, by that very fact the confessor becomes incapable of receiving jurisdiction from any other Ordinary and of using it concerning those sins; and consequently it would be just as if someone confessed to a confessor not approved, whose absolution the Tridentine Synod decreed to be null and void. Thus these neo-theologians.

Something, therefore, concerning this doubt also. And first, it can and ought indeed to seem remarkable that although this way, so easy and entirely obvious, was at hand by which the present question would be resolved peremptorily, nevertheless among so many Doctors who flourished for three centuries from the Tridentine Synod down to us, no one perceived it, indeed, no one even suspected the least thing concerning it. Nor is it less remarkable that although all theologians, both of the first and lowest rank, disputed so subtly and extensively concerning this necessary approval of the Ordinary, and investigated all the limitations which the Ordinary's approval can have as to places, classes of persons, and time, nevertheless no one thought anything about this new circumscription of approval as to species of sins. But can this remarkable dullness of mind, which these neo-theologians must so easily and necessarily ascribe to all theologians for three centuries, and indeed to all pastors of the Churches, not warn them, and with them all of us, that we should regard this newest light of theirs as suspect? Moreover, does this new prodigy of theological science agree with those things which are held as certain and settled in the schools of theology and indeed in the practice of the Church? Let us taste a few by way of example.

Let there be the case of which we spoke above (Note at no. 173, p. 111). Let a servant of Regulars approach, with sins reserved to the Bishop, a confessor lacking a faculty for reserved cases. It is certain, as we said (loc. cit.), and St. Alphonsus also teaches, that he is validly absolved even from the reserved sins. But the confessor does not have the Ordinary's approval for reserved sins. Approval cannot be had from the Regular superior. How, then, does he validly absolve? - Let there be a Superior of Regulars who, for hearing the confessions of his own subjects, summoned a secular confessor indeed approved by the Ordinary, yet without a faculty for sins reserved by him; the Regular superior, moreover, grants his subjects permission generally that they can be absolved from reserved sins, among which some are also reserved by the Bishop, for example, perjury, sacrilege, etc. I ask: whence does this confessor have the approval which the neo-theologians require? Does he validly absolve without approval? And perhaps do not object that by virtue of the Tridentine Decree the approval of the Ordinary is not necessary for hearing the confessions of Regulars. For it will be answered: what of the Capuchins, who by a Decree of Benedict XIV cannot choose a secular confessor unless he is approved? - Let there be a confessor who has obtained from the Sacred Penitentiary the faculty of absolving from certain sins, either through the customary Pagella or through other letters; among these sins suppose that some one is reserved by the Bishop, for example, sorcery. Indeed, the Sacred Penitentiary does not grant approval but supposes it, and expressly imposes the condition that the confessor be legitimately approved by the Ordinary of the place. Now behold, the question returns: for the Sacred Penitentiary does not grant approval; the confessor by hypothesis does not have approval from his own Ordinary for those sins; how, then, does he validly absolve? But what shall we say concerning the faculties which on the occasion of a Jubilee are granted to all approved confessors? Whence comes approval for these? Therefore, lest we add more, from these things it is now lawful to conclude that if not one of the whole company of Theologians who cultivated this sacred discipline for three centuries spoke of this new and singular manner of limiting episcopal approval, it must certainly not be said that this happened because they lacked sufficient acuteness of mind to discern it, which assuredly required neither the greatest nor a singular acuteness, but because in a theory of this kind they perceived nothing but an empty phantom, which accords less with certain doctrines and leads to absurdities.

QUESTION 5. Can the subject of another diocese be absolved when the sin is reserved in his own diocese but not in the place of confession?

Reply 1. He can be absolved by Regulars by virtue of the privilege granted to them in the Constitution Superna of Clement X ¹⁴.

¹⁴ The Apostolic Constitution (section 7) establishes that a Regular Confessor in the Diocese in which he is approved can absolve those coming together from another Diocese from sins reserved there but not in the Diocese in which the same confessor is approved, unless he knows that the same penitents have migrated to the alien diocese in fraud of the reservation in order to obtain absolution. How these words of the Constitution present no obstacle to the things noted at the preceding Question will become plain below.

Reply 2. As regards secular Confessors, the older Theologians most commonly deny it, from chapter Si Episcopus 2, De Poenit. in VI ¹⁵, which stands thus: If a Bishop has granted to his subject that he can choose a fit confessor for himself, the one whom he chooses has no power at all in cases which are specially reserved to that Bishop: since those things do not come under a general concession which one would not probably grant in particular. Thus Bartholomew Medina (Instruction for Confessors, book 1, chapter 10, section 3), Cajetan (Summa, word Absolution 2, final proposition), Navarrus (on chapter Placuit, De Poenit., dist. 6, nos. 62-63), the Summa Armilla (word Absolution, no. 30), Emmanuel Rodriguez (Explanation of the Bull of the Crusade, section 9, no. 92), Sayrus (Summa of the Sacrament of Penance, chapter 21, no. 6), Jacobus de Graffiis (Golden Decisions, book 1, chapter 13, no. 46), Fagnanus (on chapter Omnis, De Poenit. et Remiss., no. 95), Dominic Soto (In IV Sent., dist. 18, q. 4, art. 2), Marcellus Megala (Institutions for Confessors, part 1, book 4, chapter 7), Finellius (Selected Golden Cases Reserved, chapter 9, no. 8), Fagundez (On the Second Precept of the Church, book 8, chapter 8, no. 20), John Chapeauville (Treatise on Reserved Cases, part 1, chapter 4, difficulty 9), the Summa Pisanella (word Confession III), Alphonsus Vega (in Fagundez, loc. cit., and Barbosa, On the Office and Power of a Bishop, part 3, allegation 53, no. 15), the Short Summa of Raymond (tract 4, chapter 5), Bartholomew Ugolinus (On the Office and Power of a Bishop, chapter 39, section 4, nos. 3-4), John of Freiburg (Summa, book 3, tit. 34, art. 39), Escobar (Moral Theology, book 16, chapter 7, no. 66), the Summa Astensis (book 5, tit. 14), the Summa Angelica (word Confession V, no. 6), the Summa Tabiena (word Confession I, no. 41), St. Antoninus (Summa, part 3, tit. 17, chapter 4), the Summa Rosella (word Confession III, no. 32), Peter Paludanus (In IV Sent., dist. 17, q. 3, art. 3, conclusion 4), the Summa Sylvestrina (word Confession I, section 11), Berarduccius (Summa Corona on the Sacrament of Penance, no. 51, doubt 3, section Fourth, when), Engel (Manual for Pastors, part 3, chapter 2, no. 7), Comitolus (Moral Resolutions, book 1, q. 28), Cosmas Philiarchus (*On the Office of a Priest, part 2, book 2, chapter 26), Cajetanus Verani (book 5, tit. 38, section 8, nos. 12, 13), Amort (Eclectic Theology, vol. 3, On Penance, disp. 9, q. 25), Barbosa (On the Office and Power of a Bishop, part 3, allegation 53, no. 15), etc. The more recent authors, however, made the privilege of Regulars common to secular Confessors; custom against which the Ordinaries do not protest, it must be considered can be validly and even licitly absolved. Except in each case if someone has transferred himself from his own diocese to another in fraud of the reservation ¹⁶.

¹⁵ Although in this Chapter of Boniface VIII there is discussion only of a subject to whom the Bishop granted that he might choose a fit confessor for himself, which is an indirect delegation of jurisdiction, concerning whom it is established that the confessor chosen by that subject has no power at all in cases which are specially reserved to the same Bishop, nevertheless it is not to be doubted that the same avails in a general concession made to a priest, namely, the faculty of hearing confessions, which is a direct delegation of jurisdiction: namely, that the faculty of absolving from reserved cases is never comprehended unless it is expressed. Moreover, with regard to the first case, as Cardinal Cajetan argues well (Summa, word Absolution), if explicit permission, namely, to choose a confessor, does not comprehend reserved cases, much less does implicit permission, namely, that which is tacitly granted to those departing from the diocese, extend to them.

But how it came about that many afterward departed from the most common opinion of all the ancients, receive this brief history. Although all agreed that no one can validly be absolved by an alien priest without the permission of his proper Ordinary, and that this permission does not extend to reserved cases unless this is expressed, they nevertheless excepted a case of necessity, to which they referred also the obligation of the Paschal precept; and they taught that then a traveler could be absolved also from an episcopal case. Thus Paludanus (In IV Sent., dist. 17, q. 3, art. 3, conclusion 4), St. Antoninus (part 3, tit. 17, chapter 4), the Summa Rosella (word Confession III, no. 32), the Summa Tabiena (word Confession I, no. 41), Cajetan (Summa, word Absolution 2), etc.

Most, however, added that the Confessor must enjoin upon the penitent that, when he has access to his own Bishop, he should confess that reserved sin to him again and receive penance for it from him. Thus John of Freiburg, Master General of the Order of Preachers (book 3, tit. 34, q. 59), the Summa Pisanella (word Confession III), the Summa Astensis (book 5, tit. 14), the Summa Angelica (word Confession V, no. 6), the Summa Sylvestrina (word Confessor I, section 17), the Summa Corona (On the Sacrament of Penance, no. 51, doubt 5, section Fourth, when), and Cosmas Philiarchus (On the Office of a Priest, part 2, book 2, chapter 26). And indeed the last three expressly say that the confession of reserved sins is therefore to be repeated so that they may be directly absolved, since they were not absolved by the alien priest.

Finally Cajetan (loc. cit.) thought that the practice of obtaining absolution at Easter even from an episcopal case was confirmed by a certain oral oracle of Eugene IV, which he relates thus: I remember having read elsewhere that Eugene IV granted or declared by an oral oracle that travelers, wherever they found themselves at Easter, were to be considered as having acquired inhabitancy with regard to the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Yet neither Soto (Dominic, In IV Sent., dist. 18, q. 4, art. 2; Peter, Instruction of Priests, lecture 5, On Confession) nor Navarrus attributed to this declaration, omitting for now grave doubts concerning its authenticity, that force or sense; but they judged that by it this alone was prescribed: that travelers could not confess to others besides the plebans or pastors of the places. Thus far the most common opinion of all the ancients.

But behold, first Henry Henriquez (Summa of Moral Theology, book 6, chapter 14, no. 8), relying upon no other equipment than a heap of fallacious allegations, transfers to a general norm that very thing which the ancients had excepted from the general rule concerning a case of necessity or of the Paschal precept; and he is the first to infer the canon that a traveler can be absolved from a sin reserved in his own diocese if it is not reserved in the diocese of the confessor. Henriquez's disciple Suarez succeeds him and, seizing from his master three fallacious allegations, namely, of Paludanus, St. Antoninus, and Cajetan, which you may then see copied in good faith by a long series of Authors down to St. Alphonsus, not only repeats that canon but in addition is the first to establish the new, and until that time unheard-of, inverted canon concerning a traveler being subjected to the reservations of a diocese of which he is not a subject if he wishes to confess there, according to the things we said in the note at the preceding question. Nevertheless neither of these men yet dared entirely to renounce the principle in which the economy, or rather the essence, of the judgment of this sacrament is contained; and Henriquez expressly supposes that permission of the proper pastor of the penitents is possessed, and that the alien priest absolves from a tacit commission of the proper Bishop which bestows jurisdiction.

But not even these limits were preserved by others. See Lugo, On Penance, disp. 20, no. 70, and St. Alphonsus, book 6, no. 589. In order to extricate themselves from the difficulty which chapter Si Episcopus presented against their new theory establishing that visitors are to be judged according to the laws of the place in which they confess, they established that the power of absolving them is to be derived not from their proper Pastor but from custom. By an incredible anachronism, they said that this custom was approved by Eugene IV when, namely, no man had even dreamed of theories of this kind; and from his oral oracle, if any such existed, others in addition, by a remarkable power of imagination, fabricated an extravagant Decretal. See Villalobos, Summa, vol. 1, tract 9, difference 59, no. 4. This is the genuine history of the vicissitudes of this controversy and of the immense confusion introduced into it.

** The VV. opposed forty columns (pp. 533-544) against this and the immediately following Note. Nevertheless, many words are not needed to satisfy their objections, all the more because there is question here not so much of opinions concerning which the Doctors went in different directions as of a historical matter.

1. First, therefore, the VV. (pp. 535-540) fill eight columns with texts of St. Antoninus, Cajetan, Navarrus, and the Summa Angelica, in order to prove that it is undeservedly asserted in the Note that the negative opinion was most common among the ancients.

To these, Reply 1. Let the Antecedent pass, and I deny the Consequence. The reason is that even if it were true, which is false, that these four dissent from the general opinion of others, these few, in comparison with the immense multitude of others who are seen alleged in the text, nevertheless would not prevent that doctrine from being called most common among the ancients. In this place let the testimony of a man by no means suspect avail, Eusebius Amort, who, when discussing the privilege of absolving penitents of another diocese from their reserved sins, which he asserts for Regulars but denies to every secular confessor, has these most explicit words (Eclectic Theology, vol. 3, On Penance, disp. 9, q. 25): I said that this was declared concerning Regular Confessors. But whether Bishops wish to extend jurisdiction over their own subjects with regard to reserved cases to external non-privileged Confessors, that is, non-Regulars, or whether the Pope wishes even against the will of Bishops to extend that jurisdiction to external non-privileged Confessors, is a question of fact, in which every positive concession of this kind, NEW AND BY NO MEANS CONFORMABLE TO THE MORE ANCIENT OBSERVANCE HANDED DOWN, indeed by no means connatural to the nature of things, is to be denied and regarded as null in practice so long as it is not sufficiently proved by arguments morally certain or at least more probable and placed beyond prudent doubt. Could the unanimous doctrine and practice of the ancients have been expressed more clearly? For the rest, it is truly remarkable that the VV., because of the dissent of these few fashioned by themselves, deny that this opinion of the ancients can be called most common; but a little later (p. 542) they do not hesitate to write that the opposite opinion of St. Alphonsus is with the best right to be considered most common, although it has against it that immense throng of thirty and more Authors who are alleged in Gury's text! Does not that saying rightly recur here (Prov. 20:10): Weight and weight, measure and measure?

2. But Reply 2. I deny the Antecedent also. Therefore something concerning each of those writers objected as dissenting; and first concerning St. Antoninus. It had been said in the Note that, according to St. Antoninus and some others, a traveler can be absolved also from an Episcopal case in a case of necessity, as, for example, when the Paschal precept presses. But the VV. (p. 537) deny that this is restricted by St. Antoninus to this case. Let the words of St. Antoninus (Summa, part 3, tit. 13, chapter 4), which he copied from Paludanus, therefore decide the question; they are as follows: If they departed with the permission of their Bishop or Pastor, by that very fact they have interpretative permission to confess, since they cannot worthily travel without confession. If Easter also comes, they can communicate on account of the same implicit permission and also be absolved from an episcopal case. Hence thus: If a general faculty for reserved cases had existed, St. Antoninus would have placed it in the first member, where he speaks of the general permission to confess. But he placed it not in the first but in the second member, where he speaks exclusively of the occasion of Easter. Therefore. And let the same also avail concerning Paludanus, whose words St. Antoninus took literally.

3. Now concerning Cajetan, with whose texts the VV. fill two columns (pp. 537-538). They press these words of his (Summa, word Absolution 2): I remember having read elsewhere that Eugene IV granted or declared by an oral oracle that travelers, wherever they found themselves at Easter, were to be considered as having acquired inhabitancy with regard to the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist; and according to this, at Easter there is no need of interpretative permission of this kind, but they can THEN be absolved by those confessors by whom inhabitants are absolved, even from episcopal cases, according as the Bishop of the place disposes. But, the VV. subsume (p. 538), Suarez writes (On Penance, disp. 25, sect. 2, no. 9): I understand this to be an extension, not a limitation. Therefore, the VV. conclude, the same avails at other times of the year.

Reply. The VV. (p. 534) call the Note which they here attack in those forty columns wearisome, certainly paying less attention to the fact that fastidious is usually said not of one who causes weariness but of one who is affected by weariness. Nevertheless, according to the sense affixed to this word by the VV., another will perhaps with better right regard as wearisome the method of disputing which they themselves employ here. For what? Suarez (loc. cit., no. 8) merely contends that visitors can confess either to the pastor of the place at which they arrive or to other priests having jurisdiction there; and to confirm this he adds (no. 9): Cajetan signifies the same opinion... and relates that Eugene IV declared this even in the annual confession; which I understand to be an extension, not a limitation; an extension, namely, even to the annual Paschal confession. Hence he infers that if even at Easter, when there seems to be the greatest obligation of confessing to one's proper priest, confession can be made to another from the declaration of Eugene, it can also be made at any other time. Therefore the extension of which Suarez speaks here consists merely in this, that even at Easter a visitor can confess to another and not to the pastor. See this sense also in Filliucius, who, in order to prove that a visitor can confess to others besides the pastor, uses the same argument thus (tract 7, chapter 7, no. 195): Cajetan also relates that Eugene IV declared this concerning annual confession and Communion; wherefore much more at other times. Since these things are so, how then do the VV. twist the words of Suarez to signify that the faculty of absolving from an episcopal case was extended by the declaration of Eugene to other times outside Easter? And what can seem even less tolerable, how through this distortion of the Suarezian context do they attempt to insinuate that this is also the opinion of Cajetan? I said that this can seem even less tolerable; for Cajetan immediately and expressly adds these things, by which he rejects that extension: But in all the remaining aforesaid permissions (namely, apart from that which he says was granted by Eugene), whether explicitly or implicitly by Bishops or Pastors, I DO NOT APPROVE that those licensed can be absolved from cases reserved to the Bishop, because this is AGAINST THE DISPOSITION OF LAW in chapter Si Episcopus, where it is said that when a Bishop gives permission to someone to confess, he does not thereby grant the reserved cases. Therefore there is no, or very little, reason why Cajetan should be said to have departed from the most common doctrine of the School, or rather of the Church; and it can rightly seem troublesome and grave, the VV. may say wearisome, that against the manifest truth a doctrine which he expressly reprobates is attributed even to Cajetan, and that, to persuade this, words of Suarez which have nothing to do with the matter are thus distorted.

4. As regards the Summa Angelica, Blessed Angelus de Clavasio first establishes this general principle (word Confession V, no. 6): Whether a Bishop, granting permission to someone to choose a fit Confessor, by that very fact grants to the said chosen Confessor permission to absolve from his cases? I reply that he does not, unless he expresses this, or unless it is evidently established by other signs that he wishes specially to grant this. Chapter Si Episcopus, De Poenit. et Remiss. in VI. Then (ibid., no. 12) he adds concerning the case of travelers: Whether pilgrims and travelers who, with the permission of their proper priest, confess to another who nevertheless has cases reserved to Bishops can be absolved by the one whom they chose as confessor. I reply according to Rodriguez that they can, especially if the time of general confession, as at Easter, is at hand; nevertheless it must be enjoined upon him that when he has access to his Bishop, he should confess that reserved sin to him again and receive penance for it from him. Now according to the VV. (p. 536): 1. Blessed Angelus, where he denies that a penitent can be absolved from reserved cases, speaks of one who remains in the diocese of his Bishop, not of travelers, whom he afterward says can be absolved outside the diocese. 2. He in no way restricts this faculty for travelers, for he mentions Easter there because then all the faithful confess.

Reply to 1. I deny the whole; for it is not lawful gratuitously to fasten this qualification upon Blessed Angelus so that, against the unanimous and absolute opinion and interpretation of all, he thus perverts the sense of chapter Si Episcopus. I said gratuitously, because there is no reason here why anyone should attribute this false interpretation of that Chapter to Blessed Angelus. Nor is it opposed to that Chapter that one who has reserved sins, when a just cause requires, but has no access to the Superior, can according to the laws be absolved by another, whether he remains in the diocese or is distant from it.

Reply to 2. I likewise deny the whole; for those words especially at Easter express a comparison with other less urgent causes on account of which one who has reserved sins can be absolved, as St. Alphonsus also intimates (book 6, no. 285). And indeed, if that penitent could be absolved at any time and occasion, the expression ESPECIALLY at Easter would be absurd, which it is not lawful gratuitously to attribute to Blessed Angelus.

But, 3. I further deny that Blessed Angelus either departed in any way from the most common doctrine or in any respect favors the new theory. And the VV. silently pass over these words of the question proposed by Blessed Angelus: Who (travelers) confess to another who nevertheless has cases reserved to Bishops. Therefore Blessed Angelus supposes a confessor endowed with a faculty over reserved cases; and indeed, since he does not say cases reserved to the Bishop of the place but cases reserved to Bishops, he supposes a privileged Confessor, such as the Mendicant Orders were in the time of Blessed Angelus. See Lezana, vol. 1, chapter 19, no. 17. But he would not have sought a privileged confessor if, departing from the common opinion of that time, he had judged, as the new theory introduced, that the penitent could be absolved by any confessor. Therefore.

Moreover, the VV. did not do well when, in relating the text of Blessed Angelus, they suppressed certain words. Blessed Angelus has: I reply ACCORDING TO RODRIGUEZ that they can; but the VV. truncate the beginning and write: And he replies that they can. Yet that allegation of Rodriguez has much moment, however troublesome it may be to the new theories. For Rodriguez touches this question in two places; and in one he indeed denies that absolution can be given, although the Confessor has a faculty over the reserved cases of that Diocese. Thus he writes (Explanation of the Bull of the Crusade, section 9, no. 92): It is asked whether, if a subject of one Bishopric were to go with reserved cases into another Bishopric where they were not reserved, the approved SECULAR Confessor there who had the cases of his Bishopric, although he did not have the Bull, could absolve him. Navarrus holds that he can, relying upon custom. Medina in his Summa says no. I hold the latter opinion to be truer.

And from these things it can be seen why Blessed Angelus supposes a Confessor not merely having a faculty for the reserved cases of that diocese, but one who generally possesses a faculty over Episcopal cases, as the Mendicants were then endowed. In the other place, however (Summa, chapter 55, no. 5), Rodriguez reserves the absolution of a visitor of this kind to the Bishop of the place and derives it from the consent of the Ordinary of the visitor. A Bishop, he says, can absolve... a traveler who comes from another Episcopate with cases reserved to his proper Bishop, because it seems that such a Bishop will ratify whatever the other has done, especially if he comes from far away, as if someone were to come to Salamanca from the Indies. And perhaps for this reason Blessed Angelus added that when the visitor has access to his Bishop, he should confess that reserved sin to him again and receive penance for it from him. These things have nothing in common with the new theories.

5. Navarrus remains, from whose texts the VV. construct nearly four columns. But to what purpose, someone may ask? For even in those things which they themselves bring forward from Navarrus, there is what suffices for our matter; and even if he had otherwise departed from the general doctrine of the ancients, would this prevent that doctrine from being called most common?

From the Commentaries of Navarrus on chapter Placuit, De Poenit., the VV. bring forward these things (p. 538, no. 63): If a Bishop has granted the faculty of traveling, he seems also to have granted that one can be absolved from Episcopal cases, according to Paludanus, whom Antoninus follows literally; but not if the faculty was granted by the pastor, according to the same authors. Yet this distinction displeases me; for the express faculty of choosing a confessor granted by a Bishop does not include reserved cases. The text is express and singular in that chapter 2, De Poenit., book 6. Therefore much less does a tacit faculty include them. If those Fathers had remembered that text, they would never have said this. In these things, therefore, Navarrus, no less than the ancients unanimously, relying upon the very well-known chapter Si Episcopus, denies that a faculty for reserved cases is contained in permission to choose a confessor, even if this permission is granted by the Bishop. But these things, contrary to what the VV. contend, plainly prove rather that Navarrus entirely adhered to the general and most common principle of the ancients.

The VV. take another text of Navarrus from chapter 27 of the Manual, no. 261, and it is as follows: To the question whether a pastor having the faculty of absolving from cases reserved to his Bishop can absolve a penitent of another Episcopate, with just permission granted to him, from sins reserved to his own Bishop, I replied that he can. Both because the gloss on chapter Placuit, 16, q. 1, and, more clearly through many passages, Panormitanus, hold that the legitimate confessor of one parish can absolve one confessing from sins committed anywhere; and Bishops seem tacitly to be bound to will that the same hold for sins reserved to them when the confession is made to one having a faculty of absolving from cases reserved to his own Bishop. In these things Navarrus, rather than departing from the most common doctrine of the ancients, indeed shows himself more severe. For from this he requires some special tacit consent of the Bishop of the visitor for absolution from reserved sins. But if you suppose consent of this kind, surely no one of the ancients denies that the visitor is legitimately absolved. Therefore Navarrus is falsely represented here as dissenting from the ancients. Moreover, Navarrus requires that the confession be made to a pastor who there has a faculty of absolving from reserved cases. But none of those who, as was indicated in the Note, concede that a visitor can be absolved from reserved sins at Easter requires that the confession be made to one having a faculty for reserved cases there. Therefore Navarrus appears even more severe. Nevertheless Navarrus was so firm in requiring a faculty concerning the reserved cases of the proper diocese with regard to the confessor of a visitor that he denied even to Mendicants dwelling at Rome the power of absolving visitors of this kind. For as he himself reasoned, the Most Eminent Vicar at Rome reserves no case, thus indeed Navarrus concerning his own times, and otherwise he was discharging the office of Canonist in the Sacred Penitentiary; therefore no faculty concerning reserved cases was granted to the Mendicants in that Roman diocese in which they were approved. But if they cannot absolve from Episcopal reserved cases in the diocese in which they are approved, a fortiori they will not be able to absolve from sins reserved to an external Bishop. Thus he writes (Counsels, book 5, counsel 21). From these things, that also is discovered to be false which the VV. write concerning Navarrus (p. 539), namely, that he does not deny that travelers are to be regarded as inhabitants, and therefore can be absolved from sins reserved to their Bishops. For the rest, this singular opinion of Navarrus pleased neither the older nor the more recent authors; and among the older authors not only Comitolus attacks it (Moral Replies, book 1, q. 28), but also Ugolinus (On the Office and Power of a Bishop, chapter 39, section 4), Rodriguez (On the Bull of the Crusade, loc. cit.), and Cosmas Philiarchus (On the Office of a Priest, part 2, book 2, chapter 26).

6. The VV. have two things concerning Navarrus which it is equitable not to pass over. For, first, in order to excuse St. Antoninus and Paludanus from a lapse of memory concerning chapter Si Episcopus, which Navarrus attributes to them in the first text cited above, they write: Boniface VIII speaks of a subject remaining in his own diocese, but not of those traveling or journeying.... Thus also others understood the aforesaid text, notably, as we saw, Clavasius.

Reply. A more plausible excuse should rather be sought from the words of St. Antoninus, who copies Paludanus. For after he said that a visitor can be absolved also from Episcopal cases, see no. 2 above, he proceeds thus: Because the Bishop, by not retaining to himself the authority of licensing travelers, by this very fact seems to give them permission to confess concerning Episcopal cases, just as the Pastor does concerning parochial cases. Therefore, if Navarrus considered chapter Si Episcopus sufficiently provided for when he himself, as we just saw, has recourse to a certain tacit consent of the Bishop, the same thing must be said to suffice for St. Antoninus and Paludanus, who openly suppose tacit consent of this kind. But no one will judge tolerable the reason for excuse submitted by the VV. and resting upon that preposterous and abnormal interpretation of chapter Si Episcopus which they wished gratuitously and injuriously to fasten upon Blessed Angelus de Clavasio above, no. 4, since it was rejected by all Doctors of every age. And every sensible person will surely judge that Cardinal de Lugo is to be pardoned if, after rejecting as less consistent with himself that common theory after Suarez, and unhappily entering upon a new path, he cast himself into an inextricable labyrinth of difficulties and devised this evasion of some kind (disp. 20, no. 70); in this, just as he had no one who preceded him, so he obtained no follower after him.

The VV. have another thing worthy of notice concerning Navarrus (p. 539), where they write: This final proposition, namely, that custom can give jurisdiction to one not having it, Navarrus already defended in the Commentaries, no. 32, where he teaches that priests can choose a confessor for themselves; and he observes that chapter Si Episcopus seems to stand in the way, in which it is said: No custom can introduce that anyone, apart from the permission of his Superior, can choose for himself a confessor who can loose or bind him. And after bringing forward the reply of Navarrus, namely, that priests do this by the tacit or express faculty of Superiors, concerning which see above and the passage of Suarez in no. 22 of the Note at section 555, question 13, the VV. append these words of Navarrus: Nevertheless, concerning the aforesaid decision of that chapter Si Episcopus there is the greatest doubt for me. For custom can give jurisdiction even to one otherwise having none, chapter Contingat, De foro competenti, where this conclusion is received by all. Why, then, can custom not give this jurisdiction? And here the VV., adding not even a word, thus break off the discourse, so that in the less cautious reader, especially in view of the preceding context, they may at least engender a grave suspicion that by this interrogative figure Navarrus in fact wishes to affirm that this jurisdiction also, namely, for validly absolving, can be given by custom, which is the doctrine tenaciously defended by the VV., as we have already seen above in the Note at no. 555, question 13.

But the matter stands entirely otherwise. For in that place Navarrus, after he gathers many things to amplify the difficulty or doubt (on chapter Placuit, De Poenit., disp. 6, nos. 36-38), replies to the question thus (no. 39): In this matter, which is for me a great difficulty, two things at present occur as replies. The first is that this custom cannot be introduced for this reason, because the Roman Pontiff reprobates it and does not permit it to be introduced. But Navarrus is not content with this solution, which, as is evident, is negative, because the text of the Chapter says something more. Hence he continues: Yet against this is the fact that the text does not say that the Roman Pontiff reprobates a custom of this kind or does not wish it to be introduced, but that it cannot in any way be introduced; and thus it says something much greater than that. In these words he absolutely denies that the custom can be introduced. The other reply of Navarrus is a certain anomalous interpretation of the same chapter, which found neither patron nor follower. The second thing, he says (no. 40), which occurred was that the mind of the Roman Pontiff is to say that a custom cannot be introduced whereby someone chooses a confessor who binds and absolves him by virtue of that election, unless he has from elsewhere the power of doing this. For this consideration that opinion makes, namely, that when a pastor simply gives his parishioner the faculty of confessing, the parishioner cannot choose a confessor who presides over no jurisdiction; but when he not only simply gives a faculty of this kind, but indeed commits his own place to whomever the parishioner chooses, then the parishioner can choose one who actually exercises no care of souls. Yet Navarrus himself admits that this opinion was rejected by all later authors after Panormitanus, and thus, as he says (no. 42), that it is the same thing for permission to choose a confessor to be given to a parishioner by the pastor and for the power of hearing to be committed by the pastor to the one whom his parishioner chooses. And indeed it is manifest that this interpretation of the Chapter was afterward admitted by no one; therefore it is superfluous to discuss these things further. It is evident, therefore, that the VV. gratuitously fasten upon Navarrus this opinion rejected by the Sacred Canons.

7. The VV. add another article (pp. 540-541) in which they attempt somehow to clear Henriquez and Suarez from the reproach of novelties badly introduced. But the matter can be dispatched in a few words.

For: 1. that each abusively sought patronage for his novelties from Cajetan, Paludanus, and St. Antoninus is sufficiently evident from the foregoing. - 2. That Henriquez strengthened his novelty only by a heap of other false allegations the VV. themselves plainly confirm by their silence. - 3. But what the VV. add (p. 540), It is certain that Henriquez was not the first who introduced the doctrine that a traveler can be absolved from a sin reserved in his own diocese if it is not reserved in the diocese of the confessor, has an easy reply: let the VV. produce anyone who before Henriquez has this general assertion, and then they can be believed.

8. Since the VV. call Henriquez as a patron, it will not be foreign to the matter to indicate briefly here how the whole system of the VV. is completely overthrown from the doctrines of Henriquez.

First, the VV. contend with St. Alphonsus that a visitor is now not absolved by the consent of his proper pastor, nor is jurisdiction had from him. But Henriquez speaks to the contrary thus (book 6, chapter 14, no. 8): An alien Bishop could absolve a traveling citizen, while he has business in his diocese, from sins reserved to his proper Bishop FROM THE TACIT RATIFICATION OF THE PROPER BISHOP, especially if the proper Bishop is very far distant. Adam Tanner also copied this opinion thus (On Penance, q. 9, no. 86): An Ordinary can absolve a traveler from reserved sins under the ratification of the proper Bishop, especially if the proper Bishop were very remotely distant, as if he came from India. But that this ratification imports the conferral of jurisdiction, Henriquez had clearly said before (book 6, chapter 13, no. 13): The ratification of a Prelate, which because of necessity or other reasons is believed to have been given by some external sign in past or present time, GIVES JURISDICTION TO THE CONFESSOR. And Henriquez had already established this general principle (book 6, chapter 8, no. 5): Travelers... can choose a Confessor from among those set forth along the way and at the end of their journey; for custom is interpreted as their having the permission of their proper pastor, although they did not seek it; and an alien Bishop or one acting in his place could, from a certain tacit commission of the proper Bishop, absolve him from sins reserved to his proper Bishop. Henriquez says these things to prove the more general assertion, namely, that jurisdiction is given by reason of status, etc. Elsewhere, however (Note q. on book 6, chapter 14, no. 8), he adds that the Doctors who deny that a traveler can be absolved from the reserved sins of his Bishop must be interpreted as meaning that the alien Bishop cannot do so by his own right. Therefore the theory of the VV. is overthrown by the first author of these novelties.

2. The VV. establish another foundation of their system in this, that custom bestows jurisdiction, which they do not wish to derive from the Ordinary of the visitor. But Henriquez, as is evident from his words last transcribed, attributes no other role to custom than that it indicates the permission of the Ordinary of the penitent: For custom (he says) is interpreted as their having the permission of their proper pastor; and this permission, as he himself adds, bestows jurisdiction. The same Henriquez again inculcates this thus (book 6, chapter 8, no. 2): Although custom cannot confer jurisdiction, it is nevertheless a witness and interpreter of the tacit permission which Pontiffs, while they see and remain silent, are considered to grant.

3. The VV. rely upon the words of Henriquez where he holds (book 6, chapter 14, no. 8) that the accused is accustomed to be judged according to the laws and customs of the place where he is present. But behold Henriquez himself, who elsewhere writes (book 6, chapter 7, no. 2): By reason of the offense in the external forum the accused can by law be punished by the judge of the territory; yet because of this the accused does not seem to acquire a favorable forum so that he can be absolved from sins by an alien pastor. See these same things defended as certain by Suarez (disp. 25, sect. 1, no. 18); and Lugo adds that the opposite opinion is deservedly rejected by all (disp. 19, no. 9). Now if the accused does not acquire a forum, how must he be judged according to the laws of the place? Moreover, since Henriquez teaches that jurisdiction in the case is bestowed by the Ordinary of the traveler, that absurdity which Lugo also censures returns, when he writes (disp. 20, no. 73) that if the Confessor does not have his jurisdiction from this Bishop, namely, of the place, but from the proper Bishop of the visitor or dependently upon him, then the Bishop of the visitor alone could by reservation remove or limit his jurisdiction, and not this other Bishop upon whom he does not depend. But it is no wonder that the authors of a new confusion involve themselves in perpetual contradictions.

9. But let us pass to Suarez, from whom the VV. relate these things (p. 541; from disp. 30, sect. 1, no. 4): The foundation is that he who thus remains in an alien Episcopate can confess and be absolved there not because he uses

the faculty of choosing a Confessor, but because by this very fact, that he remains in an alien Episcopate, he can there be absolved after the manner of the inhabitants of that diocese and conduct himself as if he were a subject of the Bishop of that place; for in this sense the custom explained above and approved by Eugene IV must be understood. - To these things it can be replied briefly: 1. that the interpretation which Suarez here fastens upon the Declaration of Eugene IV is gratuitous and false, as is gathered both from the sense of the Doctors who are alleged in the Note and from those things said above, and indeed from the sense of Suarez himself; 2. that Suarez openly conflicts with himself when he here contends that jurisdiction in the case is had from elsewhere than through the election of the penitent; for we have already seen him several times defend that jurisdiction flows indirectly from the Ordinary of the penitent.

Another reason of Suarez (loc. cit.) is that confessors of another diocese are not bound to know which cases are reserved to another Bishop; therefore they ought to hear and judge the visitor according to the rite of their own Episcopate. Lugo also amplifies this reason thus (disp. 20, no. 72): For the Confessors of this city neither ought nor can interrogate individual penitents concerning their native place, or whether they are travelers, and much less concerning cases reserved in their native place, which surely neither the Confessor of this city nor the traveling penitent himself can know. Other authors also transcribed this argument.

Reply 1. But elsewhere we related these words of Bonacina (On Penance, disp. 5, q. 7, point 2, no. 6): One who undertakes a journey for this purpose alone, that he may avoid his proper pastor and confess to another, cannot validly confess before the pastor or priest of the place at which he arrives, as Coninck, Vasquez, Suarez, Reginaldus, and other recent authors well observe. And Suarez in fact writes thus (disp. 25, sect. 2, no. 9): If someone were to undertake a journey only for this, that he might have the occasion of confessing to another and not to his proper priest, this would no longer be necessity but will, and it would not be according to the intention of the pastors nor according to the custom of the Church; and therefore the confession would not be valid. Nor does Lugo think otherwise, who has these things in the clearest words (disp. 19, no. 7): Those who travel and make a journey can now, from the tacit will of their pastors, confess even to the pastor whom they find in the place where they are, provided that they did not deliberately depart from their domicile in order that, on the occasion of the journey, they might confess to another. How, then, is the Confessor said neither to be able nor to be bound at all to inquire concerning the diocese of the penitent and for what end he departed from it, when he knows that absolution will be invalid if the penitent deliberately departed in order to confess to an alien priest? And, moreover, it is no less necessary, as we shall see, to know concerning alien reserved cases.

2. Meanwhile, if the expression be permitted, a difficulty of this kind ought in a certain manner to provoke laughter if, setting aside for a little while the new theories which after Henriquez were built upon a heap of false allegations, we return to preceding times. Indeed: 1. before these novelties a visitor, as we have already seen, could not be absolved from reserved sins except in a case of some necessity, such as the occasion of the Paschal precept; 2. although Paludanus, St. Antoninus, and Cajetan, when speaking of absolution from reserved sins on the occasion of Easter, introduce no mention of any condition, nevertheless the Doctors more commonly, as is intimated in the Note, establish that an obligation must be imposed upon the penitent to disclose the reserved sin afterward also to his proper Ordinary.

But did this practice not require confessors to know that this or that sin was reserved in the diocese of the visitor? And since this practice flourished in the Church through so many centuries, yet we find not even the least indication among the Doctors that the ministry of this sacrament displayed any difficulty for this reason, what indeed is the reason that the recent authors, under the pretext of this difficulty, judge that all the principles concerning the economy of jurisdiction must necessarily be overthrown?

But, 3. we shall see a little later that the Apostolic See elsewhere prohibited by a most severe law that any confessor, whether Regular or Secular, should dare to absolve from sins which Ordinaries had reserved to themselves unless he had obtained from them a special faculty for this; and it was established that this was to be observed also concerning the reserved sins of other dioceses with regard to their subjects. But when Clement X confirmed for Regulars the privilege of absolving visitors in certain circumstances from sins reserved in their diocese, he imposed this condition: provided that they had not come in fraud of the reservation. But if anything were to be conceded to the reason which Suarez and Lugo, and afterward several others, repeat here, could anyone not with right represent these dispositions of the Apostolic See as less wise? Could anyone not repeat with Suarez and Lugo that a confessor neither knows nor is bound to know the reserved cases of other dioceses, and that he neither can nor ought to interrogate individual penitents as to which diocese they belong or whether they have reserved cases? How also could that which St. Alphonsus has (book 6, no. 590), and Scavini after him (tract 10, disp. 1, chapter 4, art. 2), be observed in practice: that a visitor cannot be absolved from censures reserved in his own diocese? Let it therefore be concluded that an argument of this kind has some appearance, but no solidity.

10. We must come to that part of the Note where there is discussion of the new theory brought forth by Lugo. Against this the VV. write an article (p. 541) with this title: St. Alphonsus and Lugo Are Vindicated from the Injurious Attacks of Father B.

Reply 1. There is no attack in the Note, but a merely historical exposition of the opinion both of Lugo and of St. Alphonsus.

Reply 2. One is called injurious who inflicts an injury; but an injury (law 1, ff. De iniuriis) is said to be that which is done not by right. Yet nothing occurs in the Note, as will soon become evident, which was said not by right. Therefore the attacks are called injurious without cause. But to the matter.

Enough was said in the Note at section 555, question 13, concerning the opinion of St. Alphonsus which denies that visitors are absolved from the will or consent of the respective Ordinaries, namely, from their indirect concession of jurisdiction.

But as regards Cardinal de Lugo, it is indeed seen that he also followed the common doctrine of all, otherwise most true and most certain, that jurisdiction for absolving a visitor is to be derived from the indirect delegation of the Ordinary of each penitent. And according to this sense he wrote (disp. 19, no. 7): Those who travel and make a journey can now FROM THE TACIT WILL OF THEIR PASTORS confess even to the pastor whom they find in the place where they are. And he added (ibid.) that almost all agree in this. Moreover, what he adds a little later (ibid., no. 9) returns to the same thing and confirms the opinion: that it is deservedly rejected by all that in this forum, namely, the penitential forum, jurisdiction is acquired by reason of a delict committed in such a place. But when he embraced the opinion which says that the norm of the place in which the confession is made is to be observed even concerning the absolution of the reserved sins of visitors, because otherwise an entirely intolerable care would be required in the Confessor, namely, of inquiring and knowing what the native place of individual penitents is and which cases are reserved in their dioceses, while from another side he recoiled from that absurdity which we already indicated above at the end of no. 8, namely, that jurisdiction delegated by the Ordinary of a visiting penitent is to be subjected to the laws and measures which another Bishop prescribed for jurisdiction granted by himself for other subjects, he took another new path, namely by having recourse to jurisdiction which would to some extent be acquired by custom alone.

Yet he expressed this opinion in such a way that, under a certain obscure wrapping of words, he appears to assert the very thing which he appears to deny in the same place. For he writes (disp. 20, no. 70): I reply that the penitent in our case does not have from the Bishop a faculty of choosing a Confessor, but has a faculty introduced by custom and the approval of Prelates. Now when he denies that a faculty of choosing a Confessor is had from the Bishop of the visitor, by that very fact, according to the sense received by all, he plainly appears to affirm that jurisdiction is not delegated by that Bishop. But, on the contrary, when he says that the penitent has a faculty (of choosing a confessor, surely) introduced by custom and the approval of Prelates, does he not affirm what he had previously denied: that the faculty of choosing a confessor is had from the approval, that is, the will and consent, of the proper Bishop? And if the faculty is had from the will and consent of the Bishop, does it not return that jurisdiction for absolving that penitent is indirectly delegated by the same Bishop?

But if you wish to attribute this sense to that obscure proposition, that by the approval of Prelates it is understood that not the faculty of choosing a confessor, but the custom, was introduced, we shall now ask: What is that custom? If you say the custom of choosing a confessor, behold, again we have this faculty granted by the Bishop and, consequently, a conflict with what precedes. But if you understand a custom by virtue of which, apart from at least the tacit concession of his proper Bishop, a visitor can be absolved by an alien priest, then we ask: Whence does that confessor have jurisdiction? For it is of divine law, as the Ecumenical Councils defined, that for absolving there is required either ordinary jurisdiction or jurisdiction delegated by one having ordinary jurisdiction. But it is absurd that ordinary jurisdiction was bestowed upon any confessor who might happen to be chosen by the visitor. Therefore it will be delegated jurisdiction; but by whom? Not by the Ordinary of the visitor, by hypothesis; nor, again, by the Ordinary of the Confessor, because he has no jurisdiction over one not his subject, nor therefore can he delegate to another what he does not have. Shall we therefore say that, according to Lugo, the Prelates approved this custom so that visitors, contrary to divine law, might be absolved by a priest who has neither ordinary nor delegated jurisdiction? But there is nothing wonderful in this. For you will never fail to find confusions of this kind, which conflict with themselves and with first principles, among those who, after Henriquez and Suarez, allowed themselves to be carried away by these novelties. Otherwise, even Lugo disposes of these most grave questions altogether lightly and in very few words.

11. In order to repel the charge of anachronism from the Declaration of Eugene IV invoked by Lugo and St. Alphonsus, the VV. write these things (p. 542): Eugene IV, who died in the year 1447, pronounced that Declaration at the request of certain Prelates.... And when the same Prelates made it widely known, the custom by which pilgrims, with regard to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, are equated with inhabitants of the place grew stronger and stronger. They then call Navarrus and Jacobus de Graffiis as witnesses of this custom.

Reply. I now pass over those things which the VV. fabricate concerning the request of Prelates who afterward promulgated the Declaration of Eugene IV, and the custom which thence grew stronger and stronger, etc. For this Declaration could have been nothing other than a reply given orally to someone on the occasion of some doubt or controversy raised by some parish priest; and the universal silence of all concerning this matter down to Cajetan commends this, for he writes that he had learned something of it from no other source than a chance reading. But the things which we are about to say will plainly show that whatever the VV. have fashioned concerning Prelates promulgating it and a custom gaining strength must be relegated to dreams. Now to the matter itself.

The witnesses of the custom produced for us by the VV. are Navarrus and Jacobus de

Graffiis. Let us begin with Navarrus. A twofold custom is found mentioned by Navarrus: one in the Commentaries on chapter Placuit, De Poenit., disp. 6, no. 32, by which priests could choose a confessor for themselves. Now with regard to this custom Navarrus replied (ibid., no. 33) that priests did this by the tacit or express faculty of their Superiors. But the custom of which Lugo speaks excludes a faculty of choosing which is from Superiors. Therefore the custom of which Navarrus speaks here does not pertain to the matter; indeed, it proves a contrary custom.

Navarrus mentions another custom in the Manual, chapter 27, no. 261, by which a Pastor having the faculty of absolving from cases reserved to his own Bishop could absolve a penitent of another Episcopate, with just permission granted to him, from sins reserved to his own Bishop. But this allegation labors under a twofold defect. First, because a custom of this kind, requiring, namely, that the confession of reserved sins be made to one having a faculty over reserved cases, is so far from being the custom of which Lugo speaks that he rejects it (disp. 20, no. 71). Second, because Navarrus here also supposes that just permission has been granted to the penitent. But the custom upon which Lugo relies requires that no permission be present. Therefore this also does not pertain to the matter; indeed, it commends the opposite.

Nor does the matter stand otherwise as regards the other witness. The VV. bring forward a passage from Jacobus de Graffiis in which he testifies (Golden Decisions, book 1, chapter 13, no. 48) that there was a custom at Naples by which a priest who has the FACULTY (of absolving) from cases reserved by his own Bishop can absolve the subjects of another Bishop from those reserved by him in his own diocese. But we have already said that this theory is not admitted by Lugo. Therefore these things also are not fit to bear witness to the custom which Lugo asserts. But let us inquire further: What did Graffius think concerning Lugo's hypothesis? Behold what he writes in the very place alleged by the VV. (no. 46): It is asked whether a confessor can absolve one not his subject... from some sin reserved to his own Bishop, which nevertheless is not reserved where he confesses; for example, the Bishop of Nola has reserved adultery to himself, which is not reserved where the adulterer confesses, namely, at Naples: can a confessor appointed by the Archbishop of Naples absolve him? I reply that... if he has not changed his domicile, as is the case with pilgrims, THEN HE CANNOT BE ABSOLVED; because, since by reason of domicile and habitation one is called a subject..., therefore he is not said to be exempted from subjection to his own Bishop, who reserved the sin, and consequently he cannot be absolved. Graffius therefore professes without ambiguity a doctrine diametrically opposed to that which Lugo and St. Alphonsus defend and for which they allege custom. What, then, might someone perhaps think of the VV., who allege and relate from Graffius the things following a little later and therefore could not have failed to see those adduced here also, yet do not hesitate to allege Graffius for that fabricated custom?

12. But for fuller evidence of the matter, it will not have been enough to show that the only two witnesses whom the VV. produce are wrongly alleged by them and moreover commend the opposite; besides, these would have been less suitable for proving a custom which existed in the age of Eugene IV, since they were later by a century and more, and in fact these two speak of the usage of their own age, not of an earlier one. Let us therefore inquire concerning the age of Eugene IV, when Eugene is said to have approved this custom as already existing, and then concerning the following age, when according to the VV. this custom grew stronger and stronger.

St. Antoninus was contemporary with Eugene, indeed was appointed Archbishop by Eugene himself. What does St. Antoninus say concerning that custom? In a few words: that custom, as Lugo says, supposes that the penitent does not have from the Bishop a faculty of choosing a confessor. But St. Antoninus has this (Summa, part 3, tit. 17, chapter 4): Concerning pilgrims it must indeed be said that, if they departed without the permission of their Pastors and Bishops, they have no privilege in this matter.

In this Innocent, Hostiensis, and William agree, namely, that pilgrims and merchants, and other travelers, if they do not have permission from their Pastors or Bishops..., cannot be absolved by others. Therefore St. Antoninus openly testifies that the opposite custom existed.

The same is evident also from the Summa Pisana, which St. Antoninus often praises. For it has these things (word Confession III): Can pilgrims confess to an alien priest? I reply: if they received the scrip and staff from their proper priests, or otherwise undertook the journey with their permission, it is to be presumed that permission to confess was given to them.... But if they travel without the permission of their proper priest, they cannot be absolved by another except in necessity. And a little below: Whether a pilgrim who has a crime whose absolution the Bishop had retained to himself can be absolved by a simple priest while on pilgrimage? I reply: He can be absolved, especially if the time of general confession is at hand, as at Easter. But it must be enjoined upon him that, when he has access to his Bishop, he confess it to him again and receive penance from him for it.... But if there was no necessity, neither was the absolution valid. Concerning which necessity it was said above. There it is said of the necessity of danger of death. And thus the Author seems to hold that the approaching time of Communion is not a just cause why anyone can be absolved by an alien priest. Do not these things in all their parts oppose the custom fabricated by the VV. and show that it was falsely fashioned?

And in the Summa Armilla of Bartholomew Fumus (word Absolution, no. 30): When someone has permission to confess from the Bishop or Pastor, he will not on this account be able to be absolved from reserved cases, because this is contrary to the disposition of the law in chapter Si Episcopus; and thus Cajetan holds. Therefore, contrary to what that boasted custom would imply, Fumus both requires permission to choose a confessor and denies a faculty over reserved cases.

And in the Summa entitled Summula of Raymond (tract 4, chapter 5): Concerning traveling pilgrims I gather... that if they do not contract a stay anywhere (namely, a domicile), they will not be able to confess there unless they have received from their proper Bishop or parish priest permission to confess anywhere...; because then they could also confess and be absolved there; ... nevertheless it would be safer to seek permission specially, and that the cases which his Bishop reserves to himself be declared to him, since they cannot be absolved from such cases without his permission. Do not these things also show that a custom existed altogether opposite to that which the VV. wrongly boast to have existed already from the age of Eugene IV and afterward to have grown stronger?

13. But indeed it must now seem superfluous to add the many things which would readily be at hand on the same matter, when even the VV. were able to produce nothing more suitable to the matter than those two testimonies of Navarrus and Graffius, which are most unsuitable to the cause of the VV. themselves and indeed manifestly overthrow their assertions entirely. Yet whoever desires more may approach the Authors alleged in Gury's text regarding the present question, and he will find as many truthful witnesses against that fabricated custom, traces of which he will find neither before the novelties introduced by Henriquez and Suarez nor even afterward, before Lugo, in order to avoid the absurdities with which the new Suarezian theory also abounds, entered upon this new path, assuredly with less success.

And indeed another blemish is not lacking in the appeal to the Declaration of Eugene IV. Cajetan, to be sure, is the sole witness who found a remembrance of this Declaration (where it was written he does not say); therefore what kind of Declaration this was can and must be elicited from Cajetan alone, and consequently whatever others have added as an appendage, which is not necessarily elicited from Cajetan's words, must be called gratuitously devised and asserted.

In the first place, therefore, it is most manifestly established from Cajetan's words that the Declaration of Eugene IV pertained solely to the occasion of annual confession and Communion at Easter.

Thus Cajetan: I remember having read elsewhere that Eugene IV granted or declared by an oral oracle that travelers, wherever they found themselves AT EASTER, were to be considered as having acquired inhabitancy with regard to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Moreover, from the testimony of Cajetan, which alone can be held as authentic here, it is so certain that this Declaration regards only the occasion of Easter that he expressly denies that it can be extended to other occasions. What is it, therefore, that both Suarez and Lugo, and others after them, when they establish as a general rule upon which their whole edifice in fact rests that pilgrims as visitors and travelers must always be held as inhabitants of the place with regard to the sacrament of Penance, place the chief, not to say sole, foundation of this rule in the Declaration of Eugene? What is it that they hand down this rule of theirs as a custom approved by Eugene when Eugene's Declaration pertains merely to the occasion of Easter?

Nor is this enough. For what, at last, was that which Eugene declared concerning the occasion of Easter? Dominic Soto (In IV Sent., dist. 18, q. 4, art. 2) saw this alone in the Declaration: that pilgrims and wanderers, as parishioners of the towns where they find themselves, ought to confess only to the plebans (by which name he seems to understand confessors appointed there), because they ought not to be of freer condition than the inhabitants. For thus he understands the words of the Declaration described there from Cajetan: to be considered as having acquired inhabitancy. Nor otherwise Peter Soto (Instruction of Priests, On Confession, lecture 5): Cajetan reasonably judges, from the concession of the Pontiffs..., that every traveler can be absolved wherever he finds himself at Easter, and by that right by which the other subjects of that place are, that is, by those by whom the others are absolved. Navarrus also refers the Declaration of Eugene to this (On chapter Placuit, disp. 6, no. 66), saying: In favor of Thomas de Vio is what he says he read somewhere: that Eugene declared by an oral oracle that travelers, in the place where they were found, were to be considered as inhabitants of that place with regard to the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance. Since, therefore, inhabitants can confess to no others than their own pastor, it follows that nothing else is to be conceded to pilgrims. And Filliucius (tract 7, chapter 7, no. 195): Pilgrims and those making a journey... from custom and the tacit permission of Pastors can confess either to the pastor of the place... or to other delegated priests.... Cajetan also relates that Eugene IV declared this in annual confession or Communion; therefore much more at other times. Therefore what Eugene IV declared is finally concluded in these things: 1. that when Easter time occurs, travelers can make their confession and receive the Holy Eucharist in the place where they are then found; 2. that they ought to make confession there either to the pastor or to other delegated priests, no otherwise than the inhabitants, since travelers ought not to be of a better condition than the inhabitants, so that, namely, to use Cajetan's words, they can choose as confessor whomever they wish.

And since these things are so, what, I ask, was there in the Declaration of Eugene IV upon which both Suarez and Lugo could construct their theories? What was there by which Lugo might contend that a custom of which no one before him had thought was confirmed by Eugene? But now to other things; for what has been said thus far makes sufficiently plain whether the history of the vicissitudes of this controversy and of the immense confusion introduced into it, as it was outlined in the Note, is genuine or, as the VV. prefer (p. 543), spurious. But now to other things.

14. The VV. append another article with the title (p. 542): St. Alphonsus with the best right considers the affirmative opinion (namely, that a visitor can be absolved from his own reserved sins by any confessor if they are not reserved in the place of confession) most common; and then through seven columns they bring forward texts of twenty-nine Authors besides nine others whom the holy Doctor Alphonsus had alleged.

Reply. The question is not whether many entered upon the new and false path which Henriquez and Suarez had opened; for this stood clearly stated in the Note. And otherwise those allegations of theirs by no means prove that the history set forth in the Note is false and spurious.

In order to prove that the history set forth in the Note is spurious, behold the heads which they ought to have proved by solid arguments:

1. That the most common doctrine of all the schools unanimously, as it is exhibited in the Note, did not exist until Henriquez undertook to corrupt it, and Suarez after him.

2. That Henriquez, relying upon equipment other and suitable than a heap of fallacious allegations, introduced his new canon. Why did the VV. devote not even a few lines to repelling this charge? Why did the VV. not attempt to show that at least one of all those allegations of Henriquez pertained to the matter?

3. That the new inverted canon concerning subjecting a pilgrim to the reservations of the diocese where he confesses was not first introduced by Suarez.

4. That Lugo did not cast aside even those principles in which the essence of sacramental judgment is contained, so that he might in some way escape the absurdities which necessarily followed the new theory of Suarez.

5. That both the custom and the force of that custom, as Lugo supposes it, were so acknowledged and approved from antiquity that, apart from an incredible anachronism, it could be said to have been confirmed by Eugene IV.

6. That the oral Declaration of Eugene IV, if there was any, was not converted by Villalobos into a certain Decretal Constitution solely by a remarkable power of imagination.

But the VV. have accomplished none of these things, nor do the allegations of so many Authors which they add accomplish the same. Indeed, another labor would remain for the VV. regarding those Authors, namely, that they purge those Authors from the charge of contradictions in which they perpetually involve themselves. For, to say only one thing, setting aside now those authors who plainly show that they themselves do not sufficiently know why they affirm or deny something concerning these questions, you will find others who wish to render some reason for their assertions, on the one side asserting jurisdiction delegated to the confessor by the Ordinary of the penitent, but on the other supposing the same jurisdiction to have been granted not by the Ordinary of the penitent but by the Ordinary of the confessor, and therefore to be restricted or not restricted. But we have already said more than once: after authors, with Henriquez and especially Suarez as leaders, began to depart from the beaten and most correct path of the ancients, whose principles nevertheless they could not all deny, this series of contradictions could be avoided in no way.

15. But since the VV. attacked both the present Note and the Note immediately following at the same time, and the matter bears it because each Note pertains to the same question, we shall append here a reply also to those things.

First, therefore, through eight columns (pp. 547-550) the VV. attack what is said in the Note, namely, that in the Constitution Superna of Clement X there is question merely of the privilege of Regulars, namely, the privilege of absolving visitors from sins reserved in their own diocese. It is not true, they say (p. 548), that it is the common opinion that in the same Constitution there is question merely of the privilege of Regulars.

Reply. At first sight someone will perhaps understand with difficulty what the VV. mean here or to what this paradox of theirs tends. The words of the Constitution are these: But that a Regular Confessor can, in the diocese in which he is approved, absolve those coming together from another diocese from sins reserved in it, etc. Now the VV. first appear to wish to deny that there is question of a privilege. For they observe (p. 548) that the word can and the title of the Constitution prove nothing; and they give the reason (p. 548), that in the Constitution there is merely defined what Regulars can and cannot do. To these things, Reply. The title of the Constitution is this: A Constitution in which the privileges of Regulars with regard to... the administration of the Sacrament of Penance are declared. Now since the word can signifies to have power, while what kind of power is in question must be drawn from the nature of the matter being treated, and the subject is a Declaration of Privileges, it is manifest that power of this kind pertains to privileges.

But this is more clearly evident from the context in which the alleged clause lies. For where mention of privileges is made in the Constitution, only these things are had (sections 6 and 7): 1. that by virtue of privileges Regulars cannot absolve from cases reserved to himself by the Bishop; 2. that by confirmations of privileges obtained after Trent, the privilege, if any which Regulars had, of absolving from cases reserved to the Bishop did not revive; 3. that those having a faculty of absolving from all cases reserved to the Apostolic See cannot on that account absolve from cases reserved to the Bishop; but that they can... absolve those coming together from another diocese from sins reserved in it; 4. finally, that by virtue of the aforesaid privileges it is not lawful for Regulars to absolve penitents from censures with regard to the external forum. Since, therefore, it is there declared what by virtue of privileges they can or cannot do concerning the questions raised, while the sole power asserted there for Regulars is that they can absolve those coming together from another diocese from things reserved there, it clearly appears that this power pertains to privileges.

And this is elicited thence by another most evident argument. For after it is there said that BY VIRTUE OF PRIVILEGES it is not lawful for Regulars to absolve penitents from censures with regard to the external forum, etc., it is added: Indeed, those bound by ecclesiastical censures and denounced can be compelled by the Bishops to conduct themselves as such. Whence thus: here there is manifestly question of cases from which Regulars absolved by virtue of privileges; therefore there is question of reserved cases, for otherwise no privilege is required to absolve from them; moreover, there is question of cases reserved to a Bishop, as is evident from the cited words of the Constitution; finally, there is question of things reserved in another diocese, because from things reserved to the Bishop in the diocese where the Regular is approved, the Constitution itself, as we saw, declares that Regulars cannot absolve by virtue of privileges. Therefore it is most evident that the faculty of absolving those coming together from another diocese from things reserved there, etc., is declared in the Constitution itself as a privilege of Regulars. And behold the reason why the assertion of the VV. can deservedly be called a paradox.

16. But since the VV. (p. 547) do not hesitate to write that the concession concerning cases not reserved in the diocese of the Confessor, which is contained in the Constitution Superna of Clement X, is not a privilege specially conceded to Regulars, and moreover contend (loc. cit.) that this very thing is confirmed from a certain declaration of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, it will certainly be profitable, for refuting prejudices of this kind, briefly to weave the history of those things concerning the absolution of episcopal cases which preceded the Constitution of Clement X: namely, whence arose the disagreements concerning this matter between Bishops and Regulars, to the removal of which Clement applied his hand. For, as John Marin writes (Speculative and Moral Theology, tract 22, disp. 10, no. 45), Clement X, since before his Pontificate he had a complete knowledge of it because for more than thirty years he had been Secretary of the Sacred Congregation, after he was elected Pontiff, desiring to extinguish disagreements of this kind, promulgated the Bull, etc.

We therefore see that the origin of the disagreements arose from the fact that Bishops bore it unwillingly that Regulars, by virtue of their privileges, attributed to themselves the faculty of absolving even from episcopal cases. For that Regulars absolved from these we have witnesses prior to Trent. Thus Fumus (Armilla, word Absolution, no. 26): The Friars who are held as presented according to the aforesaid form of the Clementine Dudum can absolve from all cases (except precisely those reserved to the Bishop or Superior BY LAW), however much other cases may be reserved to the Bishop by custom or Constitution or another's good pleasure.... Because the grace which the Pope grants, namely, to be able to absolve from all unless they are reserved BY LAW, cannot be revoked or restricted by an inferior.... Therefore this opinion is to be held and practiced.

And the Summa Tabiena (word Dispensation, no. 16): Since, therefore, the aforesaid Friars cannot absolve from cases reserved to Bishops BY LAW, as is said in the Clementine Dudum, therefore they can absolve from all others, as from those reserved by a particular custom of the place or by a synodal Constitution; because, by denying one thing, it conceded the other by being silent.... Nor can Prelates revoke or curtail the aforesaid concession, not directly, by denying the hearing of Confession, because they have it through the Clementine Dudum; not indirectly, by prohibiting parishioners from confessing to them..., nor by the retention of many cases, because this would be done in fraud of the law, which ought not to be done. After Sylvester related this opinion (Summa, word Confessor II, no. 5), he adds: Which opinion all Summists and Doctors commonly follow, and this reasonably and truly. Reginaldus testifies that Alphonsus Vivaldus held this same thing toward the close of the sixteenth century (book 8, no. 55). See also Lezana (Summa of Regular Questions, vol. 1, chapter 19, no. 17). Yet that there were some who contradicted is sufficiently indicated by the witnesses alleged, as also by Navarrus (Manual, chapter 27, no. 266).

Let us pause here a little. This controversy, to which Clement X finally put an end, rested wholly upon this, as is evident: how far the privileges of Regulars extended. But in that age no one, as we saw above, even dreamed of a faculty which unprivileged secular confessors might have for absolving episcopal cases; for the novelties introduced by Henriquez and Suarez had not yet disturbed this question. Therefore neither the controversy itself nor its resolution pertains in any way to unprivileged seculars. But to the history.

17. Meanwhile, in the year 1577, when St. Charles asked the Sacred Congregation of the Council whether Regulars could by privilege absolve in cases which the Bishop had reserved to himself, and the Congregation referred the matter to His Holiness, His Holiness, also following the opinion of the Congregation, judged that from the faculties granted to Regulars through the mare magnum or other privileges no power had been given to them of absolving from cases reserved to himself by the Bishop.

Under Clement VIII there followed a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, issued January 9, 1601, by which all priests, both Secular and Regular, were commanded that none of them, under the pretext of privileges, indults, or faculties, etc., should dare to absolve anyone from the cases contained in the Bull In Coena Domini, or otherwise in any way reserved to the Apostolic See, nor even from cases which the Ordinaries of places had reserved to themselves. But afterward, by another decree of November 26, 1602, the same Sacred Congregation, by mandate of Clement VIII, thus moderates and declares the preceding Decree: namely, that under its prohibition henceforth are comprehended only the cases in the Bull In Coena Domini, and in addition (there are appended here the well-known five cases thereafter called Clementine), likewise all cases which the Ordinaries of places have reserved or will reserve to themselves in the future.

Again let us pause here a little. The VV. will reply that from the decree itself it is elicited that the controversy was also about secular confessors. Reply. I distinguish: concerning seculars endowed with some privilege or indult, I concede; concerning others, I deny. This is evident not only from the cited words of the Decree of 1601, but the Decree of 1602 speaks more clearly for our matter thus: *Moreover, it declares that those priests, both Secular and Regular, WHO SHALL BE SUPPORTED BY ANY OF THE PRIVILEGES, INDULTS, AND FACULTIES EXPRESSED IN THE AFORESAID DECREE, can, according to their privileges, indults, and faculties..., absolve from cases not comprehended in the present Declaration; BUT TO OTHER

PRIESTS NOT HAVING PRIVILEGES OF THIS KIND, NOTHING NEW IS CONCEDED.* Therefore unprivileged secular priests HAVE NOTHING. Therefore the controversy, which did not reach its end even after this Decree, in no way pertains to them.

18. I said that even after this decree no end was made to the controversies. For, as is evident from the Declaration of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars of January 7, 1617, very many Regulars did not hesitate to absolve from reserved cases, asserting that in the Decrees issued by command of Clement VIII excommunications reserved to the Apostolic See or to Ordinaries were by no means comprehended. Therefore the Sacred Congregation, by mandate of Paul V, renewed the preceding Decrees and, declaring in addition, commanded that none of the aforesaid priests, supported by whatsoever privileges, indults, and faculties, should dare or presume to absolve from excommunications or from cases reserved to the same Ordinaries or to the Apostolic See.

But still there was no end to the controversy. For the Regulars, adhering to the words of the above-mentioned Decree issued by command of Clement VIII on January 9, 1601, namely, He commands all priests, both Secular and Regular, dwelling THROUGHOUT ALL ITALY OUTSIDE THE CITY..., concluded, with some appearance of truth, that those who dwelt outside Italy or within the City, and indeed within the district of the City, were not bound by that Decree. Hence they contended that it was lawful for them in those places to absolve both from cases reserved to himself by the Bishop and also from those contained in the Bull In Coena Domini. Therefore, behold, the same Sacred Congregation again, on November 17, 1628, by command of Urban VIII, issued a Decree that Regulars of whatsoever Order... neither within nor outside Italy, by force of privileges..., can absolve anyone from the same cases in the Bull In Coena Domini or reserved to the Ordinary of the place; and if they act otherwise, the absolutions will be and are null and void. And here it is useful to observe that, according to Thesaurus (part 2, word Absolution, chapter 3, no. 4), by the name of secular Priests endowed with some privilege in the preceding Decrees were designated certain churches or distinguished sanctuaries in which those visiting them could by privilege be absolved from reserved cases. Of these, indeed, we see mention made in the decree under Paul V in the year 1617; but in the last one under Urban VIII, Regulars alone now come forward.

Moreover, that even this last decree of Urban VIII did not remove the controversy, behold Sporer as witness, who has these things (Sacramental Theology, part 3, no. 746): By the same privilege and by the same most reasonable extension, in the more common and safe opinion, on account of the very ample and most universal clauses of the Bulls..., we Mendicant Regulars absolved from cases reserved by Bishops ab homine, namely, those which the Bishops themselves, each in his own diocese, reserve to himself, even notwithstanding the Decree of Urban VIII of November 17, 1628, prohibiting this absolution, because that Decree either did not extend outside Italy or certainly was not sufficiently promulgated. But afterward so many authentic Bulls and Declarations in favor of Bishops were published or became known that, after weighing them, Alexander VII, in the thirteenth place among the condemned propositions, prohibited this also: Mendicants can absolve from cases reserved to Bishops without obtaining for this the faculty of the Bishops. Here again Regulars alone appear implicated in that controversy; and since the Decree of Alexander VII was issued in the year 1665, we now almost reach the time when Clement X defined this question in the manner which we have seen.

19. Meanwhile, it had already been observed, as Wigandt has (tract 14, examination 2, no. 59), that the precept imposed upon Regulars not to absolve from cases reserved to the Bishop was to be understood of those reserved by the Bishop of the place where confession is heard. Thus Wigandt: When Clement VIII... prohibited confessors from absolving from cases reserved to Ordinaries, it must be understood of the respective Ordinaries, namely, of those places where those confessors are found.

And, to omit others, Filliucius also noted this same thing (tract 7, chapter 9, no. 284), writing: I reply that the prohibition of Clement VIII must be understood of the respective Ordinaries, that is: let no one absolve from things reserved to his own Ordinary; but he is not prohibited from things reserved to another, not his own, because there is no discussion of this reservation in that decree.

And indeed in favor of this interpretation is the fact that the same Clement VIII, in another Constitution which begins Quaecumque a Sede Apostolica (December 7, 1604, section 9), uses this same manner of speaking thus: We decree, moreover, that the same confessors... can in no way absolve... from other cases reserved and to be reserved for the time being, both by Us and by Our aforesaid Vicar in the City, and by the respective Ordinaries of places.

To this also pertains the fact that Urban VIII, in the Decree of November 17, 1628 cited above, restricts the prohibition to cases reserved to the Ordinary of the place: Regulars... neither within nor outside Italy can, by force of privileges, absolve anyone from cases... reserved to the Ordinary of the place.

Therefore, since the prohibition of absolving from reserved cases was to be understood of those reserved to the Ordinary of the place in which the confessor was approved; and since Regulars could use their privileges even according to the decree of Clement VIII; and finally, since by virtue of privileges they could absolve penitents coming from anywhere even from things reserved in their own diocese, the conclusion was obvious that, even after the Decree of Clement VIII, Regulars could absolve visitors also from things reserved in their respective dioceses.

20. And that this conclusion was most correct, Fagnanus supplies us a clear argument, for he discharged the office of Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Council for many years and dictated his work a little before the Pontificate of Clement X. For thus he, when discussing chapter Si Episcopus of Boniface VIII, by which, as he says, custom is not simply taken away, but no custom can be introduced because it conflicts with the principles of its introduction, afterward adds these things (On chapter Omnis utriusque, no. 95): But because this question does not belong to the present inquiry, we have not judged that we should dwell longer upon it. It is enough, as regards the doubt now being treated, that Regulars in the diocese in which they are approved can absolve those coming together even from cases reserved in another diocese; for in this an APOSTOLIC PRIVILEGE effects more than custom, etc.

But what especially bears upon the present purpose, Fagnanus denies that this faculty is common to secular priests. Thus he (loc. cit.): Yet this opinion, as regards secular priests, suffers the greatest difficulty, indeed does not appear true; because it can be introduced by no custom that anyone, apart from the permission of his Superior, can choose for himself a confessor who can loose or bind him, which are the formal words of the text in chapter 2, Si Episcopus.

Thus also Reiffenstuel, who himself wrote before the Constitution of Clement X (Moral Theology, tract 14, dist. 9, q. 1, no. 2): Regulars within the diocese of the approving Bishop can absolve a penitent of another diocese from cases reserved in the diocese of the penitent, if these are not reserved in the diocese in which they hear confessions, since Regulars have jurisdiction from the Pope.

Indeed, Ferraris indicates that this had already been declared by the Sacred Congregation before the Constitution of Clement X (word Reservation of Cases, no. 4). For after he said: Hence penitents coming together from another diocese with sins reserved in it can be absolved by a Regular in the diocese in which he is approved, etc., and related in confirmation of it the text from the Constitution of Clement X, he proceeds thus: For that Regulars within the diocese of the approving Bishop can absolve even penitents of another diocese had already been expressly declared by the Sacred Congregation of the Council in Fagnanus..., because they have jurisdiction from the Pope, whose ju-

risdiction is not restricted to the boundaries of any territory..., but the whole world is his diocese.

Let us therefore conclude that the history also of those things which preceded the Constitution of Clement X concerning this controversy all tends to this: that the words of Clement pertain merely to declaring and confirming the privilege of Regulars.

21. The VV. object here (p. 547) that that multitude of Authors concerning whom there was discussion above, no. 14, hold that the declaration of Clement X pertains not to a privilege specially granted to Regulars but to all confessors, even seculars.

Reply. I distinguish: those Authors inconsiderately followed the badly founded opinion of Suarez, I concede; they denied that it belonged to Regulars by privilege or that this privilege had been granted by the Apostolic See to all, I deny. One obscure Author of the theology for the Seminary of Perigueux insinuates this; but from the very fact that he alone dared to teach what, in a matter so obvious, no one else thought himself permitted to affirm, he sufficiently condemns himself.

I said, the badly founded opinion of Suarez. For all the things which Suarez has concerning this matter (On Penance, disp. 30, sect. 1, no. 4) are finally contained in these words: Some therefore absolutely deny that a visitor can be absolved there from cases of this kind (reserved in his own diocese). Soto holds this, and Navarrus indicates it. The foundation is that reserved cases are not comprehended in a general faculty according to chapter Si Episcopus 2, De Poenit. et Remiss. in VI; but that faculty (given to visitors by their proper Ordinary) is only general. Nevertheless, the contrary opinion, which Cajetan, Paludanus, and St. Antoninus hold, pleases me more. The foundation is that he who thus remains in an alien Episcopate can confess and be absolved there, not because he uses a faculty of choosing a confessor, but because, by this very fact that he remains in an alien Episcopate, he can be absolved there after the manner of the inhabitants of that diocese and conduct himself as if he were a subject of the Bishop of that place; for in this sense the custom explained above and confirmed by Eugene IV must be understood. All of which things, with the reverence due to the distinguished Doctor preserved, can deservedly appear intolerable. For: 1. What is it that he attributes the negative opinion to Dominic Soto alone, when this was the unanimous doctrine of all preceding Doctors, and indeed founded upon the essence of this sacrament? 2. What does that phrase, and Navarrus indicates it, mean, when Navarrus also openly professed the negative opinion, as above, no. 5, unless perhaps the chosen Confessor was endowed with a faculty over reserved cases also? 3. What is it that he proposes as a general rule for every occasion what Paludanus, St. Antoninus, and Cajetan had said, as above, nos. 2-3, concerning the sole case of necessity on the occasion of Easter? 4. What is it that he adduces the Declaration of Eugene IV for the same matter, when Cajetan, from whom he took this, in the most explicit words absolutely denies that Eugene's Declaration has any place outside the occasion of Easter? 5. What is it that he there poses the question concerning the concession of jurisdiction through a faculty of choosing a confessor granted to one making a journey, by which tacit faculty introduced by custom the traveler can confess; and a little later, when resolving the question, contradicting himself or at least submitting elements foreign to the proposed question, disputes concerning a custom in which that faculty of choosing a confessor has no part? And indeed he introduces that custom which he himself elsewhere denied could be introduced because it was repugnant to divine law. See above, note at section 555, question 13, no. 19. Behold the foundation, and indeed the sole foundation, of that new opinion introduced against the unanimous doctrine of the ancients!

22. The VV. insist (p. 547) with those things which Benedict XIV has (On the Diocesan Synod, book 5, chapter 5, no. 8), where a Response of the Sacred Congregation of the Council of September 16, 1649, is commemorated. They conclude:

Therefore, generally and without distinguishing between Regular and Secular Confessors, the Sacred Congregation declared the absolution invalid if the penitent departed fraudulently from his own diocese in order to avoid the reservation. From which declaration it must necessarily be gathered that penitents who departed for another purpose can be absolved.

Reply. Let the Antecedent pass, and I deny the Consequence which the VV. infer. The case proposed to the Sacred Congregation, as it is read in vol. 18 of the Decrees, p. 677, is this: Since an abuse has crept into the Diocese of Conza whereby many obtain absolutions from cases reserved to the Archbishop from neighboring Ordinaries, under the pretext that cases reserved in one diocese are not reserved in another, it is asked whether an absolution of this kind can be sustained. The Sacred Congregation replied that absolution of penitents who fraudulently transfer themselves to another diocese cannot be sustained. Therefore the Sacred Congregation resolves the question by adding that reason which holds in every hypothesis. But it entirely passes over the controversy concerning the fitness of the minister for absolving from reserved cases. Therefore nothing can be forced from this. Add that in the Question there is discussion not of a simple confessor but of Ordinaries; but by the name Ordinary a Bishop is understood. Therefore for another reason this resolution does not pertain to the matter, because the VV. dispute concerning a simple confessor. But what is prefaced in the cited book On the Synod is nothing. Moreover (thus there), this opinion formerly invaded the minds of many: that it was free to anyone to pass from his own diocese, where he had fallen into a reserved case, to another in which it was not reserved, for this purpose, that he might there be absolved by a simple confessor. And then the Declaration of the Sacred Congregation cited here is appended against that opinion. This, I say, is nothing. For it pronounces no judgment concerning that opinion beyond condemning the fraud; indeed, since in the Response of the Sacred Congregation there is no discussion, as we observed, of a simple confessor, it is plain that Lambertini passed over this question entirely. But if the VV. wish to contend that he inclined toward the new Suarezian opinion because he afterward appends certain words of that obscure Author of the theology for the Seminary of Perigueux whom we mentioned, another will reply: Let it pass.

23. The VV. object (p. 548) that the Authors alleged in the Note as testifying that the decree of Clement X regards Regulars rather hold the opposite.

Reply. I distinguish: that is, those Authors after the Suarezian novelties attribute the same faculty to secular confessors, let it pass; they do not admit that the decree was issued for Regulars, I deny. Let these things related by the VV. themselves serve as a specimen. Collet: The things which are said in the Constitution concerning Regulars, parity of cause commands to be extended to others, etc. And Roncaglia: Although the Pontiff there speaks of Regular Confessors, etc. Say the same of the rest.

24. The VV. reprehend (p. 549) what is said in the Note, that the faculty bestowed upon Regulars in the Constitution of Clement X is circumscribed by this condition: that they not absolve from things reserved in both dioceses. They object, on the contrary, that this is not a limitation imposed by Clement but is the unanimous opinion of all, because, as Suarez says, the Confessor has delegated jurisdiction from neither Bishop.

Reply. This objection can have some force as regards the followers of the novelties of Suarez himself, let it pass; as regards those who think that they must not depart from the most correct doctrine of the ancients, I deny. In the preceding Notes it has already been shown that, according to the most true and certain doctrine of the ancients, which the more recent authors, perpetually contradicting themselves, now admit and now forget, jurisdiction for absolving a visitor is delegated not by the Bishop of the place but by the Ordinary of the visitor. Moreover, it is a canon, as Engel says, that a delegate judges not from his own jurisdiction but from the jurisdiction of the one delegating (argument from chapter Sane 11, De officio Delegati), or, as Schmalzgrueber expresses the same canon (book 1, tit. 29, no. 31), The power of a delegate must be measured from the authority and power of the one delegating and, with the common and from the mandate granted. For the Delegate, in the jurisdiction granted to him, acts in the place of the one delegating. Hence, as we saw elsewhere, Lugo most deservedly judged absurd the Suarezian theory by force of which another Bishop, upon whom he does not depend, can take away or limit jurisdiction delegated by one Bishop. Wherefore, when there is discussion of absolving a visitor, nowhere among the ancients will you find any account taken of the jurisdiction which the confessor obtains from the Bishop of the place or of the reservation which prevails there. Since these things are so, the consequence is obvious in itself: a Regular confessor can assuredly absolve a visitor, however the latter may bring a sin reserved in both dioceses. For the diocesan reservation of the place does not stand in the way, because this pertains nothing to the cause, as was said; likewise, the reservation of the alien diocese does not stand in the way, because a Regular confessor, by virtue of privileges, can absolve those coming from alien dioceses even from reserved cases. Therefore, the matter considered solely in itself, nothing prevents a Regular from absolving from a sin reserved in both dioceses. Therefore he cannot do so only because the Apostolic See, which bestowed upon the Regular the privilege that he could absolve a visitor from his own reserved sins, wished to restrict that faculty by this condition: namely, if the same sins are not reserved also in the diocese of the confessor.

But if also in this place there is need of some material example, so to speak, to explain the matter for the capacity of an unlearned man, imagine a Regular who wishes to use that privilege concerning which St. Alphonsus speaks (book 6, no. 586), namely, of choosing, even without the permission of Superiors, once in life a confessor who may absolve him from any reserved cases; then imagine some sin of his to be reserved to the Ordinary of the place. Would anyone therefore say that a Regular of this kind cannot be absolved by the chosen confessor? And is not this rule common to all exempt persons? And are not visitors exempt by reason of territory? Therefore the same thing must be said in the proposed question, unless Clement X had circumscribed the privilege of Regulars in that manner, to greater abundance, in favor of Bishops.

25. But it will help to indicate here a typographical error which crept into the Vindiciae in this place. For after we read there (p. 549) that it was the unanimous opinion that pilgrims cannot be absolved whenever the case is reserved in BOTH dioceses, immediately afterward (p. 550) you find it written thus: But the Authors do not even specially propose the case in which the sin is reserved in BOTH dioceses. Those who commemorate this case, such as La Croix and Amort, commemorate it for another end. In these things, do you not have an open contradiction? But the contradiction is absent when in the second text you read not both, but either. For the words of the VV. regard that clause of the Note where it is said: From which it also becomes manifest that someone could vainly suspect that those words of Clement X regard the case in which the sin is reserved in only one of the two dioceses. For the words of the VV. also refer to the sense of Clement's text.

And indeed the VV. themselves (p. 550) bring forward for this same matter texts both from Croix and from Amort. For Croix (book 6, part 2, no. 1631) writes in express words: But if the case is not reserved in the diocese of the penitent but only in the diocese of the confessor, Clement declares nothing expressly concerning this case. And Amort (Scholastic Theology, On Penance, disp. 9, q. 26): But I judge that no argument can be elicited from that Bull of Clement X, because the Pontiff does not deny that pilgrims can be absolved from sins reserved only in the diocese of the confessor, but precisely denies that they can be absolved from sins if they are reserved simultaneously in their own and the alien diocese.

We have Voit alone, who, in order to elicit from Clement's Bull that a pilgrim cannot be absolved by any confessor if he confesses a sin reserved only in the diocese of the confessor but not in his own, reasons thus (vol. 2, no. 840): Clement X establishes that a confessor can absolve those coming together from another diocese from things reserved elsewhere, but not from things reserved in that where the same confessor is approved. But how does he not see the absurdity which he places in the mouth of the Pontiff? For in the Constitution it is added: unless he knows that the same penitents migrated to an alien diocese to obtain absolution in fraud of the reservation. But can a pilgrim come in fraud of the reservation if the sin is reserved only in the diocese of the confessor?

26. The VV. urge (p. 551) that in the Note the more recent authors are falsely and unjustly accused of having introduced immense confusion into this question; for in the Note it is conceded that pilgrims can be absolved from sins reserved in their own diocese insofar as the Bishops see this custom of absolving and remain silent, which is a sufficient sign of consent and ratification de praesenti; moreover, Suarez rightly explains that the older Authors also, Hostiensis, Raymond, Astensis, Gerson, William of Mont-Lyon, and Gabriel, who seemed to hold custom as sufficient even taken by itself alone, tacitly understood the consent of the Superior.

Reply. I deny the Supposition, as though it were said that the more recent authors introduced immense confusion into these questions because they derived the force of custom from the tacit consent of the Superior. In the Note it is said that confusion was introduced because Henriquez and Suarez introduced, only by means of false allegations, a practice and doctrine unknown to all the ancients and indeed rejected by them. On the contrary, it was added in the Note itself that these innovators by no means dared wholly to renounce that principle in which the economy of sacramental judgment is contained. But this also was added in the Note: there were not lacking some who, in order to avoid other graver absurdities, seemed to renounce even that principle, thereafter entangling themselves and the whole matter in equivocations and contradictions. See above, nos. 10 and 21.

27. The VV. add (p. 551) that the more recent Authors differ from Gury's opinion only in this: that in the present question he derives the validity of absolution from the tacit consent and ratification of the Bishops, whereas the more recent authors, at least most of them, say that the custom of absolving was confirmed by the authority of the Holy See, namely: 1. by the Declaration of Eugene; 2. by the Declaration of the Sacred Congregation of the Council in the year 1649; 3. by the Constitution of Clement X. From which premises the VV. then think themselves permitted to conclude thus (p. 553): We have now sufficiently proved that in the present matter pilgrims are no longer absolved from the tacit consent of the Bishops, but from the authority of the Holy See or, as they otherwise said, from the authority of the Church.

Reply 1. I deny first that the Declaration of Clement X was alleged by Authors for this matter; for one obscure Author of the theology of Perigueux dared this, as was said above, no. 21. But then I deny that this Declaration can be extended to anything other than the singular privilege of Regulars, as was clearly shown above, no. 15. Therefore the VV. gratuitously flee to it in order to find some pontifical approval of that custom.

Reply 2. I deny first that any Author had recourse to the Declaration of the year 1649 to establish that fabricated approval. But then I deny that anything can be forced from that Declaration in favor of an approval of this kind. See above, no. 22.

But this also must be added here: the Sacred Congregation was so far from judging that customs of this kind were to be approved that in that age it decreed that the privilege whereby they could hear the confessions of those coming together from an alien diocese was proper to Regulars. Thus testifies Fagnanus, then Secretary of the Sacred Congregation (On chapter Omnis utriusque, from no. 69). For when Lord Vulpius, Archbishop of Chieti, proposed to the Sacred Congregation against the Cassinese Monks the doubt, Whether Monks approved for hearing the confessions of seculars... can hear the confessions of those coming together from an alien diocese, Fagnanus replies that by a ratification de praesenti a pilgrim of this kind (nos. 70-72): It must be replied that the aforesaid Regulars can hear the confessions even of the diocesans of the Archbishop, because, although by common law NO PRIEST can absolve a penitent not his subject even in that diocese in which he is approved; indeed, NO CUSTOM CAN BE INTRODUCED whereby anyone, apart from the permission of his Superior, can choose for himself a confessor, as is read in chapter 2, De Poenit. et Remiss.; nevertheless, something else appears to be said in the present case, since the Monks of the Cassinese Congregation approved by the Ordinary can by PRIVILEGE hear the confessions of one of another diocese, even against the will of the Bishop. Fagnanus then adds (no. 75) that the Sacred Congregation judged that it should be referred to His Holiness, and that His Holiness approved the privilege; and finally he relates the judgment of the Sacred Congregation thus (no. 79): The Sacred Congregation declared that Regulars within the diocese of the approving Bishop can absolve even a penitent of another diocese, SINCE THEY HAVE JURISDICTION FROM THE POPE, whose jurisdiction is not restricted to the boundaries of any territory, but the whole world is his diocese. Therefore the VV. vainly seek in the responses of the Sacred Congregation that fabricated approval which excludes the necessity of at least the tacit consent of Bishops.

Reply 3. I deny that any approval of the kind produced by the VV. is deduced from that famous Declaration of Eugene IV. For we have already shown above, no. 13, that nothing else is contained in that Declaration except that on the occasion of Easter a visitor can confess either to the pastor of the place or to other priests appointed there, but to no one else.

Let us therefore conclude that that pontifical approval by which the VV., with a fruitless attempt, wish somehow to dignify that fabricated custom, by virtue of which pilgrims would no longer be absolved from the tacit consent of the Bishops, must be relegated to empty phantoms; and what is to be thought concerning it is sufficiently evident from those things noted above at question 13, section 555.

28. The VV. add (p. 552) that the Church confirmed that custom at least indirectly insofar as she approved that pilgrims, with regard to the sacrament of Penance, are considered as domiciliaries and equated with inhabitants. By this pilgrims, by the fact itself and by law, can be absolved from sins not reserved in the place of confession.

Reply. I deny the Antecedent. For the rule that pilgrims are equated with inhabitants is nothing but that new and false theory which Henriquez and Suarez introduced by means of false allegations and abuse of the Declaration of Eugene IV. What the sense of the Church is can be learned: 1. from the declaration mentioned by Fagnanus above, no. 27, where even merely hearing the confessions of those coming together from an alien diocese apart from at least the tacit consent of the Bishops is exhibited as a privilege of Regulars; 2. from the Constitution of Clement X, according to which the ability to absolve those coming together from an alien diocese from sins reserved in their Episcopate is again exhibited as a singular privilege of Regulars; 3. from the dogmatic Constitution Auctorem fidei of Pius VI, according to which the doctrine which holds that it makes no difference whether or not the penitent who is absolved is a subject, apart from jurisdiction at least indirectly and tacitly delegated by the respective Ordinary of each, is defined as false, rash, pernicious, contrary and injurious to Trent, erroneous. See above, note at question 13, section 555. Behold the genuine sense of the Church.

Consequently I deny the Consequence also. For the sole reason why visitors are validly absolved from reserved cases, if confession is not made to a privileged Regular, is the tacit consent of the Bishops, all the more because there is discussion of reserved cases. For if there is question of sins not reserved, confession outside the diocese, if made to a Regular, will be valid even against the will of the proper Bishop of the visitor, as we saw in the preceding number; but if there is question of reserved sins, confession, even if made to a privileged Regular, must be called invalid if it is made against the will of the Bishop, because it would be made in fraud of the reservation. And let these things suffice concerning this question, for it is not worth the labor to pursue certain other ineptitudes objected.

¹⁶ That in the Constitution Superna there is question merely of the privilege of Regulars is evident: 1. from the very words related above, that a REGULAR Confessor can; 2. from the title or subject of the Constitution, which is of this kind: A Constitution in which the privileges of Regulars with regard to the preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the Sacrament of Penance are declared; 3. from the common opinion of the Doctors. On this matter may be seen Simonnet (tract 15, disp. 9, art. 6, reply 7), Elbel (conference 14, no. 376), Roncaglia (tract 19, q. 7, chapter 2, q. 1, reply 2), Platelius (Synopsis, part 5, no. 909), Ferraris (word Reservation of Cases, no. 4), Viva (On Penance, q. 8, art. 1, no. 5), Antoine (On Penance, chapter 3, art. 1, q. 6), Collet (On Penance, chapter 8, part 2, no. 560), Eusebius Amort (On Penance, disp. 9, q. 25), St. Alphonsus (book 6, no. 589), and finally Father Anthony of St. Joseph (tract 27, no. 389), who published the Compendium of the Salmanticenses at Rome in 1789 during the pontificate of Pius VI. Therefore, that it could have seemed to some that this clause of the Constitution Superna contained some common principle which would have force as a law for all confessors, even seculars, is to be attributed first to the theory introduced by Henriquez and Suarez and thence received by many, concerning which there was discussion in the preceding note; and then also to the opportune argument deduced from the same Constitution that a visitor cannot be absolved from a reserved case whenever the case is reserved in both the diocese of the penitent and that of the Confessor. For it is the common opinion of the Doctors that the faculty bestowed upon Regulars was circumscribed by this condition through the words: But not in that where the same Confessor is approved, namely, lest they absolve from things reserved in both dioceses. See La Croix (book 6, part 2, no. 1631), Ferraris (loc. cit.), Eusebius Amort (loc. cit., q. 26), Marcus Struggl (On the Sacrament of Penance, q. 3, no. 48), Reuter (On Penance, no. 371), Mazzotta (tract 6, disp. 2, q. 3, section 2, no. 11), Viva (On the Sacrament of Penance, q. 9, art. 3, no. 4), Platelius (loc. cit.), Emmanuel Thesaurus (On Penance, part 2, word Absolution, chapter 3), Giordanini, commonly the Author of the work Instruction for New Confessors (vol. 2, no. 503), Wagemann (Synopsis of Theology, part 3, tract 2, chapter 5), Illsung (On Penance, no. 224), Gobat (tract 7, no. 376), Antoine (On Penance, chapter 3, art. 1, q. 6), etc.; from whom it also becomes manifest that someone could vainly suspect that those words of Clement X regard the case in which the sin is reserved in only one of the two dioceses.

Moreover, the reason brought forward by the Author why secular confessors also, although they do not have the privilege conceded to Regulars by the Apostolic See, nevertheless can absolve those coming together from alien dioceses even from things reserved there, notwithstanding the Constitution of Boniface VIII (the cited chapter Si Episcopus), is the only one in fact which coheres with the essential principles of sacramental judgment solemnly defined by the Council of Trent and again inculcated by Pius VI in the Constitution Auctorem fidei (no. 37) against Jansenist artifices: namely, that no one can be loosed or bound by one who is not his judge, and that an absolution which a priest pronounces upon one over whom he does not have ordinary or delegated jurisdiction is of no moment. For the Constitution Si Episcopus stands in the way insofar as it establishes that permission, tacit or express, to choose a confessor granted by the proper Ordinary in no way includes a faculty also for reserved cases. Therefore, whenever it is established by some sign that the Ordinaries, together with the aforesaid permission, consent also to a faculty over reserved cases, the Constitution of Boniface VIII is sufficiently observed. But a sufficient sign of this consent of the Ordinaries is that they know this custom of absolving and remain silent; for thence arises that ratification de praesenti which in the case suffices for the validity of absolution. To this pertain those things of Reginaldus (book 1, no. 70): It must be held that sufficient jurisdiction... is acquired through tacit permission, which is had from ratification de praesenti, occurring when, while the proper priest who can contradict sees, knows, and remains silent, the sacrament of penance is administered. Therefore, with regard to absolution from reserved cases, there avails that very thing which Cardinal Cajetan (Summa, word Confession 2) said generally concerning confession made in an alien diocese from the tacit permission of the proper priest: Tacit episcopal permission gives force to absolutions, and custom concurs only as a witness of permission.

And with these things is most aptly connected what Clement X declared Regulars must guard against and what, a fortiori, as St. Alphonsus says (no. 589), must now be transferred also to secular Confessors on account of this new practice introduced: namely, that penitents who go to an alien diocese to confess in fraud of the reservation, that is, to evade the judgment of their proper priest, are to be excepted from that law. For in these circumstances the consent of the Ordinary, from which jurisdiction for absolving flows, can in no way be supposed. To this, therefore, returns what the Theologians, whether all cohere with themselves let others see, commonly establish concerning simple confession to be made outside the diocese: namely, that the absolution will be valid provided, to use the words of Bonacina (On Penance, disp. 5, q. 7, point 2, no. 6), they do not make the journey in fraud of the law for this cause alone, that they may... avoid their proper pastor and confess to another..., as Coninck, Vasquez, Suarez, Reginaldus, and other more recent authors well observe. Lugo places the same condition (On Penance, disp. 19, no. 7): provided, however, he says, that they have not deliberately departed from their domicile so that on the occasion of the journey they might confess to another. Concina also repeats this more recently (On Penance, book 2, diss. 2, chapter 4, no. 20), denying that they, the subjects, are validly absolved if they deliberately departed in order to confess elsewhere. See above, no. 555.

Although this reason does not appear to avail as regards Regulars, who, since they have jurisdiction not from the Bishops but from the Apostolic See, by that very fact appear not to need that delegation of jurisdiction which is contained in the tacit consent of the Ordinaries or ratification de praesenti, nevertheless another reason exists as regards them: namely, the prohibition of the Apostolic See, which, while it circumscribes the privilege conceded to them by this condition, provides with equal efficacy for order and so guards discipline that there is nothing which may impede the Bishops from governing and correcting each his own flock.

QUESTION 6. Can Regular Prelates or Superiors reserve cases in their Order or Monastery?

Reply. They can reserve only certain cases determined by Clement VIII, which are eleven in number, as may be seen in St. Alphonsus, etc. But they can by no means reserve others without the consent of the General Chapter for the whole Religion and of the Provincial Chapter for the whole Province ¹⁷.

¹⁷ The decree of Clement VIII is as follows: Our Most Holy Lord, who long ago carefully weighed and learned from experience that the reservation of the faculty of absolving Religious penitents from certain graver sins, unless Superiors use it very prudently and moderately, can lead certain infirm persons, who sometimes fear to reveal to the Superior the stains of their conscience, into danger of eternal damnation and despair of a spiritual remedy; therefore, that His Holiness might provide opportunely against this evil, he decreed that none of the Superiors of Regulars reserve to himself the absolution of sins except those which follow, or some of them, according as they shall prudently judge in the Lord to be expedient for the advantage of their subjects.

Poisonings, incantations, divinations.

Apostasy from Religion, whether the habit is laid aside or retained, when it proceeds so far that an exit is made beyond the enclosure of the Monastery or Convent.

A nocturnal and furtive departure from a Monastery or Convent, even when made without the intention of apostatizing.

Ownership contrary to the vow of poverty, when it constitutes a mortal sin. A false oath in a regular or legitimate judgment.

The procuring of, assistance toward, or counsel for causing an abortion after the fetus has been animated, even when the effect does not follow.

The falsification of the handwriting or seal of Officials of the Monastery or Convent.

The theft of property of the Monastery or Convent in a quantity constituting a mortal sin.

A voluntary carnal lapse consummated in act.

The killing or wounding, or grave striking, of any person.

The malicious obstruction, delay, or opening of letters from Superiors to inferiors and from inferiors to Superiors.

If, besides these, it should seem that some other grave sin must be reserved for the preservation of the Religion or for purity of conscience, this is not to be done except by the mature discussion and consent of the General Chapter for the whole Order, or of the Provincial Chapter for the Province.

But other things most worthy of being known are also contained in the same Decree. First, indeed, it is established that subjects are not to be obliged to confess to Superiors: It shall not be lawful for Superiors of Regulars to hear the Confessions of their subjects, except when they have committed some reserved sin, or when the subjects themselves spontaneously and of their own motion have requested this of them.

It is then decreed that several confessors are to be appointed in each house, so that subjects may be free to confess to any of them at their pleasure; and a norm is also added concerning the faculty to be given to those confessors for absolving even from reserved cases. Superiors shall appoint in each house two, three, or more Confessors according as the number of subjects is greater or smaller; and they shall be learned, prudent, and endowed with charity, who shall absolve them from non-reserved cases and to whom absolution from reserved cases also shall be committed whenever a case occurs in which the Confessor himself especially judges that it ought to be committed. As regards the first point, the interpretation must be rejected altogether as though only one Confessor could be given if the number of subjects is not so great; or as though, when several are given for their great number, a certain determined portion could be assigned to each in such a way that individuals would have only one to whom they might confess exclusively. As regards the second point, however, it is manifest that, in determining whether a faculty for absolving from reserved cases is to be granted to the Confessor, the principal part must be deferred to the judgment of the Confessor himself.

To these was added a declaration of the greatest importance, which it is evident was issued by the same Clement VIII from those things which Ferraris relates (word Regular Prelate, no. 58). It is appended to the same Decree of Clement in these words: His Holiness afterward declared and declares that, if the Superior should be unwilling to grant a faculty for some reserved case to the Confessors of such Regulars when they request it, the Confessors may nevertheless, FOR THAT OCCASION, absolve Regular penitents even without having obtained the faculty from the Superior. Clement wished the matter to be deferred to the judgment of the Confessor to such an extent that, even if the Superior denies the faculty to him, he nevertheless can absolve the penitent from the reserved cases. Pellizzarius (On Nuns, chapter 9, no. 29) wisely observes that this declaration avails also for the confessor of Nuns when he requests from their Ordinary a faculty for absolving from reserved cases, whether that Ordinary is a Regular Prelate or the Bishop of the place, according as the monastery is or is not exempt. Moreover, when the Declaration says that the confessor, after the faculty has been requested although not obtained, can absolve FOR THAT OCCASION, this is not to be understood as though the Pontiff conceded it for only one occasion, but as meaning that the Confessor cannot again absolve either the same or another penitent from a reserved case unless he again asks permission from the Superior; and if this is denied, the confessor can again absolve, and so forth. Therefore, the sense will be that, as often as the faculty is requested and denied, so often can the confessor absolve, and so forth. On this matter St. Alphonsus (book 6, no. 586) relates that Collet adduces a decree of Urban VIII; but this is a mere hallucination of Collet, who wrongly interpreted certain words of Diana's Compendium, published at Rome in 1654, to which he himself refers.

But it is altogether to be desired that Superiors leave no occasion for recourse to the use of the faculty conceded by this Declaration. For Suarez most wisely observes (On Penance, disp. 30, sect. 4, no. 9) that, regularly and morally speaking, the Superior ought to be easy rather than difficult in conceding this faculty; and this according to the General Ordinances of the Society of Jesus (chapter 6, no. 1), where these words were read: In no way ought the Superior to be difficult, but rather easy and prompt in conceding it.

And an excellent reason is given in those words of St. Thomas (In IV Sent., dist. 17, q. 3, art. 3, q. 4, ad 6): But a priest would sin if he were not ready to grant permission to confess to another; because many are so infirm that they would rather die without confession than confess to such a priest; whence those who are too solicitous to know the consciences of their subjects through confession cast a snare of damnation upon many and, consequently, upon themselves. And again (Against Those Who Assail Religion, chapter 4): Certain persons, as has been found by experience, would desist from confession unless they could confess to others than their own priests, sometimes because of shame, because they blush to confess their sins to those with whom they converse daily; but sometimes because they suspect the priests to be hostile to them, and for many other reasons. Hence pious Prelates condescend to their infirmity, lest they fall altogether into despair, by providing other confessors for them.

Therefore, after Suarez (loc. cit.) adds that, morally and in itself speaking, there is less danger in conceding this faculty than in denying it, he continues: For it to be conceded, it ought to suffice that no special reason for denying it occurs; but for it to be denied, some special reason which requires this must always intervene.... Indeed, although it may sometimes seem to the Superior that a sufficient reason for denying the faculty intervenes, nevertheless, if it has become evident to him from the report of another or in another way that the subject is in no way willing to approach the Superior, nor can he be induced to do so after other remedies have been attempted, then the Superior ought never to deny the faculty, nor can he lawfully do so, except in a case of harm to others; because, notwithstanding whatever reason occurs and all things being weighed, it is then more expedient, indeed necessary, according to the laws of charity. Likewise, because this is a certain medicine for the subject; therefore, if applied with rigor it turns to his destruction, it must be tempered, and therefore the faculty must be conceded. Hence Navarrus (On chapter Placuit, no. 149) says that the excessive shame alone of the penitent is sometimes a sufficient cause for this faculty to be given.

As for Suarez's exception of the case of harm to others, it must be understood when scandal or any harm would perhaps threaten either the Religion, the house, another person, or the penitent himself, and it could not otherwise be met except by making the matter known to the Superior. But then, if the subject refused, he certainly could not be absolved, not from a defect of jurisdiction in the Confessor, but from a defect of disposition in the penitent himself. For the law of nature requires that the subject remove that scandal or harm; and if the only means available is that the matter be disclosed to the Superior, he is certainly bound to this.

From these things it is now also evident that throughout this whole affair secrecy must be so provided for that the penitent is not discovered by the Superior himself. Thus the Doctors commonly. Hence in the General Ordinances of the Society of Jesus (chapter 6, no. 3): Let the Superior beware, when the faculty is requested from him, lest he inquire curiously or do anything else from which he could conjecture who that person is for whom it is requested, and lest he seek any circumstances other than those which pertain to the matter. Let the Confessor also beware lest anything escape him from which the penitent could be recognized; and if he fears that, from knowledge of some circumstance, the Superior could probably suspect who that person is, let him know that he must omit it altogether and employ every caution in proposing the case, lest the Superior in any way be able probably to recognize the author. If he sees that, by proposing the case specifically, an occasion of suspicion would be given to the Superior, it will suffice if he says in general that someone has fallen into a reserved case which can bring harm neither to the Religion, nor to another, nor to the penitent himself. Finally, let both the Superior and the Confessor be mindful of the obligation of the Seal and so conduct themselves that in all things they take counsel for its purity and integrity.

And as regards the Seal, another most grave point occurs which Clement VIII also had before his eyes in the aforesaid Decree: namely, that no one can in any way use for external government knowledge obtained on the occasion of hearing confession. Thus Clement: Both the Superiors who exist for the time being and Confessors who have been promoted to the rank of Superior shall most diligently beware lest they use for external government that knowledge which they had in Confession concerning the sins of others. Suarez indeed had once judged (On Religion, tract 10, book 8, chapter 5, nos. 12-13) that under the name of external government there did not come that government which might be necessary for avoiding a sin or scandal either of the penitent or of others arising precisely from that sin, and accordingly that the Superior could use knowledge had from confession for that end. But he himself afterward expressly rejected that opinion (On Penance, disp. 33, sect. 7, no. 4).

Tanquerey

Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S. — 9 passages

Vol. I, Matrimony, and Holy Orders, On Penance (Volume I), Moral Part — Chapter II: On the Confessor

n. 428.

I. On the Power of Reserving

1° The existence of this power. It is of faith, from Trent,¹ that Bishops have the power of reserving cases to themselves, not only with respect to external polity, but also before God: "If anyone shall have said that Bishops do not have the right of reserving cases to themselves except with respect to external polity, and therefore that the reservation of cases does not prohibit a priest from truly absolving from reserved cases: let him be anathema." - This is also clear from the Code, c. 893, cited below, n. 429.

¹ Sess. XIV, ch. 11.

Moreover, the end on account of which cases are reserved is twofold: (a) penal, that graver delicts may be punished more gravely, while delinquents are compelled to appear before a higher judge and to receive from him a more difficult penance; (b) medicinal, both because the difficulty of obtaining absolution from reserved sins more strongly deters, and because ecclesiastical Superiors, as being more learned and prudent, are judged more suitable for curing graver spiritual diseases. Today, however, this latter end is rarely attained, since delinquents are for the most part absolved by ordinary confessors, who obtain from Superiors the faculty of absolving from reserved cases.

n. 429.

2° On those who can reserve sins. The power of reserving belongs to all those who by ordinary right can grant the power of hearing confessions or impose censures. It is certain from the Code: "Those who by ordinary right can grant the power of hearing confessions or impose censures can also, with the exception of the Capitular Vicar and the vicar general without a special mandate, call some cases to their own judgment, limiting the power of absolving in inferiors. This calling is called the reservation of cases."² Hence (A) the Supreme Pontiff can reserve cases for the whole Church; for since he possesses supreme power over the universal Church, he can call greater causes to his own tribunal for both forums, and consequently withdraw them from the judgment of bishops, as was said in the Treatise on the Church, n. 199-202.

² Code, c. 893, § 1.

n. 430.

(B) Bishops can reserve cases to themselves for their dioceses, but "they are not to reserve sins unless, after the matter has been discussed in the diocesan Synod, or outside the Synod after the Cathedral Chapter and some of the more prudent and more approved curators of souls of their diocese have been heard, the true necessity or utility of the reservation shall have been established."¹

¹ Code, c. 895. Benedict XIV had already wisely given these rules, De Synodo dioeces., lib. V, ch. 45: (a) It is fitting that Bishops not use the faculty of reserving cases except in Synod, although they can exercise it whenever they wish; for they will act more cautiously if they bring into counsel upright priests taught by long experience. (b) They ought not be too facile in multiplying reservations; but they should reserve to themselves only the more atrocious and graver crimes, ten or twelve at most; otherwise they will render confession odious. (c) Sins which are frequently committed, even if they are carnal, are not to be reserved except with great circumspection, on account of the danger of infamy which is incurred by those who are often compelled to approach extraordinary confessors, or to return several times to ordinary confessors. (d) Merely internal sins, however grave, are never to be reserved. (e) Sins already reserved to the Supreme Pontiff they should not superfluously reserve to themselves.

(C) "Among the superiors of an exempt clerical religion, only the Superior general, and in monasteries of their own right the Abbot with the proper council of each, can reserve the sins of subjects."²

² Code, c. 896.

(D) Pastors, of themselves, could reserve cases for their own parish; but today, since in fact they do not confer jurisdiction, they cannot limit it.

n. 431.

II. On the Conditions Required for a Sin to Be Reserved

1° In order that some sin may be subject to reservation, it must be clothed with four conditions; it is required that it be:

(A) Mortal, not only by reason of the object, but also by reason of the subject, that is, committed with full advertence and full consent; for venial sins would be reserved in vain, since there is no obligation to confess them. - Besides, the sinner must know the special malice on account of which the sin is reserved; for example, if incest in the second degree is reserved, the reservation is not incurred by one who sins with a blood relative, if he does not know that incest in this degree differs specifically from simple fornication; yet such ignorance is not easily to be supposed.

(B) External as well as internal; for although the Church could reserve internal sins, since here there is question of the internal forum, it has not been accustomed to do this, lest occasion be given to anxieties, which often occur concerning thoughts, namely whether one has consented to them or not. Indeed, according to the common opinion, the external action must be grave according to itself; therefore if it were light, although the internal act were a grave sin, the reservation would not be incurred; for example, if someone, intending gravely to strike a cleric, lightly touched him. - Nevertheless, it is not necessary that the sin be public, or that it have come to the knowledge of anyone; it is enough that it be committed externally, although secretly.

n. 432.

(C) Complete, or consummated in the species which is reserved; for reservation, as penal and odious, must be restricted. Hence where homicide is reserved, the mere attempted crime (by inflicting a wound or offering poison) does not suffice, but it is required that death follow. Nevertheless, an exception is made if this attempt itself is reserved; for example, not only those perpetrating a duel, but also those provoking to it, fall into the reserved case.

(D) Certain, that is, certainly reserved, certainly committed, and certainly mortal; hence if there is serious doubt whether the reserving law extends itself to this case, or whether the sin was really committed, or whether it is grave subjectively or objectively, the reservation is not incurred: for odious things must be restricted.

n. 433.

2° Formerly it was disputed whether or not the impubes - that is, males before the fourteenth year, females before the twelfth - incur reservation. Now it appears evidently to be the mind of the Code that the sins of the impubes are not reserved.¹

¹ Can. 897 and 2230.

n. 434.

3° Whether ignorance excuses from reservation.

(A) If the sin is reserved because of a censure, it is commonly held that neither the censure nor the reservation is incurred by those who are ignorant of the censure, provided this ignorance is not crass or supine;² but it is incurred by those who know the censure, although they are ignorant of the reservation of the censure.

² Code, c. 2229, § 3, n. 1.

n. 435.

(B) If the sin is reserved because of itself, the difficulty increases. (a) Some affirm that the reservation is not incurred,³ because reservation is a medicinal penalty, established for deterring men from certain graver sins; but he who is ignorant of the reservation is not deterred from these sins; therefore for him the end of the reservation ceases, and consequently the reservation itself. - These, however, admit that the penitent who has committed a reserved sin is regularly to be warned about the reservation, so that in the future he may be deterred from this sin. (b) But the more common opinion holds, with St. Alphonsus (n. 581), that reservation is incurred even by those who are ignorant; for reservation is not directly a penalty regarding penitents, but a restriction of jurisdiction regarding confessors; hence priests can do nothing in reserved sins, because they lack jurisdiction over them. - In practice: if there is question of a papal case, it is probable that the will of the Supreme Pontiff is that those who are ignorant do not incur the reservation; for Benedict XIV, in the Constitution Sacramentum Poenitentiae, reserving the sin of false denunciation, did this "so that such wicked boldness and such detestable crime may be restrained by fear of the magnitude of the penalty"; and indeed these words signify that the reservation is penal and medicinal, and therefore is not incurred by those who are ignorant. - But if there is question of an episcopal case, many Bishops have declared that ignorance does not excuse from reservation, while a few others have signified that it does excuse. Therefore their intention in each diocese should be diligently inquired into.

³ Salmantic., Tr. XVIII, ch. 6, n. 12; Ball. P., n. 727 sq.; Noldin, n. 369.

n. 436.

4° On the conditions to be observed in reservation. 1) "The cases to be reserved should be altogether few, namely three or, at most, four, from only the graver and more atrocious external crimes specifically determined"; 2) "the reservation itself is not to remain in force longer than is necessary for rooting out some public, established vice and for restoring Christian discipline which perhaps has collapsed";¹ 3) "all are to abstain entirely from reserving to themselves those sins which already are reserved to the Apostolic See even by reason of a censure, and regularly also those to which a censure, although reserved to no one, has been attached by law";² 4) "once reservations have been established which they have judged truly necessary or useful, the Ordinaries of places should take care that these same reservations be brought to the knowledge of subjects in whatever way seems better to them, and that they not grant to anyone and indiscriminately the faculty of absolving from reserved cases."³

¹ Code, c. 897.

² Code, c. 898.

³ Code, c. 899.

Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis

Dominic M. Prümmer, O.P. — 2 passages

Vol. III, Pt. II, Tr. V, Ch. III, Art. I, § 5. On the Restriction of Jurisdiction

n. 422.

422. Conditions required for reservation.³⁴⁰ In order that a sin be considered reserved, it is required that it be:

a) Mortal.

For it would be useless to reserve a venial sin, since no one is bound to confess it.

b) External, even if occult.

Although the Church can reserve even internal sins, nevertheless it never does this, since such a reservation would be of little utility.³⁴¹

c) Specifically determined.

Namely, it is required that the words of reservation be verified in the strict sense. Hence, for example, if incest is a reserved sin, it is required that true carnal intercourse have occurred and that it was knowingly incestuous. Therefore, if only impure touches were performed, or if intercourse indeed occurred but without knowledge of the incest, the sin is not reserved.

d) Certain.

Therefore, if the sin was doubtful or doubtfully mortal, it is not reserved.

³⁴⁰ Code of Canon Law, c. 897.

³⁴¹ Cf. Benedict XIV, De syn. dioec. l. 5, c. 5, n. 5; Dominic Soto, In 4, dist. 18, q. 2, a. 5; Instruction of the Holy Office, July 13, 1916.

n. 423.

423. Ignorance of the reservation. The celebrated question is whether reservation is incurred by one who indeed committed the sin, but with ignorance of the reservation which was not gravely culpable.

The answer is made with a distinction: negatively, if there is question of censures reserved by common law; affirmatively, in sins which the bishop by his proper law reserves to himself, unless, however, he himself has established otherwise.

The first part of the answer is today taught most commonly by theologians, at least if the censure itself is unknown without grave fault.³⁴²

The reason is that none are punished with a censure except the contumacious, that is, those knowingly transgressing ecclesiastical law.³⁴³ But if the bishop himself, by his proper law, reserves to himself a sin together with a censure, which rarely happens, then the intention of the bishop himself must be attended to, since it depends upon him alone whether he wishes to bind those who are ignorant.

The other part of the answer is indeed not certain, but is more probable; and therefore the reservation of a) a sin which the bishop reserves to himself without a censure, and b) the sin of the calumnious denunciation of a confessor, insofar as it is a sin reserved to the Holy See, is incurred even by those ignorant of this reservation.

Thus St. Alphonsus.³⁴⁴ The reason is: a) because reservation is not only a medicinal punishment, but is also, and indeed principally, a bond upon the confessor, whose jurisdiction is limited in this case; b) because reservation seems to be after the manner of an invalidating or disqualifying law, from which no ignorance excuses.³⁴⁵ Hence in practice a penitent who committed such a sin reserved to the bishop is not to be absolved by a simple confessor unless a case of necessity is present.³⁴⁶ Sometimes, however, the bishop tacitly or expressly exempts those who are ignorant from the reservation. A tacit exemption can be admitted if the bishop permits the opinion concerning excusing ignorance to be taught in his seminary. In practice today almost all bishops explicitly declare whether or not they wish ignorance of the reservation to excuse. Thus, for example, before the Code, the bishops of Trier, Brixen, Lausanne, Basel, St. Gall, Chur, and others declared that ignorance did not excuse; on the contrary, the archbishop of Cologne, the bishop of Sion, and others declared that it did excuse. Therefore the practice of each diocese must be attended to in this matter. For the rest, the Code of Canon Law, c. 899, § 1, commands that Ordinaries take care, in whatever manner seems best to them, that the reservations be brought to the certain knowledge of the faithful. Many Ordinaries, however, now establish no reservations, since in some regions they bring little or no utility.

³⁴² Cf. Code of Canon Law, c. 2229. If, however, someone knowing of the censure was ignorant that it was reserved, he more probably incurs the reservation. Cf. St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor. l. 6, n. 580.

³⁴³ Cf. below in the tract on censures.

³⁴⁴ Theol. mor. l. 6, n. 581. Göpfert-Staab, Moraltheol.⁸ II, 147, teaches the contrary.

³⁴⁵ Code of Canon Law, c. 16, § 1.

³⁴⁶ Cf. below, n. 427.

Konings, Theologia Moralis

Anthony Konings, C.SS.R. — 2 passages

Vol. II, TREATISE ON THE SACRAMENT …, PART THIRD: ON THE MINISTE…, APPENDIX II: ON JURISDICTI…, Art. III, § I, Or On The Principle And Nature Of Reservation

n. ¶1400.

1400. Principles. - I. There is given in the Church the power of reserving certain cases or causes of graver crimes, from which inferior confessors cannot absolve without a special faculty. For to the Church, as was said in n. 1392. q. 4°, belongs the power of conferring and limiting jurisdiction; therefore also of reserving cases. - Besides, this is clear from the definition of Trent.

II. The power of reserving sins belongs only to those who have jurisdiction in the internal forum and, today at least, also in the external. The reason is that it pertains to those alone who can confer jurisdiction over the society of the faithful to limit the same.

Hence: 1° the Pope can reserve cases in the whole Church; 2° Bishops in their own diocese; which reservation, according to the common opinion and the opinion truer to St. Alphonsus, is valid even as regards non-exempt Nuns, since they are not excepted in the law. Whether it is also valid as regards exempt Nuns in exempt matter is disputed probably on both sides; 3° others having episcopal jurisdiction, with respect to their own subjects.

III. Three things are required, from the custom of the Church, in order that a sin be considered reserved, namely, that it be 1° grave internally and externally; 2° consummated in its own species, and hence those favoring a homicide do not incur its reservation, since they have not consummated it, nor those committing imperfect sodomy incur the reservation of sodomy, since they have not consummated it in its own species; 3° so certain that no prudent doubt remains whether it has been perpetrated; whether it is internally and externally grave; whether it is consummated in its own species; whether it is comprehended under the reservation. The reason is that only external crimes are wont to be reserved, and indeed the graver and more atrocious; and hence it must be externally and internally grave - and because reservation, as being odious, is to be interpreted strictly, and hence it must be consummated in its own species and certain.

IV. Reservation affects the confessor immediately, and the penitent mediately; because it immediately touches the power of the confessor and restricts it.

Moreover, most episcopal cases are reserved simply, without censure; but papal cases almost all have censure, and are reserved principally on account of the censure, so that in them the censure is reserved immediately, and the sin itself mediately or accessorily. Hence in papal cases, when the censure is reserved, the sin also remains reserved; but, contrariwise, when the censure is removed, e.g. because it was unknown, neither is the sin reserved, because when the object of reservation is removed, i.e. the censure, the sin now does not remain reserved. - But the cases reserved to the Pope without censure are two: the first, namely concerning him who receives gifts from Regulars strictly so called of either sex (from the Constitutions of Clement VIII and Urban VIII. - See St. Alphonsus, H. A. Tr. XIII. 8. 9); the second, if someone wickedly, by himself or through others, denounces an innocent confessor concerning solicitation (from the Constitution of Benedict XIV).

Concerning reservation to be made by Bishops, those things opportunely occur which we have apud Benedict XIV, and of which this is nearly the sum:

a) Let it be extended only to a few cases, and

b) to only the more atrocious and graver crimes, whose reservation may contribute to retaining Christian discipline, and may yield to edification, not to destruction; lest otherwise, with the power of confessors restricted, an effect contrary to the pious mind of Holy Mother Church follow. Therefore let it not comprehend cases which, although they induce mortal sin, nevertheless turn upon things of small moment and are wont to occur frequently among the unlearned, such as cases of damage given and similar things. Hence also in reserving carnal sins much circumspection must be used, on account of the danger of scandals, especially among those persons on whom, on account of frequent return to the confessor, something of suspicion could fall.

c) Let it not be superfluous, and therefore let it not comprehend those cases which are specially reserved to the Holy See, nor those in which absolution is not conferred unless with restitution or execution of those things to which the penitent is held.

d) Let it not promiscuously, i.e. not except on account of frequent scandal or another necessary cause, be extended to those things to which by Law a major excommunication has been imposed, whose absolution is reserved to no one.

n. ¶1401.

1401. Questions. - Query 1° Does ignorance of reservation or of the censure to be incurred from it excuse?

Resp. 1° Affirmatively as regards censure, because in it the character of penalty is especially considered, which is inflicted only on the contumacious; and this whether the ignorance is of fact, e.g. that such a book was written by an apostate or heretic to defend heresy, or of law, i.e. of the censure or law, whether divine or ecclesiastical, provided however it is not gross; although even this excuses if in the decree of censure there is read: who shall have done this knowingly, or deliberately, or rashly, or who shall have presumed. Concerning this matter more broadly where there will be speech about Censures, n. 1664. q. 2°. q. 3°.

Resp. 2° As regards reservation, it is controverted. The more common opinion denies, to which St. Alphonsus subscribes; the reason is that reservation restricts the power of the confessor, whom it immediately affects, as was said in n. 1400. IV.; therefore whether the penitent had knowledge of the reservation or did not have it, the power of the priest remains restricted.

Query 2° Does ignorance at least excuse from reservation when it is joined with censure?

Resp. 1° Affirm. for papal cases, because papal cases, with the two excepted about which in n. 1400, are reserved on account of the censure, from which ignorance excuses, as was just said. Therefore, when the censure is removed, no reservation remains.

Resp. 2° More truly, Neg. for episcopal cases; because in these reservation is principally and per se considered, to which sometimes a censure is annexed as a circumstance, for this end, that sinners may be more deterred from sin. Nevertheless this must be understood concerning the cases which, not indeed Common Law, but Bishops themselves reserve to themselves.

Query 3° Can the subject of another diocese be absolved if the case is reserved only in the place of Confession?

Resp. Neg. according to the more common opinion and the opinion by far more probable to St. Alphonsus, because reservation immediately regards confessors. Sacred Penitentiary, November 21, 1873. (K) p. 408.

Query 4° Can the subject of another diocese be absolved when the sin is reserved in his own diocese, but not in the place of Confession?

Resp. 1° He can be absolved by Regulars by force of the privilege granted to them in the Constitution Superna of Clement X.

Resp. 2° As regards secular Confessors, the very common and truer opinion affirms. The reason is that the universal custom so has it. - Except in either case, unless someone from his own diocese has gone to another principally and solely in fraud of reservation.

Query 5° Can regular Prelates or Superiors reserve cases in their own Order or Monastery?

Resp. They can reserve only some determined by Clement VIII, which are eleven in number and can be seen apud St. Alphonsus. But they can in no way reserve others without the consent of the general Chapter for the whole Religion, and of the provincial Chapter for the whole Province.

Merkelbach, Pastoral Questions

Benedict H. Merkelbach, O.P. — 16 passages

Ch. II, Question IV: Concerning the Restriction of Jurisdiction as to Reserved Sins

n. ¶3376.

III. "One sin reserved by reason of itself to the Holy See is false denunciation (by oneself or through another), by which an innocent priest is accused of the crime of solicitation before ecclesiastical judges." Thus from the new law, can. 894.

n. ¶3377.

Besides, according to can. 2363, a specially reserved censure is incurred if the denunciation is made before any superiors whatsoever (concerning which see below, c. V, q. 2, n. VII). Whence simple denunciation made before a superior is specially reserved to the Holy See by reason of censure; if besides the denunciation is made judicially, namely formally before the bishop as judge, then by reason of itself the sin itself is reserved.

n. ¶3378.

IV. Concerning the exercise of the power of Ordinaries of reserving sins, canons 895 and 896 are valid.

n. ¶3379.

Canon 895: "Ordinaries of places are not to reserve sins unless, the matter having been discussed in diocesan Synod, or outside Synod the cathedral Chapter and some of the more prudent and approved curators of souls of their diocese having been heard, the true necessity or utility of the reservation has been proved."

n. ¶3380.

Canon 896: "Among Superiors of an exempt clerical religion, only the Superior general, and in monasteries sui iuris the Abbot, with the proper Council of each (that is, this council having been heard), can reserve sins of subjects, as above, with the prescription of can. 518, par. 1 and 519 remaining firm."³

³ By special disposition of the Supreme Pontiff, by decree of the Sacred Penitentiary, absolution of those pertinaciously adhering to the action, as it is called, francaise (16 Nov. 1928) and of those reading the newspaper of this name (2 March 1929) is also reserved.

n. ¶3381.

Here only the hearing of the Synod, Chapter, or also, as it seems, Council, is prescribed. Whence if, notwithstanding the vote of the group heard, the reservation is nevertheless brought, it still seems valid.

n. ¶3382.

V. The qualities of sins to be reserved are indicated by can. 897 and 898.

n. ¶3383.

Canon 897: "Cases to be reserved are to be altogether few, namely three, or at most four, from the graver and more atrocious external crimes, specifically determined; moreover the reservation itself is not to remain in force longer than is necessary for extirpating some public unusual vice or for restoring Christian discipline which perhaps has collapsed."

n. ¶3384.

Canon 898: "Let all altogether abstain from reserving to themselves those sins which already are reserved to the Apostolic See, even by reason of censure, and regularly also those to which a censure, although reserved to no one, has been imposed by law."

n. ¶3385.

Therefore a sin reserved by a bishop must be:

n. ¶3386.

grave or mortal, both by reason of the object and by reason of the subject, that is, committed with perfect deliberation and full consent; for venial sins would be reserved in vain, since there is no obligation of confessing them, - and external, even if occult; not that internal sins cannot be reserved, but that the Church is not accustomed to act thus (lest she subject penitents to continual anxieties), so that the external act itself must be grave of itself, nor does it suffice that an action light in itself was a grave sin because of the internal intention, as, for example, a light striking of a cleric from the intention of striking gravely. Whence the sin must be mortal both internally and externally;

n. ¶3387.

specifically determined, and not only generically: thus, for example, the whole genus of lust or any concubinage whatever cannot be reserved (since it contains several species), but the case must be circumscribed by those notes or circumstances which are the cause of reservation, e.g., sodomy, adulterous concubinage, if because of that circumstance it is to be reserved, - indeed complete in its species, or consummated in act, so that the words of the reservation are verified in the stricter sense; e.g., if incest or sodomy is reserved, there must be present perfect carnal intercourse (with emission of seed within the vessel) knowingly admitted with a consanguineous or affinal woman, or with a male; if homicide is reserved, death must have followed;

n. ¶3388.

certain, by certainty excluding doubt of law and of fact, that is, certainly reserved, certainly committed, and certainly mortal. Hence if it is seriously doubted whether the reserving law extends itself to this case, or whether the sin was truly committed, or whether it is grave subjectively or objectively, the reservation is not incurred: for odious things are to be restricted, whence reservation always receives strict interpretation, and in doubt whether of law or of fact it does not urge (can. 19; 2246, § 2 and 2245, § 4).

n. ¶3389.

Besides, that reservation be made conformably to the wishes of the Law, it is desired that the sin be:

n. ¶3390.

a) not reserved to the Roman Pontiff, indeed also, at least regularly, with no censure affixed;

n. ¶3391.

b) to be struck by reservation for extirpating a public vice or restoring Christian discipline: however, since, says Fr. Vermeersch, Summa Novi Iuris, n. 361, it cannot be hoped in every region that a vice can altogether be extirpated by reservation, if it impedes the propagation of the vice, we judge that this is already sufficient for the reservation to have the utility which is postulated by the wishes of the Holy See.

Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis

Benedict Henry Merkelbach, O.P. — 22 passages

Vol. III, Special Moral Theology: On…, Treatise: On Penance, Fourth Part: On the Minist…, Question Second: On the Gr…, Article IV: On the Restriction of Jurisdiction with Respect to Reserved Sins

595. On cases reserved to the Ordinary. - Ordinaries have the power of reserving sins in their territory or for their subjects, and of imposing reserved censures; concerning the exercise of this power certain rules are handed down in law:

A. As regards reserved sins:

"Let the Ordinaries of places not reserve sins unless, after the matter has been discussed in the diocesan synod, or outside a synod after the cathedral chapter and some of the more prudent and approved curators of souls of their diocese have been heard, the true necessity or utility of the reservation has been established" (can. 895).

"Among the superiors of an exempt clerical religion, only the superior general, and in monasteries of their own right the abbot, each with his proper council, can reserve the sins of subjects, as above, with the prescription of can. 518, § 1 and 519 remaining firm" (can. 896).

Only the hearing of the synod, chapter, or also, at least probably, the council is prescribed, and indeed for validity according to can. 105, 1. But if, notwithstanding the vote of the group heard, the reservation is nevertheless made, it still seems valid.

"The cases to be reserved are to be very few, namely three, or at most four, from the graver and more atrocious external crimes, specifically determined; but let the reservation itself not remain in force longer than is necessary for extirpating some public unusual vice or restoring Christian discipline which perhaps has collapsed" (can. 897).

B. As regards reserved censures:

"Let a censure not be reserved unless, after attention has been given to the peculiar gravity of the delicts and the necessity of providing more aptly for ecclesiastical discipline and of healing the consciences of the faithful" (can. 2246, § 1). This is in force concerning reserved censures to be imposed by particular law. But besides:

"A censure ab homine is reserved to him who inflicted the censure or pronounced the sentence, or to his competent superior, or successor or delegate; but of censures reserved a iure some are reserved to the Ordinary..." (can. 2245, § 2).

596. Qualities of sins to be reserved. - Five qualities or conditions are customarily numbered as required in order that a sin be reserved. It must be:

Grave or mortal, both by reason of the object and by reason of the subject, i.e., committed with perfect deliberation and full consent; for venial sins would be reserved in vain, since there is no obligation of confessing them.

External, although occult: not because internal sins cannot be reserved, but because the Church is not accustomed to do this (lest she subject penitents to continual anxieties); indeed for reserved censures she positively excludes this (can. 2242, § 1), so that the external act itself must of itself be grave, nor is it sufficient that an action light in itself was a grave sin because of an internal intention, as, for example, a light striking of a cleric from the intention of gravely striking. Hence the sin must be mortal internally and externally at the same time.

Specifically determined, and not only generically; thus, for example, the whole genus of lust cannot be reserved, nor any concubinage whatever (since it contains several species), but the case must be circumscribed by those notes or circumstances which are the cause of the reservation, e.g., sodomy, adulterous concubinage, if it is to be reserved because of that circumstance.

Complete in its species, or consummated by act and not merely attempted, so that the words of the reservation are verified in the stricter sense; e.g., if incest or sodomy is reserved, there must be present perfect carnal copula (with emission of seed within the vessel), knowingly admitted with a consanguineous or affine person, or with a male; if homicide is reserved, death must have followed.

Certain with a certitude excluding doubt of law and of fact, both by reason of the sin and by reason of the reservation, namely certainly reserved, certainly committed, and certainly mortal. Hence if there is serious doubt whether the reserving law extends itself to this case, or whether the sin was really committed, or whether it is grave subjectively or objectively, the reservation is not incurred; for odious things are to be restricted, whence reservation always receives a strict interpretation and in doubt, whether of law or of fact, does not bind (can. 19; 2246, § 2 and 2245, § 4).

To these must be added, if it is a question of a censure to be incurred, that the sin be committed with contumacy. In ferendae sententiae censures, he is called contumacious who, after warnings, does not desist or refuses penance; in latae sententiae censures, he who without a legitimately excusing cause has transgressed the law to which a censure is attached (can. 2242, § 2).

But in order that reservation be made conformably to the desires of the Law:

a) Let the sin not be reserved to the Supreme Pontiff; indeed also, at least regularly, let it be attached to no censure, for according to can. 898: "Let all altogether abstain from reserving to themselves those sins which are already reserved to the Apostolic See even by reason of a censure, and, regularly, from those also to which a censure has been imposed by law, although reserved to no one."

b) Let the reservation be necessary or useful for extirpating a public vice or restoring Christian discipline (can. 897). But since, says Vermeersch, Th. M. III, n. 430, it cannot be hoped in every region that a vice can be altogether extirpated by reservation, if it impedes the propagation of the vice, we judge that this is already enough for the reservation to have the utility which is postulated by the desires of the Holy See.

c) Let the censure not be reserved to the Apostolic See: for then "the Ordinary cannot impose another censure reserved to himself for the same delict" (can. 2247, § 1), not even, as it seems, validly.

Unless by accident, if the sin is reserved under the condition: if the reservation is known; i.e., if the one reserving excepts those who are ignorant.