The Sacrament of Penance

Table of contents :
INTRODUCTION 7
I.SIN AND REDEMPTION . . . . 11
1. The revelation of the mystery of sin 13
2. A theological discussion on the nature of sin 22
3. The effects of sin 29
II. THE HISTORY OF PENANCE IN THE
CHURCH.46
1. Penance in the Church according to St
Augustine 47
2. The development of canonical penance up
to the sixth century 52
3. The development of ecclesiastical penance
after the seventh century - 61
ill. THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF THE
SACRAMENT OF PENANCE . . 74
1. The existence of the sacrament of penance
and its institution by Christ 74
2. The nature of the sacrament of penance 78
3. The structure of the sacrament of penance 83
IV. INTERIORPENANCE.88
1. The contrition and justification of the sinner 90
2. Repentance and conversion 93
3. Conversion and the “perfection” of repentance 97
4. Some aspects of the development of the terms
“attrition” and “contrition” 105
Y EXTERNAL PENANCE AND THE SACRA¬ MENTALRITE.115
1. Confession 115
'2. The minister of the sacrament of penance 124
s3. Sacramental satisfaction and Christian penance 133
VI. THE SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY OF
CHRISTIAN PENANCE . . .145
T-s Its relationship to the Church 146
2. In its relation to the human person 149
3. In its different aspects 159
APPENDIX: THE ORIGIN AND MEANING
OF INDULGENCES . . . .166
1. The origin and development of indulgences 166
2. Indulgences: their range and meaning 174
INDEX
185

Citation preview

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE by Paul Anciaux

SHEED & WARD · NEW YORK

Originally published in French under the title of Le Sacrement de la Penitence by Editions Nauwelaerts Louvain and Paris First published in English, 1962 Translation © Challoner Publications (Liturgy) Ltd., 1962

Nihil obstat : Richardus Roche, D .D . Censor Deputat us Imprimatur : ^ Franciscus Achiepiscopus Biriningamieiisis Datum Binningainiae, 2 a M aii 1962 The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free from doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat or Imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.

PRIN TED IN GREAT BRITAIN

CONTENTS Chapter

Page

INTRODUCTION

7

I. SIN AND REDEMPTION . . . . 1. The revelation of the mystery of sin 2. A theological discussion on the nature of sin 3. The eifects of sin

J

11 13 22 29

II. THE HISTORY OF PENANCE IN THE C H U R C H ......................................................... 46 1. Penance in the Church according to St Augustine 47 2. The development of canonical penance up to the sixth century 52 3. The development of ecclesiastical penance after the seventh century · 61 III. THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE . . 1. The existence of the sacrament of penance and its institution by Christ 2. The nature of the sacrament of penance 3. The structure of the sacrament of penance

74 74 78 83

IV. INTERIOR PENANCE...................................... 88 1. The contrition and justification of the sinner 90 2. Repentance and conversion 93 3. Conversion and the “perfection” of repentance 97 4. Some aspects of the development of the terms “attrition” and “contrition” 105 Y

EXTERNAL PENANCE AND THE SACRA­ MENTAL R I T E .............................................. 115 1. Confession 115 Ί. The minister of the sacrament of penance 124 3. Sacramental satisfaction and Christian penance 133

VI. THE

SACRAMENTAL EFFICACY CHRISTIAN PENANCE . . T s Its relationship to the Church 2. In its relation to the human person 3. In its different aspects

OF .145 146 149 159

APPENDIX: THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF INDULGENCES . . . . 166 1. The origin and development of indulgences 166 2. -Indulgences: their range and meaning 174 INDEX

185

INTRODUCTION The call to repentance sounds throughout the history of man­ kind, as that history is recorded in the Bible. The history of salvation is a revelation of God’s love which calls men to share in his life within the mystery of the Trinity. It is a revelation of human sin because it is the history of redemp­ tion. God’s love, which is creative, is likewise the love which saves from death and brings life back. God’s love resurrects a man and gives him a new heart. God created man without man’s assistance, says St Augustine, but he will not save him without his co-operation. And this is why the call to repent­ ance, to conversion, is to be heard with increasing definition as human history advances. The history of salvation, the mystery of God’s love, is dominated by the central fact of the Death and Resurrection of Christ for mankind’s redemption. Through his Death and Resurrection Christ originates and produces a new order of men. The union between men and God is sealed in his blood. The Old Testament is the time of préfiguration and expect­ ancy, of preparation and gradual progress. With the New comes the time when the past is fulfilled and men’s salvation is effected in Christ. In the Church, the Body of Christ and com­ munity of salvation, the union between men and the Father in Christ and the Holy Spirit becomes a practical reality. 7

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The call to repentance became more definite and urgent as the centuries passed. It was the core of the message uttered by the prophets, and the rallying cry for all those who were anxious to enter into the Messianic kingdom. Repentance is the condition imposed by the apostles upon all who wished to be incorporated into Christ by faith and baptism. Its central point is the total and radical conversion of sinful man as the means of adhesion to Christ. This faith-motivated conversion culminates in the sacrament of baptism which consecrates and seals the redemptive and vivifying union with Christ. /A s a part of the body of the Church and united to Christ through baptism, the Christian is called to develop into maturity. He must grow in the Christian life (grace) through which he enters into an ever closer intimacy with God and is prepared for abiding communion with the life of the Trinity. This growth presupposes a progressive detachment from sin whose power can still be felt even by the baptized person. IThe Christian has been caught up into Christ’s Death and Resurrection by baptism. His business is to make death to sin a fact in his life| He must die to sin in order to rise with Christ. So that repentance is not only that initial conversion which prepares for incorporation in Christ at baptism; it is a permanent element in the Christian’s life, an essential and constitutive aspect of Christian existence based on baptism. Repentance that produces death to sin is a sharing in Christ’s Passion. It leads the Christian to a progressive assimilation and conformation with Christ through detachment from sin. Christian experience had to face the reality of sin in the Church right from the very first centuries. Christians who had obtained remission of sin in baptism, fell back into their former sins. The call to repentance, to conversion came from within the Church in order to win back those who had been disloyal to their baptismal promises. This fresh repentance,

INTRODUCTION

9

like their original conversion, can only take place in faith and in union with the Church. It is through reconciliation with the Church after having expiated his sin that the baptized person is reconciled with God. Through repentance in union with the Church the sinner regains peace and the Holy Spirit. In this sense the Christian’s repentance is “sacramental”, it is effective only in union with the Church and takes place only as an act of the Christian community. Thus Christian repentance is not simply a “virtue”, an inner -dynamism and a fundamental tendency of Christian life which drives a man to keep away from sin and to destroy the powers of evil within him. It is a sacrament of Christ in his Church. ^Through a corporate action, a rite of the Christ­ ian community, the Christian’s repentance is sealed, con­ secrated and brought to its conclusion)This corporate action, this actio poenitentiae, undertaken with the help and under the guidance of the Church, is not only the indispensable means for becoming reconciled with God after grave sin. Regular submission to sacramental repentance is an essential aspect, a privileged moment of the Christian’s repentance; it is the consecration of his struggle to be detached from sin, of his conflict with the evil powers within himself. This repentance, as a corporate act of the Church, has developed considerably during the centuries. The rites of the sacrament of penance have been regulated in various ways by the Church. A study of this development is necessary if all the dimensions and the full meaning of the sacrament are to be made clear. In addition, the theology of the sacrament has developed significantly. The successive controversies with non-Catholic Christians have not always resulted in an illuminating presentation of the doctrine of the sacrament. Some aspects have been stressed, others neglected. Hence the necessity for seeing how ecclesiastical penance has

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developed before starting on a theology of the sacrament. This historical inquiry will both establish Christian repent­ ance in its right proportions and throw light on the comple­ mentary sacramental aspects of penance in the Church of Christ.

CHAPTER I

Sin and Redemption Repentance is the effective remedy for the remission of sin. Through God’s grace it leads to the destruction of sin, to the re-establishment of loving communion with God. This fact compels us to study sin, its nature and its consequences before we tackle Christian penance. In this way, the essential need for repentance will be shown in the light of its destruc­ tion of sin and in its results under the present conditions of the economy of salvation. Today more than ever a clarification of the nature of sin is urgent. In the words of Pius XII: “perhaps the greatest sin inVp contemporary society is the fact that men have lost the sense of sin.” 1 What, are the factors that have led to this loss of feeling and almost total blindness with regard to sin? The chief cause is undoubtedly lukewarmness, for many even the loss of faith in God the creator and redeemer. Without faith in God, the almighty Father and Creator, it is impossible to have the sense of sin. For awareness of sin presupposes faith in the personal relations between God whose transcendent holiness is accompanied by infinite love and men who are invited to that community of life and love which is the Holy Trinity. The deeper and more fervent the knowledge of God, the clearer is man’s perception of his divine vocation and thereby also of his weakness, his wretchedness and his sin.

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THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

The sense of sin is bound up with faith in God because faith alone enables man to discover and lay hold of the real roots of his life, the real significance of his calling. The loss of faith in God is at once followed by a questioning and denial of the deepest issues involved in human freedom and responsibility. In a world in which “God is dead”, there is only room for a “morality without sin” . It is, therefore, not surprising that social life today is being undermined by an ever increasing devaluation of human freedom which leads to a sickening sense of absurdity. There is henceforth room only for a total “liberation” that over­ throws all values and breaks the most sacred bonds until man wakes up from the nightmare and finds himself “naked” . He sees himself alone in the world. He confronts an absurd and empty universe in which there is no one to summon him to any calling. How then can he make a worthwhile response? How can he be responsible if no one calls him by name, urging him to become free through sharing in the common task? We are the spectators of this progressive “liberation” of men from all consciousness of sin. Not only is psychology per­ verted in order to prove that man is not free, weak or sick perhaps, not fully adult or still childish, but certainly not a sinner. And philosophy, too, deliberately excludes the idea of sin because it does not fit into a godless world, into a universe where man must make do without any transference of his rights to higher powers.2 This gradual erosion of the real sense of human freedom and responsibility has, in its turn, a fatal influence upon those who believe in God. Either their faith is increasingly troubled by lack of hope and by discouragement or it is changed into unlimited trust in God who will justify men without genuinely saving them from sin. An example of this distortion of belief in a creative and redeeming God is to be found in certain contemporary

SIN AN D RE DEMPTION

13

tendencies that invite men to glory in their condition as sinners. This.mystique of sin is doing harm even among ' f believers.3 If man is not free, if God does not save him from · sin through a genuine conversion that resembles a new birth, then gradually he will lose the sense of sin. He will boast of his weakness and parade his mediocrity unable to discern his sins from which God alone can save him and provide a remedy. The very foundation of a vivifying and redeeming relationship with the living God has been removed from him. The idea and the awareness of sin as well as true conversion and effective redemption presuppose w living faith in God and in man created in his image and called to be his child through Jesus Christ, his Son. It follows that there is nothing surprising in the fact that the idea of sin should have undergone considerable develop­ ment during human history. The revelation of the nature of sin is bound up with the redeeming love of the Father through his Son in the Holy Spirit. In reality this directs us to the “mystery” of sin, to its meaning within the plan of salvation. The full demoniacal power of sin and its cosmic import only become evident in the Resurrection of Jesus who died for the sins of mankind. Sin is like the shadow of that darkness which becomes thicker and more defined as the light of divine love makes its progress into the world. Darkness only became visible when the light appeared. The light alone had the power to overcome darkness.1 1. The revelation o f the mystery o f sin The fact of sin is a brutal reality, presented by holy Scripture as an infection spreading insidiously throughout the world.4 It is this that makes Bible reading somewhat painful. This “sacred history” is the story of the continual weakness, the monotonous malice, the desperate rebellion of

v

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THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

man. And in spite of it all, it is precisely this man whom God loves and whom he calls to conversion. His infinite goodness and mercy can alone bring salvation. The history of sinful mankind becomes the history of salvation. There is no clearer evidence of God’s love than his infinite patience in the face of human weakness and his unshakeable fidelity to his promises which find their fulfilment in the redemptive Incarnation of the Son of God. In holy Scripture sin truly constitutes the shadow of Redemption. In the words of the Psalmist: “Yahweh looks down upon the children of men . . . All have gone astray, all are corrupted. There is not one that does good: no, not one.” This heart-broken lament is ans­ wered by the cry of triumph at the Resurrection: “All alike have sinned, all alike are unworthy of God’s praise. And justification comes to us as a free gift from his grace, through our redemption in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3, 23­ 24). God himself assisted his people to penetrate progressively the mystery of his holiness, his infinite transcendance and his fatherly love. At the same time and as a result of this pene­ tration he enabled them to attain a better understanding and a firmer grasp of the real meaning and import of sin. The prophets, whose life and mission were inspired by faith in the living God, summoned the Jews to repentance and con­ version. They had taken the measure of sin in the light of divine love. “Your sins have separated you and your God”,5 that is the cry of the believer, declaring what sin really means. Sin revealed as a break with God is an essential aspect of Old Testament revelation. It culminates with the advent of the Messiah sent by God to expiate the sins of mankind. I Among the oldest passages of the Bible (e.g. in the *Books of Samuel)6 there are traces of a primitive conception

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15

of sin. It is regarded as a prohibition. Even an involuntary act of disobedience, laudably motivated, as in the case of those who were concerned to defend the Ark of the Covenant, is punished by death (I Samuel, 5,7). Sin is thus regarded as an external action, an attempt against the “holy” and the “numinous” . Sms are transgressions against the customs or laws of the people. Consequently, misdeeds are numberless and likewise the catastrophes they entail. The sins of the people affect every individual; children are punished for their parents’ faults. At first sight these passages seem to offer a magical concept of sin: the breaking of a law with which mankind is burdened and the immediate and inescapable punishment which is its necessary result. But these stories of “sacrileges”, legal impurities, grave moral faults (murder, adultery etc), which contain a purely material, impersonal and legalist idea, should not be allowed to obscure our vision. For in these same historical books of the Old Testament there is to be found a growing faith in the personal God, the Holy One, who directs and governs his people. Through those primitive and erroneous ideas of sin the Hebrews are led progressively to discover its religious meaning. They do this to the extent in which they become aware of the intimate relationship between the God of Holiness and his people. The Covenant between God and the Hebrew people forms as it were the background against which the more profound ideas about sin in the Old Testament are inscribed. Within this pattern the reference to God, which gives meaning and value to all things, becomes constantly clearer. Crimes against the people, law-breaking, are “sins” because contrary to the Covenant concluded by God with his people. A crime against one’s neighbour is an offence against God to whom all life belongs. The description of King David, the story of his sin and his

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humble conversion provide a typical example of this deepen­ ing of the idea of sin. The real malice of human rebellion and the religious bear­ ing of human sin are denounced with strength and clarity by the prophets. Each describes the evil of sin in the way he sees it in the light of his encounter with the living God. Sin is the destruction of the Jewish people, the death of man, because it is disloyalty to the Covenant, revolt against God. It is the greatest misfortune, the root of every evil that threatens man­ kind because it involves a break in the relationship between man and God, because it shuts man up in the despair of isolation and abandonment. It is like a mortal sickness, an incurable disease spreading and destroying universally. All men are sinners; the whole man is infected, the human heart is far from God; it has become hard and like a stone. It is from the heart that real sin springs; it is in the heart that the root of rebellion germinates. The prophets use the most varied images and ideas in order to set forth and condemn the malice of sinful mankind. Man is faithless, adulterous towards God’s love, boundlessly ungrateful. He forgets his Lord; this revolt blinds him and hurls him to his death. He becomes the prey of every hostile power, not only of that of the “peoples” but of the spirit of evil himself, the tempter whose purpose it is to lure man to their ruin. The dimensions of sin become manifest in proportion as the prophets establish its reference to God. Sin is personal; it is rooted in man’s heart and is directed against God himself. It is also social, for its relationship to God essentially includes relations with one’s neighbours. This social dimension of sin becomes increasingly evident in the pattern of the Covenant and in the light of the promises of salvation. It is a typically Semitic idea of corporate personality7 expressing the natural solidarity of man. It also expresses the particular conditions

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17

of the economy of salvation which becomes increasingly definite as sacred history develops. God speaks to a people whom he calls and summons together in order to entrust them with a special task in working out his loving purpose. He concludes a Covenant with this people. The fact of belong­ ing to them establishes certain relations between man and God. Loyalty to the people’s law means loyalty to the Covenant and hence to God himself. It is in the fight of the Covenant between God and the people that the Hebrews came to realize the natural solidarity of men.8 Man is not alone before God; he is a member of his race, a child of his people. God’s love unifies and gathers men together. Sin divides and separates. It widens the gap between God and man and so confirms man’s isolation and leaves him stripped and fallen into nothingness. The personal dimension of sin is clearly indicated by the prophets and in the psalms; sin springs from the heart and implies a revolt against God. Hence the call to conversion takes on an increasingly personal note. The sinner must admit and face his sin before God. “I have sinned against God.” “I confess my sin to thee, O Lord.” For this reason real conversion must originate in the man’s heart. A contrite heart, that is the condition God demands for a sinner’s re­ birth to life.9 The sinner’s obduracy, his hardness of heart, are so profound that only God can provide the remedy. He will save his people and through his Messiah gather them into a new community. He will give men a new heart, a heart of flesh, instead of a heart of stone. He will re-create their spirit by communicating his own Spirit to them. The God of love does not seek the death of the sinner, but his conversion to a new life.10 The victory of Jesus over sin and death dominates the New Testament.11 By his Death and Resurrection Jesus was made

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Lord and Christ (Acts 2. 14-36). The mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God made man, is the culminating point of human history. Once this had happened, man’s salvation has to be defined in terms of its relationship to Christ. Insertion into redemption is bound up with com­ munion with Christ. Sin reaches its complete meaning in the light of the Passover mystery. Its meaning and bearing were progressively revealed by Jesus when he explained what his mission on earth really meant. The opposition to him brought out its characteristics with final clarity. Confronting the reign of sin which lures all men is the establishment of the Kingdom of God founded in Christ to which all men are invited because all of them, Jews and Gentiles, are saved by Christ to the glory of God the Father. Entry into the King­ dom of God is through faith in Christ, the seal of which is baptism that introduces a man into the new People of God, the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. The Synoptics lay their emphasis on the meaning of the Kingdom of God. St Paul and St John underline the importance of the kingdom of sin and bring out the meaning of the “sin of the world” . Three aspects in the progressive revelation of the mystery of sin by the New Testament may be distinguished. These aspects are complementary and serve to illustrate each other. The evangelists and apostles describe human sins, blameworthy deeds; they give an account of the sinful condi­ tion of mankind; and lastly they point to the strength of sin and what it entails as a power hostile to God.12 Sin is a revolt against God, a refusal to obey the divine commands. The obedience that is demanded from men is total submission to God in love, a radical and general con­ secration of one’s life to the divine will. Above all it pre­ supposes that the heart is given, that the spirit is committed. Sin must be hated because it is against God. It is the supreme

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evil because it attacks man in his very being, in the essential condition of his existence, i.e. in his relationship with God. And thus it is condemned in its inner root, the heart’s malice. The love of God and the love of one’s neighbour are put forward as the two inseparable aspects of the fundamental law of Christian living which sums up and fulfils all the commandments. The hidden roots of sin "were brought to light by Jesus and the apostles: the sinner refuses the love of God as made manifest in Jesus.13 Real sin involves a refusal of belief and leads the sinner to reject the Son of God. Conse­ quently, the Pharisees are shown as types of unbelievers who refuse the fight so that they can retain the darkness of their hypocrisy. This refusal of the Pharisees puts as it were the seal on Jewish unbelief throughout history. Just as the Jews had formerly rejected the prophets, so the Pharisees rejected the supreme Prophet; they condemned the Messiah to death. In this way the different levels of human sin are brought to fight by the evangelists. First, there are bad deeds, acts of human weakness and disobedience in every aspect of the moral fife. Christ came to grant pardon for these faults by subjecting himself to his Father’s will. Personal sins springing from an evil heart make for a very dangerous position. A man blinded by his passions, locked in his solitude, hardened by his malice and egoism, is infected in his heart, in his spirit. If he lacks the courage humbly to realize that he has done wrong and to admit his culpable weakness, if he cannot regain a childlike simplicity and throw himself at the feet of his Lord and Saviour, asking for pardon, then the coming of Christ will be his condemnation. Sins that have created an abyss between God and man will enclose him in a state of hypocrisy that will make him impervious to Christ’s message. The hypocrite becomes the unbeliever, the type of sinner for whom Christ can do nothing. The coming of Jesus furthers

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his ruin because his lack of faith hands him over to evil powers, in the kingdom of sin and darkness. Precisely be­ cause the light has come into the world, the reign of darkness stands out in all its power. What a man then decides is final and complete; either he accepts the fight and finds life, or he rejects the Son of God and is hurled into the abyss of death. Real sin, the total refusal of God the Creator and Father, the rejection of Christ, the sin against the Holy Spirit, causes a man to fall into the hands of Satan. The New Testament writers make increasingly clear the meaning and extent of the “sin of the world”. Both the thought of St Paul on the origin of sin among men and that of St John on the essential malice of sin bring into prominence the fundamental relationships that exist between men, between men and the “world”, between men and the “powers of evil” . Only Christ can re­ establish vital conditions and sound relations among man­ kind. He alone can bring peace and unity in love; he alone can save men from the slavery of sin, from death and Satan. “Sin” is not simply a fact, something done in isolation; it is a drama, a tragedy in which time and eternity, heaven and earth, mankind and the “powers” play their part. It is the combat between the forces of good and evil. The history of mankind is at a turning point; the history of salvation has reached its culmination. St Paul’s message is dominated by this conviction. The whole world is imprisoned and chained up in sin. All men are subject to it. Jews and Gentiles, all have sinned and have been abandoned to their solitude and death. Only God can save men by sending his Son into the world to achieve his plan of salvation. On the Cross Jesus completed the total gift of his life to the Father, by which the revolt of men is broken and brought back to order. Having thus accepted death from obedience and given his life in

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sacrifice for sin, Jesus rose again through the power of the Spirit. Introduced into the glory of the Father, he was made the “life-giving· Spirit” for all who believe in him. Through him the Holy Spirit is sent to those who believe in Christ so that they may partake of the divine promises in the com­ munity of believers. What a man decides about Jesus, the Christ, defines his position before God. He who believes in Christ and is baptized into the mystery of his Death and Resurrection, dies to sin in order to live for God in Christ Jesus. Whoever fails to acknowledge Christ and refuses faith in Jesus is shut out from the light and drawn into the kingdom of darkness. He becomes the slave of sin, subject to the powers of evil. Sin is pure evil.14 The refusal of God’s love signifies a participation in the kingdom of Satan who has tried from the start to prevent God’s plan from succeeding. It is in the fight of this plan of love, of the mystery of divine grace, that St Paul and St John came to see the inner reality of sin and its infinite implications. Sin works against the love of God. The sinner puts himself under the domination of Satan and becomes a son of the devil. Consequently sin leads to death, to the final catastrophe. So as history has unfolded sin has come to be seen as opposition to God’s love, growing in brutal realism in pro­ portion as God’s love has entered the world. In this way the revolt of the first man culminated in the Son of God being put to death. When man tries to set himself up as master of the world this crazy pride draws him into the kingdom of evil; blinded by sin, enslaved by Satanic powers, he comes to want to destroy God. But therein lies his punishment. For him God is indeed dead. He is without God; he is in the kingdom of hatred, in the frightful solitude of lovelessness, under the reign of eternal death.

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Only the Resurrection made this infinite dimension of sin apparent. Where sin abounded grace was now given super­ abundantly. During the Easter Virgil the Church dares to sing: “Blessed fault that won for us such and so great a Redeemer.” The death of the Son of God became victory over the sin of the world. In the Resurrection of the Son of man, the first-born of a new race, the Church rightly sees the foundation and the guarantee of the salvation and resurrec­ tion of all who believe in Jesus. This is why the summons to conversion and repentance introduces the good news of the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ. “Be converted” is the substance of John the Baptist’s message when he pro­ claimed the coming of the Messiah. “Be converted and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins” ; such was the first preaching of the apostles who were witnesses of the Resurrection and filled with the Holy Spirit.15 2. A theological discussion on the nature o f sin The nature of sin can be described under various aspects and with the help of various ideas. What needs to be done is to discover the connecting link between these definitions, the synthesizing principle of these various ideas. Only then can the essential nucleus of the reality of sin be grasped. In the Bible we already find such a tentative synthesis in the copious vocabulary devoted to sin. In the most ancient passages the terms used to designate sin are borrowed from ordinary language and bring very concrete images to the mind. Sin is a false step, a lie, a betrayal, a mistake, wickedness, shameful behaviour, etc. There is often an implicit reference to God in the words designating relations between persons.16 The simplest definition of sin, and the one at the root of the word most used in many languages, is that of a false step, an error, some disorder caused by a free act.17 By this act

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a man misses his goal. He deceives himself and is cheated. The material, concrete meaning of these words is considered in the Bible as· an image of sin. Through sin a man strays from the road and so misses the goal he ought to have reached. In the moral order this error is a culpable deviation, a “fault” . From the religious point of view this culpable error is a total check because it destroys the relationship between God and man. Sin as culpable disorder is a fault with refer­ ence to God: man’s deed is deprived of its goal, union with God. The break with God is, in fact, for man the gravest fault, the most disastrous error. Sin is unqualified disorder. It is a blameworthy false step which turns man away from God, the goal of human life. This explains the classical definition: sin is aversion from God through some disordered attachment to a creature.18 Two essential aspects of sin are thus expressed. On the one hand, sin is a positive attachment to a value; it presupposes the choice of a created reality which attracts a man as some­ thing good. On the other hand, since, in fact, this, attachment is disordered, man turns away from God and loses touch with him. It is true that ordinarily the sinner has no explicit intention of turning away from God; indeed he will often deny that he has any such purpose. But the fact remains that disordered attachment to created realities, when it is con­ scious and voluntary, makes a man leave the right road. An excessive association with a created reality injures his relationship with God because human life in its entirety acquires its meaning in God and hence must be wholly directed towards him. Duly ordered relationships with every creature form the conditions for a real conversion to God. Thus sin really is a false step, a disorder in a man’s life that comes into being through his relations with others. The vertical relationship to God presupposes harmony and order

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in the horizontal relationships with other creatures established with the Creator of the universe in mind. Our whole being, all our activity, everything we do should be directed to God by means of the relations which circumscribe our existence and lead it to its end. Created by God we are on the way to the fulfilment of our destiny: union with God in the loving communal life of the Holy Trinity. This initial definition of sin considered as a fault and a disorder presupposes a dynamic conception of human existence. It is through his life on earth that man must fulfil his destiny. He is in process of achievement and completion. A sin damages his very life because it turns him from his goal, from God. Whoever leaves the road voluntarily slides into nothingness because he turns away from God. And so we reach the second traditional definition of sin. “Sin is a culpable act of disobedience to God’s law.” 19 It is the voluntary fault by which we leave the road laid down by God. Of course, we are speaking of moral error, of a disordered free action. This presupposes a choice with some value in mind to which we are attached in an excessive and disordered way. A created reality is chosen in preference to God who is calling us to himself. We have been created for the purpose of striving towards God by means of life on earth. This directive is given us as a task, as a vocation to be freely carried out. It is a call to which we should respond whole­ heartedly as responsible persons. The fundamental law of our human existence establishes life’s various obligations. Through our relationships with others, each of which makes a demand upon our freedom, we are in fact answering the call of God. Sin is thus a fault against God, a refusal to obey the divine will. This disobedience is a threat to our destiny, because God’s will is the law of our existence.20 As man, through

SIN AND REDEMPTION

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revelation, gains a better insight into God’s being, and, con­ sequently, into the meaning of human life, so he gets a clearer view of his own vocation and destiny. He sees how life’s different demands, the relationships with others which it estab­ lishes, make the conditions for his progress towards union with God. These relationships are the paths of freedom; the duties arising from one’s position in life form the road to God. God makes his will manifest in a number of ways. Gener­ ally speaking he makes it known to men through that natural vocation which he has inserted in man constituted as a “person” . This “nature”, this existential law in man, is a call for self-giving to others in order to take a part in the building up of the community of love among men. From revelation and from positive laws, under the guidance of the Church, man will learn, through the light given by faith, what is the inner meaning of this natural vocation and these basic demands. And he will also learn the new requirements that belong to his vocation as a child of God. All laws and com­ mandments should be seen in this perspective. Only then does the definition of sin as disobedience to the divine law become really intelligible. It is not surprising therefore that sin loses its meaning when relations between God and man are falsified or obscured, when the essential meaning of the divine law is lost sight of or neglected by men. Morality falls into legalism and formalism.21 The sense of sin becomes bloodless and reduced to its most external and rigid components. Human conduct remains at, or returns to, the stage of childhood from which all personal and authentic moral life is excluded. Man becomes confined to the fear of punishment because he is only aware of powers that are impersonal and threatening. All he can now perceive is an anonymous command or prohibition, to which he must blindly bow. Commands, and especially

26

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

prohibitions seem like the arbitrary demands of an almighty tyrant, before whom man must impotently bend. Fear is dominant because punishment is foreseen as following in­ escapably from some external transgression. With such an outlook faith in God as well as human life itself lose their real basis and consequently their real meaning.22 It is true, of course, that all moral education begins at a stage of total dependence and radical powerlessness. At this stage it is indispensable that obedience to authority should be required. But as the child grows up he should be given the meaning of right conduct in a positive and dynamic way. Obedience to law must be based upon respect for values and animated by love for persons. The love of God and not the fear of punishment or sin should be the motive for the moral life and the effort that accompanies it. That is the one way in which a virtuous life becomes a possibility; the one way that will ensure personal commitment, a generous and enthusiastic self-giving that springs from the heart and expresses itself in a life of service to God and man. This, in fact, is the indispensable condition for a personal and authentic response to the vocation inscribed by God in our human and Christian condition, and which can be summed up as a call to love.23 It is for this reason that the core of sin must be defined with reference to love. Ultimately, it is a refusal of love, of the love of God or one’s neighbour. It is egoism and self­ seeking expressing themselves in an obstinate insubordination (transgression of God’s law), and a disordered self-love (disordered attachment to some created reality). It is a refusal of divine love, an act of ingratitude and an offence against God who calls man to a community of life and love. Its meaning as an offence against God can only be grasped at the foot of the Cross on which the Son of God died for the

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27

sins of men. It is there that we may attempt to form some idea of how much God loves men. It is there that man is con­ fronted with the gravity of sin which is in opposition to the love of God. If it is not considered with reference to that love, what it really means will never be grasped. As a result of it man prefers himself to God and others. He pushes away God’s love out of undue attachment to created reality. He shuts himself up in the isolation of self-love so thoroughly that it ends in a denial of God. When sin is considered with reference to love the inter­ connection between its different traditional definitions becomes evident because the focal point of human misdoing has been reached. Sin is a disordered attachment to created reality as a result of which man becomes turned away from God. This attachment amounts to disobedience to the divine law, that is, to the vocation engraved in the human heart by God when he created man in his image. This divine summons to love was made manifest in Christ and has received definition in the Church. Sin is refusal to love. It is tepidity or an obstacle to love. Certainly, the sinner does not neces­ sarily or usually seek evil as such. Psychologically he is attracted by evil appearing under the guise of some created value {sub specie boni). He means to love, but he loves wrong­ fully or in a disordered way. The moral law, given by God and particularized by the Church with reference to the special context of the redemption, expresses the order of love which leads men to a community of life and love in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Through his earthly mission at the service of his neighbour man prepares himself for ultimate union with the Father in Christ and the Holy Spirit. The moral law shows him where his destiny lies and defines the conditions for reaching it. It prohibits what is contrary to his vocation, his mission, Man’s

28

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

vocation, the law of his being and his life, is love, the love of God and of mankind. Created in God’s image he develops and fulfils himself in communion with others in a com­ munity of love. Self-giving is indispensable if a man is to become a person, since being a person implies an essential orientation to love and communion, with God in the mystery of the divine life; with men in the mystery of the Church, the Body of Christ. The love of one’s neighbour brings God’s love into concrete reality. That love must increase, be expressed and brought to earth in that service of God and one’s neighbour which constitutes Christian life in this world. The commands of Christian morality are the conditions and exigencies of the order of love, of the building up of the Body of Christ. Ut omnes unum sint. The love that saves and quickens us comes from the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit. The union between man­ kind and the mystery of divine life is fully achieved in Christ, who was made the first-born of the new mankind through the mysteries of his life, Death and Resurrection. The union between men and Christ is effected by faith and the sacra­ ments which establish the community of Christians, the Body of Christ. In recent years the corporate aspect of the Christian life and calling has been strongly emphasized. The Church is the community in which God’s love becomes incarnate and fulfilled because it was founded by Christ who gave the apostles the powers necessary for linking man with the mystery of salvation. It is an institution of salvation since it is established on faith and the sacraments. It is a hierarchic community; founded by Christ it must guarantee the order of charity. Full unity with God in Christ and the Holy Spirit is only brought about and completed in the love of one’s neighbour in Christ, that is, in the building up of his Body, the Church. The sacrament of communion in the sacrifice

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and in the Body of Christ is the sacrament of charity through which the Church is built.24 3. The effects o f sin Sin is refusal to love. The disordered love of some created reality is an obstacle to the vivifying love of God in Christ. Sin, springing from the heart of man, undermines the foundations and the conditions of that life to which God calls man. It is a culpable failure, a vocation refused or missed. It goes against the destiny of a man because it turns him from his end. It brings disorder into his being and his tendencies, just as it disintegrates union among men. The effects of sin, the various aspects of the state of sin, can only be understood in the light of revelation and in the perspectives of salvation achieved in Christ. Sin is a voluntary fault which impairs the relations that exist among men. The state of sin, the immediate and neces­ sary result of the wrong-doing, may be considered from a twofold point of view; either as a culpable failure (reatus culpae), the effect of the wrong-doing; or as punishment (reatus poenae), the painful consequences of the wrong-doing. For the state of sin is itself a punishment owed by man before God and men. Through his wrong-doing man has missed his destiny and hindered the accomplishment of the divine plan. The pains, the sufferings that arise from the sin must therefore be primarily considered as its immediate and necessary con­ sequences, as the disorder provoked by the culpable failure with respect to those relations that make up human life. Because sin is defined as a turning away from God through disordered conversion to created reality, its results may be considered under a twofold aspect. As a turning away from God, the state of sin is one of severance and separation from him. It is a refusal of the divine love by which a man prevents

30

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

himself from hearing the life-giving call of God. This revolt, this obstinate refusal of divine grace, necessarily involves deprivation of God’s grace and love, that is, of sanctifying grace and charity. For it is through a generous response to the divine call and a wholehearted commital to one’s calling that grace, the principle of divine life, is enabled to enter and develop. But through the refusal which sin involves the com­ munity of life is broken and grace lost. Since a man is trans­ formed by grace and charity into the image of God in Christ, the loss of grace involves a fall, the deprivation of the status of being a child of God. Regarded as severance from God, the state of sin is like a death; it contains the seeds of a final break with him. As a disordered attachment to created reality, the state of sin means disorder in our relations with others, an evil and harmful dependence upon some created being. This implies not simply that the sinner is taking a deficient or even a defective and irregular part in the growth of the community of love, but also that he has committed a real misdeed and a crime against society, as a result of which the ability to love is injured, checked or extinguished. Through sin the union of mankind in love is diminished or broken. At the same time the sinner’s own ability to love is diminished, enfeebled and misdirected by this disordered attachment to a created value. By successive sins the irregular attachment deepens and gets a firmer grip so that a duly ordered and fruitful love becomes increasingly difficult. A deep and dangerous opposition arises between the various tendencies in man, and consequently their unification by the spiritual forces of the person becomes more and more problematic. It is this aspect which has been compared to a sickness which grows worse, a wound that becomes inflamed and suppurates, a bondage that ends in total enslavement.

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By definition, sin is “a wound of nature”,25 a weakening of natural strength, a lessening of the power to love, disintegrat­ ing both the individual man and the community. The break with God affects human destiny, diverting man from his final end. Undue attachment to created reality inevitably and at once affects human life, ineluding what pertains to the body. It is therefore not astonishing that natural integrity and full power to love is not straightaway restored when our fundamental relationship with God is put right, at the moment of the heart’s conversion. The healing of the results of sin in so far as these have produced disorder in human tendencies is not an immediate and necessary eonsequence of the conversion of the centre of man’s being. Just as sin whieh issues from the heart gradually takes possession of the entire person and attaeks the powers of the organism, so conversion, also issuing from the heart, takes time to envelop the whole man and give baek stability to his various tendencies.26 The distinction between mortal and venial sin was first introduced with reference to the consequences of sin, that is, the length of its punishment, or, in other words, the state of sin as sueh. It is a distinction that has continued to occupy an increasing place in manuals of moral theology and in the practice of confession. Exclusive and unilateral emphasis on it has had an unfortunate influence both on the theory of the moral life and on moral conduct itself. It has led, in connection with confession, to a purely negative view of morality: the main question has come to be whether the sin is mortal or venial. But the principal harm is that the dis­ tinction has allowed the differences between sins in both categories to be pushed into the background. How wide­ spread is the impression that all mortal sins are equally dangerous and wicked and that all venial sins are funda­ mentally harmless! To avoid this error we must try to see

32

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what the distinction really means, basing ourselves on the grounds from which it originated. Its initial foundation is the existence of hell, the final break with God. Certain sins exclude a man from the Kingdom of God and cause a final separation from him. Some sins, however, do not have this effect. From this point of view, therefore, the distinction refers to the sin’s punishment, its necessary result; it considers the “pain of sin” .27 Already in the New Testament we find St Paul listing sins that exclude from the Kingdom (Galatians 5, 19; I Corinthians 6, 9), which deserve death (Romans 1, 29). St John speaks of “a sin that brings death” (I John 5, 16). The Fathers explain the Gospel texts that mention unforgivable sins (Matthew 12, 32) either by the subjective dispositions of the sinner (lack of faith, obduracy, impenitence) or by the objective nature of the sins, or by the conditions laid down for pardon in ecclesiastical discipline. For the Church imposed different kinds of penance corresponding to the gravity of the sins. Thus various categories of sins were distinguished: peccata criminalia, capitalia, levia, venialia quotidiana. Gradually the distinction between mortal and venial sin took on a special prominence; it came to be explained with reference to the state of sin, considered as reparable or not. It is in fact the irreparable nature of the state of mortal sin, as eternal punishment, that forms the essential basis of the distinction. Mortal sin means the death of the soul because it deprives man of sanctifying grace and divine love (caritas). It constitutes a real break with God which in itself is irrepar­ able by unaided human effort. We do indeed know from revelation and in the light of the redemptive Incarnation that this death is only in fact irreparable after a man’s physical death when his position in relation to God is finally and completely established. So long as a man lives he can obtain

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forgiveness of his sins by God’s grace and his saving remedies, that is, he can be saved from sin. But this saving and renewing grace presupposes some action on the part of man. The sinner must be converted and do penance with God’s help in order to obtain forgiveness through the merits of Jesus Christ. This conversion will be more of a painful struggle in proportion to the gravity of the sin, and the extent of one’s separation from God and attachment to created reality. It is from this aspect that tradition compares sin to a sickness. A grave illness endangers life; it is mortal, its gravity is measured by the degree in which it is destroying a man’s vital energy.28 So that the irreparable characteristic of a sin is relative from a twofold point of view: on the one hand, it is only so after death; on the other hand, in this life, its cure is more or less difficult in accordance with the gravity of the sin. This aspect is of great importance, it shows the insufficiency of the dis­ tinction between mortal and venial sin. Just as all mortal illnesses are not equally grave, so all mortal sins are not equally serious. But they all have something in common. Mortal sin involves final separation from God. What is the basis of this separation, how is it established? Are there sins which by their very nature so turn a man away from God as to cause an irreparable break with him? How is this break, this turning away to be defined? The intrinsically irreparable quality of certain sins comes from their nature and especially from the fact that they separate man from God, the last end of human life. Just as a mortal sickness attacks the vital elements in man, so mortal sin attacks his religious, spiritual and moral centre. Human life gets its meaning from the will’s direction to its final end. Hence sins that make a man deviate from this direction are rightly called mortal. In themselves they are irreparable.

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Mortal sin, therefore, is a refusal to take the proper and requisite direction to the final end. It is an attack on man’s vital principle in the spiritual domain, on charity, the means by which the principle of divine life (sanctifying grace) turns man to God. Some sins attack this principle because they destroy the direction of the human will to God as last end. When a man prefers a created value to God, makes something created his last end, then he breaks with God and turns away from him as his end. Easy to see then how pride is the root of all sin, because it leads to idolatry. When a man turns from God to something created, making that his supreme value, he is shutting himself off from the divine life and refusing the divine love. The ensuing state of sin is of itself irreparable because it entails “the deprivation of sanctifying grace and charity” .29 Divine grace alone can lead him to a saving con­ version which will restore a living communion with God through a sorrowful expiation that frees him from his sin. From this point of view the distinction between mortal and venial sin rests on the nature of the act itself. Certain actions provide the ground for a condition that of its nature is irreparable because it destroys the will’s direction to God. Other actions do not have this effect. They are venial because they do not attack the principle of the spiritual life. The distinction must be understood in the light of man’s nature as a person achieving fulfilment through his life and moral activity. Modern psychology has shown the importance of the fundamental project, the basic direction to be found at the root of every human life, giving meaning and value to man’s existence as a responsible being. Meaning in human life comes from the will’s fundamental direction and pro­ jection, the choice of a last end in accordance with life’s inner significance. For it is a fact that every man chooses an ultimate end for himself, a value to which he subordinates

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35

all other values and in view of which he directs all his ten­ dencies and activities. This selection of a last end, a supreme value, an ideal that magnetizes his whole life and activity is the condition necessary if he is to attain the level of genuinely moral conduct/] It is not, however, every human deed that builds up or destroys this basic project. Every human action is not a rati­ fication or a retraction of the choice of the final end. Some actions are not included in the fundamental project, not directed to the last end and yet do not divert the will from its end or overthrow the project. At bottom these actions are absurdities and non-sequiturs that result from inattention, illogicality and a failure of will power. They are directed neither towards the last end, nor against it; they are not strong enough to disturb the will’s purpose and they do not represent some new project that cancels the old. A man is not committed by them; they are not entirely his. That is why they do not involve a break with the previously chosen end. From the religious and moral point of view these actions are venial sins. Man’s whole moral life has a religious mean­ ing and import: all his free actions have significance with reference to God. But all his actions do not reach the level of the basic “project” ; all of them do not determine the inner direction of the will. All sins are not against the divine law, in the sense that they do not produce a break with God. Venial sins do not disturb the essential “conversion” of our will to God; their result is not mortal in the spiritual life. They are the result of negligence; they are failures due to the weakness of love, to tepidity, to lack of fervour. There is no question of a vital decision involving a changed intention. The act does involve the final intention but secondary means related to it. It indicates a defective attitude to that end. The choice is not in question, but the approach has become

36

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slower, side-tracked or halted. It is clear, therefore, that all venial sins are not equally superficial or harmless. They can be more or less dangerous. For they express a tepidity, a lack of fervour that will gradually influence the whole of one’s behaviour. The fact that the basic “project” ceases to work properly, the slowing down of progress towards the end, is a threat to one’s attachment to that end. Repeated sins make the ground ready and suggest a fresh choice, a new basic “project” . The distinction between mortal and venial sin which as such is an expression of difference in effect, is ultimately based upon a difference in nature, that is, in the relation between the sin and the direction of the will. Real sin comes from the heart, the spiritual centre of the person. And yet it is not enough to define sins in their relation to the last end according to two categories: “for” and “against” . It is equally import­ ant to bring out the proportional gravity of the different sins according to the hierarchy of values relative to the last end. The traditional comparison between sins and sickness should help us to understand this new aspect of the distinc­ tion among sins. Just as an illness can be more or less grave and perilous to the extent in which it attacks vital elements in the body and deprives the organism of health, so sin will be more or less grave to the extent in which it attacks what is spiritual in us and endangers the spiritual life. In order to judge how dangerous an illness is, the source of infection must be examined. Similarly with sin. It is not only a turning away from God, but is also a disordered attachment to created reality; it includes disorder between man and the created world. That disorder can be more or less great and extensive; that attachment can be more or less profound and entire. The gravity of sins must therefore also be estimated by the depth and extent of the disorder in the relations between man

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and the rest of creation From this point of view it is obviously not sufficient to list sins as either only mortal or venial. It would be dangerous and misleading to be content with this too general and insufficient distinction. How is the gravity of a sin to be measured? The depth and extent of the moral disorder must be envisaged first of all according to the object of the act and then according to the person doing it. The first criterion of a sin’s gravity is to be found in the act itself. Following the relation between the purpose of the act and the last end, the sin will be more or less grave. It is the business of moral theology to work out the hierarchy of values in relation to the last end of Christian life; to show how all the obligations of the Decalogue are essential requirements for reaching the goal of human life and, at the same time, to establish in what order they stand. The gravity of sins will depend upon this hierarchy and upon this order of subordination with reference to the love due to God and one’s neighbour. Hence it is that sins directly against God are more serious than those against one’s neighbour; sins against the person of one’s neighbour are more serious than those which affect his material possessions. The closer to the last end is the disorder produced by sin, the more directly and radically the attachment to created reality diverts a man from that end, the more serious and dangerous the sin will be.30 But this objective criterion of a sin’s gravity is not enough. Account must also and even principally be taken of the sub­ jective significance of the act, that is, of that personal commit­ ment through which the act becomes a sin, a moral fault. For the culpability of an act depends upon the degree of freedom and responsibility. The subjective significance of an act depends, on the one hand, on personal responsibility, that is, on the degree of knowledge and freedom with which the deed

38

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

was done and, on the other hand, on the more or less con­ scious relationship between the deed and the last end, as understood by man. It can happen that a man may perform some trifling act with such intensity and thoroughness that he comes to prefer this subsidiary value to God. In other words, an act which is in itself superficial and secondary may through its subjective significance, come to express a new fundamental “project”, and give a new direction to the will in relation to the last end. It will be evident from this how complex and subtle an affair it is to weigh up the gravity of a sin in terms of its objective and subjective significance. Even the theoretical study of the objective gravity of different sins and their differentiation into mortal and venial is difficult enough. It is, of course, true that since certain spheres of human activity have by nature a capital importance owing to their immediate concern with fundamental relations between man and God, and man and other men, any disorder within them is object­ ively grave. If anyone commits such a sin, knowingly and willingly, the deed is mortal because it involves, de facto, a break with God. But in some spheres of human activity the gravity of the disorder is not always objectively serious enough to constitute a break with the last end. This does not in any sense mean that such a superficial disorder can never be a mortal sin. When a man commits himself totally to such a disorder, knowingly and willingly clinging to this kind of satisfaction and giving it preference over God, then his act assumes such a power of determination, through his personal commitment, that it overturns his basic choice of the last end. On the other hand, just as an act objectively superficial by nature can subjectively receive a power of determination, so an act which objectively signifies a break with God may yet not reach that pass by reason of a lack of personal commit-

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ment. In that case the act will be a venial sin.31 It is therefore not surprising that a judgement about a given concrete action should be so complex and difficult, and, indeed, often impossible. God alone knows the heart of man, the direction and attitude of the human will.32 The distinction between different sins made on account of their objective content is based on the relation between the various values and the last end of human activity. A grave sin contains intrinsically a mortal significance; it destroys the necessary orientation to the last end because it attacks the essential conditions for the love of God or of one’s neighbour. So it is capitally important to bring out the essential relation to love when the gravity of this or that sin is stressed. The break with God corresponds to a grave disorder in the relations between a man and his neighbour, in the same way that a revolt against God undermines relationships among men. The more thoroughly the dimensions of the economy of salvation are understood the easier it becomes to see the social implications of sin to their full extent. The social characteristic of sin does not arise from creation alone, that is, from the fact that a man must travel to God through his work on earth and through his relations with others. In Christ it acquires a new meaning: God comes into contact with men through the Church and he intends that, in the wake of Christ, they should enter whole-heartedly into the visible community of his Body, the Church. Participation in the divine life can only be fully received and lived within the community of believers. Christian grace creates brotherhood because it makes us children of God in Christ. Hence for the Christian mind sin has an “ecclesial” meaning and import.33 Mortal sin, a break with God, deprivation of divine grace, is a “crime” , a mortal blow against the community of men in

40

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

God.34 Venial sin is also an injury to the human community, to the bonds of love between men in the Church. It weakens the vitality of one member of the community. It signifies a lowering of the power to love. Its result is to lessen the unity and the inter-relatedness of men. Man’s position as a sinner explains the summons to con­ version and repentance that is central to revelation. The stages of the history of redemption mark a progress in the revelation of sin parallel with an increasing call to conversion. The conditions which repentance demands are made definite; their forms prepare the way for the sacrament of reconcilia­ tion in Christ. The redemption and the destruction of sin are works of God achieved through Christ. The grace of con­ version and of the remission of sins presupposes and awakens the sinner’s response and his collaboration in the redeeming love. In the case of every individual sinner the destruction of sin requires a divine remedy to wipe out the disastrous effects of the break with God and of the disorder following the refusal to love. This remedy illustrates God’s providence; it is adapted to man’s condition as sinner, it respects his free­ dom and takes his collaboration for granted. The restoration of order, the healing of man, the destruc­ tion of sin, the return to the realm of love, all this will be a painful process. The divine remedy is human repentance. Man must detach himself from sin and be converted through expiation for his wrongdoing. God’s grace and love must be welcomed in conversion which empties sin from the heart. “If we consider the destruction of sin considered as a blemish it is obvious that this blemish can only be removed from the soul through its reunion with God. For it is the soul’s separation from God which tarnishes its beauty and leaves a blemish. Man is united to God by his will; therefore the blemish of sin cannot be removed unless his will accepts the

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order of divine justice, i.e. unless a man freely punishes him­ self as a compensation for the wrong done or patiently accepts the penalty imposed by God.” 35 The penance which destroys sin is a grace from God in Christ. It sparks up in man’s heart, in the centre of the personality out of which the sin sprang. It is conversion, bringing the guilty will back to order, a redirection of one’s basic attitude. Being motivated by faith in Christ it only comes into being through effective union with Christ’s Passion. It is genuine, it is effective, only if it aims at restoring the order of love, and that is why in the concrete it demands expiation. Sin is a kind of disintegration, a mortal isolation. The return to God must be achieved in an effective conversion which restores the order that has been disturbed and destroys the traces of sin in man. The thorough correc­ tion of the will must take place in the context of an effective expiation if the complete destruction of sin and its conse­ quences is to be attained. And this is the reason why penance is necessarily something which takes place within the Church. In the present conditions of the economy of salvation union with Christ’s Passion through faith is hallowed by the Church in the sacraments of baptism and penance. Re^] conciliation with God, total conversion and the complete destruction of sin presupposes reconciliation with the Church, the restoration of the order of charity, in short the re­ establishment of peace in the Holy Spirit. “No sin can be remitted save by Christ’s Passion. Hence the Apostle says there is no remission without shedding of blood. And that is why the effort of the human will in penance does not suffice for the remission of sins if there is no faith in Christ’s Passion and no intention of participating in that Passion, either through being baptized or by subjecting oneself to the power of the keys in the Church.” 36

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The various aspects of sin and of the state of sin, the con­ crete conditions of the present economy of salvation, outline the essential elements and the conditions of Christian penance which, starting from a freely-willed conversion, leads on to reconciliation with God through an action of the Church. Since reconciliation with God, the total destruction of sin in a baptized person, can only come about through a reality pertaining to the Church, Christian penance is sacramental. If we want to define the nature of the sacrament of penance satisfactorily we must first follow the historical development of ecclesiastical penance. The historical study of penitential discipline in the Church is an indispensable introduction to a theological discussion on the sacrament of penance.

FO O TN O TES TO C H A PT E R I d is c o u r s e o f 27 October 1946. Cf. “ Sens du péché et sa perte dans le m onde actuel” , in Lumière et Vie, 5, 1952; J. Régnier: L e sens du péché, Paris, 1953; L. M onden: M oraai zonder zoude, Bruges, 1955; M onde moderne et sens du péch é (Recherches et débats, 11), Paris, 1955. 2A typical exam ple o f this philosophy is to be found in the w orks o f D r A . Hesnard: L ’univers morbide de la fa u te, Paris, 1949; M orale sans péché, Paris, 1954. These two b ooks were put on the Index in 1956. Cf. P. Ricoeur: “ M orale sans péché ou péché sans m oralism e” , in E sprit, 1954, pp. 294-312. L. Beim aert: “ La m orale sans péché du D r H esnard” in Études, 1955, pp. 35-49; M orale sans péché, Paris, 1955; A . G em elli: “ M orale sans péché” , in Docum entation catholique, 19 February 1956, pp. 205-17; M . Oraison: “ R éflexions sur la m orale sans péché” , in Revue Thomiste, 1955, pp. 197-208. 3Cf. K . Rahner: Dangers dans le catholicism e d ’aujourd’hui, Bruges, 1959; L. M onden: op. cit., pp. 55-71. 4A . G eorge: “ Le sens du péché dans Γ Α .Τ .” , in Lum ière et Vie, 5, 1952, pp. 21-40; G . R . Smith: The Bible D octrine o f Sin, L ond on , 1953; J. G uillet: Thèmes bibliques, Paris, 1954, pp. 94-129; J. H euschen: “ D e zondeopvatting in de boeken van het O .T .” , in Revue ecclésiastique de Liège, 1956, pp. 129-151 and pp. 193-219; A . Lefèvre: “ Péché et

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pénitence dans la B ible” , in L a M aison-D ieu, 55, 1958, pp. 7-22; R. M ichiels: “ Z onde, Bekering en B oete in het O ude Testam ent” , in C ollectanea M echliniensia, 1959, pp. 391-415 and 501-18. 5Isaias, 59, 1-2. 6Cf. A . G eorge: “ Fautes contre Y ahw eh dans les livres du Sam uel” , in Revue Biblique, 1946, pp. 161-184. 7Cf. J. Pedersen: Israel, its Life and Culture, L ondon, 1926; H . Wh. R obinson: “T he H ebrew C onception o f Corporate Personality” , in Werdern und Wachsen des A .T. (Beitr. 66 zur Z A W ), Berlin, 1936, pp. 49-66. 8Cf. H . Renckens: Israels visie op het verleden, Tielt, 1956; A . M . Dubarle: L e péché originel dans VÉcriture, Paris, 1958; J. D e Fraine; A dam et son lignage, Bruges, 1959. 9A s in Pss. 31 and 50. 10Ezech., 18, 21-32 and 36; 16-32. Cf. J. D elorm e: “ Conversion et pardon selon le prophète Ezéchiel” , in M ém orial Chaîne, 1950, pp. 115-44; A . F ournel and P. Rémy: “ Le sens du péché chez Jérémie” , in Bible et Vie chrétienne, 1954, pp. 34-49. 11Cf. L. Ligier: “ H eure des ténèbres et règne du péché. Le péché dans le N .T .” , in Lum ière et Vie, 5, 1952, pp. 41-61; J. H aas: D ie Stellung Jesu zu Sünde und Sünder nach den vier Evangelien, Fribourg (Switzer­ land), 1953; R . Schnackenburg: D ie sittliche B otschaft des N .T ., M ünchen, 1954, p. 183-8 and pp. 218-24. 12Cf. “A m artano” , in Theol. Wörterbuch des N .T ., B .I, col. 267-320; H . R ondet: N o tes sur la théologie du péché, Paris, 1957, pp. 30-48. 13Cf. J. J. von Allm en: Vocabulaire biblique, Paris, 1954, p. 222. 14Cf. J. de la Potterie: “ Le péché, c ’est l ’iniquité” , in Nouv. Rev. T h éo l, 1956, pp. 785-97. 15Cf. W . Lange: “ L ’appel à la pénitence dans le christianism e prim itif” , in Collectanea M echliniensia, 1959, pp. 380-90. 16Cf. J. G uillet: op cit., p. 94; H . R ondet: op. cit., pp. 97-102. 17J. G uillet: op. cit., pp. 94-100. 18Cf. J. Régnier: op. cit., pp. 35-39. 19Catéchism e (for the use o f the dioceses o f Belgium ), 209; St A ugustine: Contra Faustum, 22, c. 27 (P.L ., 42, 418): “ Peccatum est dictum , factum vel concupitum contra legem aeternam ” ; Cf. St Thom as, Sum m a Theologica, Ia-IIae, qu. 71, art. 6. 20 Cf. J. Régnier: op. cit., p. 27-35; P. Schoonenberg: “ D e zon d e” , in N ed. K ath. Stem m en, 1957, pp. 74-83; H . R ondet: op. cit., pp. 97-102. 2VThe attem pt to m ake m orality relative to given situations is largely a reaction against legalism in moral teaching. Cf. J. Fuchs: “ M orale théologique et m orale de situation” , in Nouv. Rev. T h éol, 1956, pp.

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1073-85; B. Haering: “ Situatiem oraal o f légalism e” , in N ed. K ath. Stem m en, 1957, pp. 117-25; J. Kraus: Situationsethiek, M ainz, 1956. 22Cf. A . Plé: “ L ’acte m oral et la pseudo-m orale de l ’inconscient” , in Suppl. Vie spirituelle, 1957, pp. 24-68; A . Snoeck: B iechi e n pastoraalpsychologie, Bruges, 1958, pp. 82-104; M . Oraison: “ P sychologie et sens du péché” , in L e péché (Présence chrétienne), Bruges, 1959, pp. 7-52. 23For the m eaning and developm ent o f the m oral conscience see: T h. M uencker: D ie psychologische Grundlagen der katholischen S itten ­ lehre, D usseldorf, 1953; Ch. Odier: L es deux sources consciente et inconsciente de la vie morale, N euchâtel, 1947; V. Frankl: D er un­ bewusste G ott, W ien, 1949; A . K riekem ans: Élém ents d'éducation religieuse, m orale et sociale, Louvain, 1953; G . M adinier: L a conscience morale, Paris, 1954; H . D elville: “ Les bases psychologique de la vie m orale” , in M orale chrétienne e t requêtes contem poraines, Tournai, 1954, pp. 113-42; D r Theotim us: “ Psychologie van het gew eten in zijn verschijningsvormen en ontw ikkeling” , in Tijdschrift voor opvoedkunde, 1955-1956, pp. 21-51; H . Haefner: Schulderleben und Gewissen, Stutt­ gart, 1956. 24Cf. E . Mersch: L a théologie du corps m ystique, Brussels, 1944; H . de Lubac: Catholicisme, Paris, 1941 (English translation, Catholicism , L ondon and N ew York, 1950); Y . Congar: Esquisses du m ystère de l'Église, 1953. 25St Thom as: D e M alo, II, art. 11. 26St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I lia , qu. 86, art. 4, ad 1. 27St Thom as: D e M alo, II, art. 9, ad 2. “ A d secundum dicendum quod m ors est privatio gratiae, per quam anim a D e o uniebatur ; privatio autem gratiae n on est essentialiter ipsa culpa, sed eifectus culpae, ut dictum est in qu. praec. a. 4 et 5. U n d e peccatum dicitur m ors anim ae n on essentialiter sed effective. Essentialiter vero peccatum est actus deformis vel inordinatus.” 28St Thom as: Sum Theol., Ia-IIae, qu. 88, art. 1. “ C um igitur peccatum sit quaedam infirmitas anim ae, u t supra habitum est, peccatum aliquod m ortale dicitur ad sim ilitudinem m orbi, qui dictitur m oralis ex eo quod inducit defectum irreparabilem per destitutionem alicuius principii, ut dictum est. Principium autem spiritualis vitae, quae est secundum virtutem, est ordo ad ultim um finem , ut dictum est. Q ui quidem si destitutus est, reparari n on p otest per aliquod principium intrinsecum , sed solum per virtutem divinam . . . Et ideo huiusm odi peccata dicuntur m ortalia quasi irreparabilia. Peccata autem quae habent inordinationem circa ea quae sunt ad finem , conservato ordine ad finem ultim um , reparabilia sunt. E t haec dicuntur ven ialia.” ; Cf. H . R ondet: op. cit., pp. 103-21; V. Vergriete: “ Le péché” , in Initiation Théologique, III, pp. 305-12.

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29St Thom as: Sum. Theol., Ia-IIae, qu. 72, art. 5; qu. 87, art. 3. 30St Thom as: Sum . Theol., Ia-IIae., qu. 73, art. 3; D e M alo, II, art. 10. 31St Thom as: Sum. Theol., Ia-IIae, qu. 88, art. 2. 32“ For the education o f consciences it is im portant n ot to confine on eself to handing ou t fixed lists o f m ortal sins, but rather to show the relationship between these acts and the last end to which they are in op position. A n act is n ot said to be m ortal arbitrarily; it contains within itself that disastrous opposition to the originating principle o f the m oral life to which we should be supremely attached. It is the theologian’s task to estim ate the relation between a given hum an act and the last end, and, if the act dem ands it, to uncover its op position to that end, perhaps through a process o f som e com plexity. But it seem s that a recom m endation to sobriety in this undertaking is n ot inopportune. A fter a certain stage at least it is difficult to be definite and there is no warrant for m ore than a num ber o f opinions. It m ay be questioned as to h ow far this b old pursuit o f m ortal and venial sins represents any progress in m oral science. One is rem inded o f St A ugustine’s remark: Quae sunt levia, quae gravia peccata, non humano sed divino sunt pensando judicio {Enchiridion, 78). It is stern, but encouraging.” Th. D em an, “ Le p éché” , in D iet. Théol. Cath., X II, col. 226. 33The relations between sin and the Church are brought out by: K . Rahner: “ Vergessene W ahrheiten über das Bussakram m ent” , in G eist und Leben, 1953, pp. 340-3; Id.: D ie Kirche der Sünder, Freiburg, 1948; H . Schillebeeckx: “ H et sacrament van de b iech i” , in Tijdschrift voor G eestelijk Leven, 1952, pp. 219-42; D . Braun: “D ogm atische beschouw ingen over de biechi” , in Ned. K ath. Stem m en, 1957, pp. 84-95. 34From this point o f view all m ortal sins are n ot equally grave as Pius X II show s clearly in his encyclical M y stic i Corporis Christi. “ N o t all w rong doing, even grave sin has for its intrinsic result— as has schism , heresy, or apostasy— m an’s separation from the B ody o f the Church. A ll life does n o t disappear from those w ho, having lost sanctifying grace and charity through sin and hence are disabled from w inning supernatural merit, and yet keep Christian faith and hope, and by the light o f divine grace and under the im pulse o f the H oly Spirit, are m oved to a saving fear and are aroused by G od to pray and to repent for their sins.” 35St Thom as: Sum. Theol., Ia-IIae, qu. 87, art. 6. 36St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I lia , qu. 69, art. 1. ad 2; Ia-IIae, qu. 113, art. 4; I lia , qu. 84, art. 5, ad 2; qu. 85, art. 3, ad 4; qu. 86, art. 6, ad 3.

CHAPTER II

The History of Penance in the Church The study of the development of penitential practice in the Church brings out the two complementary aspects of Christ­ ian penance which are like the two poles between which the complex reality of the sacrament is extended: the inward-'1 individual aspect and the ritual-community aspect. It enables all the factors which together make up ecclesiastical penance to be separated out. For the living reality “penance-remission of sins” is co-extensive with the whole of Christian life; it includes a vivifying intervention of the Holy Trinity through Christ, of the Church through its hierarchy as well as an effort and a participation on the part of the sinner who repents and makes expiation for his sins. Penance and sin are realities comprehensible only in the context of Christian life in which are embodied the principal aspects of human existence both from the individual and corporate point of view. Penance has undergone a considerable development in the Church. It was only in the twelfth century that a systematic study of the theology of this sacrament began to be worked out. At that time under the influence of the unification and codification of ecclesiastical law, the external forms of penance were stabilized in the Latin Church. The forms of the sacrament which we find in our liturgy today date from this era. Hence the study of the development of penance in 46

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the Church during the first eleven centuries necessarily becomes an introduction to a theology of the sacrament. We shall confine outselves to the essential traits of that history without delaying over questions, often of great complexity, which arise fór the historian concerning the thought of this or that author.1 The development of penitential practice in the Latin Church ' during the first eleven centuries is usually divided into two main periods; the first, up to the sixth century, is character­ ized by the fact that canonical penance is considered permiss­ ible once only and cannot be repeated; during the second period, from the seventh century onwards, the official organi­ zation of penance develops not only towards a more private conception, but also and principally it reaches the position that sacramental penance can in fact be repeated. Like all arbitrary divisions in history this is an artificial one obtained only by a considerable simplification of the reality. But it is basically true and demands a closer examination in order that its practical and doctrinal implications may be seen.1 1. Penance in the Church according to St Augustine ■ To obtain a clear idea of the forms of ecclesiastical penance during its early period it is necessary to discover what form it took in the fourth century. It is true that we have sufficient sources for its organization in the third century—sources lacking for the previous period—but these are often contro­ versial and difficult to interpret. It is from the fourth century, onwards that the Church’s penitential practice begins to / receive increasingly precise regulation. The chief event at the beginning of this century, the Peace of Constantine, which allowed the Church to profess its faith publicly and estab­ lished a favourable climate for its extension, had a great influence upon penitential discipline. In order to regulate the

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practice of penance in the various regions, and to meet the fresh problems arising from conversions, local synods, following previous councils, issued a number of canons, juridical decisions, on the subject of penance. Out of this activity came the term “canonical penance” to denote the official form of penance during this period. There were, in fact, several forms of penance in the Church, as St Augustine explains in two sermons on the usefulness of penance.2 In them he gives an account of the organization of ecclesiastical penance during the course of his explanation of the three forms that existed in the Church. These three forms already have their place in Scripture. St Augustine makes this point as a guarantee of contemporary practice. “The first form of penance is that which brings the new man to birth so that all past sins may be washed away in baptism. In like manner, at the birth of a child, the pangs of parturition vanish and joy overtakes sorrow. For every­ one, endowed with freedom when the sacrament of believers is received, cannot start on a new fife without repenting of the way he lived before.” The second form is “daily penance in which the uninter­ rupted practice of humility in the spirit of prayer is unceasing throughout our life in this world” . “Is not this the reason why each day we beat our breasts? It is what we bishops also do when we go up to the altar. It is also why we ask in that prayer which we should say throughout fife: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that have traspassed against us. We are not then asking pardon for sins we believe to have been remitted through baptism, but for daily sins for which every Christian, according to his means, constantly offers the sacrifice of his alms, mortification, prayer and supplication.’ Lastly, there is a third form in the Church, required for grave sins, for mortal wounds. It is a severe and official

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penance practised, under the guidance of the Church, by a special category of “penitents” who have a definite status in the Church. It is this official penance which historians in the past called “public penance” . We shall briefly examine its essential aspects. This severe and rigorous penance is imposed for grave sins whose social repercussion is obvious. “The third form of penance is that required for sins noted in the Decalogue and of which the Apostle says: ‘Those who commit them will not possess the Kingdom of God.’ This penance is grievous. The wound is serious; adultery has been committed, perhaps homicide or sacrilege. It is a grave matter; the wound is serious, dangerous, mortal, but the physician is all powerful.” Normally the initiative for this penance is taken by the sinner himself. He must consider himself to be guilty and repent by showing detestation of his sin. “In this form of penance every man must deal with himself with the utmost severity, so that through his own sentence the divine judge­ ment may be averted, as the Apostle says: ‘If we judge our­ selves the Lord will not judge us.’ Therefore a man should set up the tribunal of his mind in judgem ent. . . And thus, with judgement in his heart, thought will be his accuser, con­ science his witness, fear his punishment.” When a man has sinned he must admit to God that he has done so. This self-accusation is the primary condition for the remission of sin. Confession to God is an act of reparation and a movement of healing inspired by God. / The Christian, who after baptism has sinned gravely, must externalize this self-accusation. “Confession” to God must be made concrete by some external and severe penance. What has been admitted to God must be publicly acknowledged by expiation. Self-accusation of grave sin must first be expressed by voluntary abstention from the Eucharist, because the

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Christian has become unworthy of participation in the sacrifice of the community. This “liturgical excommunica­ tion” corresponds to the sinner’s real position and expresses his self-condemnation, the condition for pardon. He shows in this way that he has separated himself from the com­ munity of believers by being disloyal to his baptismal promises. This voluntary excommunication must in addition be ratified by ecclesiastical authority. It must be confirmed by a disciplinary decision and become a canonical excom­ munication or penance. “The sinner himself will pronounce the sentence by which he judges himself to be unworthy of taking part in the Lord’s Body and Blood. If a man is afraid of being separated from the Kingdom of heaven by the final condemnation of the supreme Judge, then he should be separated from the heavenly bread by ecclesiastical discip­ line.” There must therefore be an intervention by the Church in order that the sinner’s spontaneous condemnation may become valid in the sight of God. The de facto situation created by the sin—unworthiness in relation to eucharistie communion and separation from the community of believers —must be sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority. The sinner’s admission of his sins must be hallowed sacramentally.3 Through the Church’s intervention the sinner is deprived of eucharistie communion and placed in the order of penitents. This “excommunication” is not irrevocable; it is a specific­ ally Christian remedy. This process, then, comprises an intervention of the hierarchy so that through punishment the sinner may be cleansed from sin and reconciled with the Church and God. St Augustine bases the Church’s intervention on the powers given by Christ to the apostles and their successors. The sinner must submit to the Church’s judgement so as to escape divine condemnation.

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A man bound by the very dangerous chains of sin must therefore not hesitate to have recourse to the power of the keys in the Church by which he will be delivered on earth in order not to be bound in heaven . . . Hence a man should freely condemn himself while he still has the power and be converted, otherwise, when it is too late, his evil will also will be condemned by the Lord. Thus having brought a severe but salutary condemnation upon himself, he should come before the bishops to whom the power of the keys in the Church is entrusted. In this way he makes a fresh start as a submissive son and, mindful of the order among the members of the community, he will accept whatever satis­ faction is decided on by those who administer the sacra­ ments. Thus by offering the sacrifice of a contrite heart with devotedness and humility, he will not only be working out his salvation, but building up the community. In this position, if his sin has been not only grave but a serious scandal for others, and if the bishop considers it useful for his penance to be public and perhaps in the sight of the whole Christian community, he should unhesitatingly accept this decision in order not to add the infection of shame to wounds that are already dangerous and mortal.4 When, with the help of the community who prays for him and under the guidance of authority, the penitent has completed his expiation, he will be reconciled to the community and re­ admitted to eucharistie communion.5 This concludes official penance; it is ended by a fresh intervention of the Church’s authority, the sign and guarantee of reconciliation with God. This official and severe form of penance in the Church pre­ supposes, therefore, a free and genuine conversion which includes self-condemnation. The sinner must accuse himself before God and the Church in order to be delivered from his

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sin and to obtain pardon. And this is expressed by separation from eucharistie communion. Authority ratifies this excom­ munication by a more or less public and radical separation from the community of believers. Relegated in this way to the ordo poenitentium the repentant sinner will perform the penance assigned to him, with the help and support of the whole community. For it is a remedial excommunication. Prayers will be said for him and several times he will receive the imposition of hands reserved for “penitents” . His expiation will be of longer or shorter duration in proportion to the intensity of his grief and the fervour of his repentance. When he has completed this “satisfaction” he will be recon­ ciled by the bishop, so that he can take part in the sacra­ mental actions of the Christian community, in the Eucharist among others. This fact itself makes his reconciliation with God public. The bishop’s intervention, in the name of the Church and by virtue of the power of the keys which Christ gave the apostles, is not a judicial act only; it constitutes a remedial act of salvation in Christ. It is both an imposition of penance and a reconciliation; it leads to the destruction of sin and to the healing of the sinner; to a restoring of com­ munion with the Church and with Christ. The sinner’s penance is sustained by the whole community and guaranteed by the hierarchy of the Church. 2. The development o f canonicalpenance up to the sixth century } The passages from St Augustine show the chief aspects of Christian penance in the Church. Canonical penance, to which the baptized guilty of grave sins are subject, is the means of obtaining pardon. Reconciliation with the Church restores communion with the Body of Christ, in its corporate unity and in the Eucharist. On the basis of this evidence the documents of previous periods can be studied. The source of

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canonical, as of other forms of penance in the Church, is in the Scriptures. We can observe one of the earliest manifesta­ tions of the intervention of ecclesiastical authority in St Paul’s action in the Church of the Corinthians (I Cor., 5). The Fathers explain that the basis of the Church’s official penance is to be found chiefly in the passage in Scripture which deals with the powers given by Christ to the apostles (Matt. 18 and John 20). The Fathers come to describe the meaning and efficacy of this official penance mainly in connection with their con­ troversies with heretics. They deduce its necessity either from the powers given by Christ to the apostles or from the Church’s function as the community of salvation wherein alone the Holy Spirit is fully given. They compare the effects of penance with those of baptism, confirmation or extreme unction.6 The fact that they make the comparison shows that they believed canonical penance to be sacramental. There is one passage of particular clarity, which sums up this patristic teaching; it occurs in a letter of St Leo the Great. If it is compared with the words of St Augustine the full significance of its meaning becomes clear. “God’s infinite mercy with regard to human sin is so wide that the hope of eternal life is not only given by the grace of baptism, but also by the remedy of penance, so that those who have lost the gifts of regeneration may obtain remission of their sins by willing self condemnation. But God in his goodness has so arranged things that these benefits are inseparably bound up with sacerdotal prayer. The mediator between God and men, the man and Lord Jesus, has in fact transmitted to the ministers of the Church this power by which they impose the practice of penance {actio poenitentiae) on those who confess their sins and admit them through reconciliation to the communion of

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the sacraments when they have been healed by some saving work of satisfaction.” 7 Like this pope, the authors of the period give a general description of the meaning of ecclesiastical penance without dwelling in detail on the importance of each of its elements or aspects. If we sort out the different kinds of documents on this subject two fundamental aspects emerge. The decisions of synods and special councils, the letters of popes or bishops in which they answer questions about disciplinary regulations, put the liturgical and canonical aspect of penance in the fore­ ground. jQuite naturally the emphasis here is on the Church’s intervention, and the necessity to submit to official penance: On the other hand, particularly in the East, many ascetical and pastoral writings bring out the necessity for personal penance and the conditions it entails. In these the liturgical aspect and the Church’s intervention are not emphasized.8 These two ways of considering penance correspond to the intentions of the different authors. They are also bound up with the two essential and inseparable aspects of ecclesiastical penance. Its aspect as a remedy offered to the sinner for the pardon of his sins through conversion and expiation, and its aspect as an ecclesiastical reality, in which the intervention of the Church, of the community of believers as well as the hierarchy, sustains, directs and ratifies personal penance. The Fathers cannot properly be understood when they are des­ cribing the nature of canonical penance unless these two aspects are kept in mind. personal conversion, willing self-accusation and expiation in reparation of the wrong done are all necessary if there is to be a real cure and if sin is to be totally destroyed. They form the beginning and the body of ecclesiastical penance and are completed by the Church’s intervention. Reconciliation with God, that is, the complete healing of sin, is brought about by

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ecclesiastical penance. Reconciliation with the Church is the efficacious sign of peace and of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which re-establishes the gifts of baptism. Historians are in increasing agreement that it is this interpretation of the Patristic texts which alone gives a satisfactory account of the complexity of their thought and opinions. It was indeed not until the twelfth century that the various elements of ecclesi­ astical penance were studied: the relation between interior and external penance, between contrition and the intervention of the minister of the Church etc. The first attempts at a solution were incomplete and omitted the sacramental aspect. This is largely to be explained by the special interests of the period and by the nature of the sources which these authors had at their disposal.9 Canonical penance, the main aspects of which have been noted in the passages from St Augustine, certainly existeci in the first centuries, with its essential meaning and basic structure. But it underwent considerable development. In the initial period of the Church’s history there was never entire uniformity in penitential practice owing to the great diver­ sity between the various Churches, not only between those of East and West, but also within the Latin Church between those of Rome, Spain, Gaul and the Celtic countries. The development of canonical penance, principally in the Latin Church, is of considerable importance because it forms a remote preparation for the changes that were to characterize it in the sixth and seventh centuries. Its chief aspects will now be considered.10 Under the influence of rigorist tendencies in the Church, which made themselves felt at various times, and as a result of a certain stabilization of canonical rules that began in the fourth century, official penance became a form of expiation reserved to a small number of believers. It was increasingly

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considered as an immediate preparation for death and even those Christians who had remained loyal to their baptismal promises were subject to it. This at once raised an acute pastoral problem; how would sinners be able to do penance during their life? In the early days of the Church the late reception of baptism and the severity of the catechumenate meant that the problem of the necessity for official penance was neither urgent nor general. But it was a position that soon changed. The necessity for remission of sins through penance was rapidly experienced in the Church.11 Nevertheless, from the fourth century the rule was established that official penance can be received once only. What at the beginning had been simply a counsel based on psychological considerations— penance can only be performed once, for otherwise the con­ version could not have been authentic and sincere—soon became a canonical rule and an attempt was made to show that it was grounded in dogma. Just as there is only one baptism, so there is only one penance.12 In these circum­ stances it is not surprising that the single penance was put off until the end of life. Some synods advised that this penance should not be given to the young, lest they sin again.13 A further aspect of canonical penance also goes to show how it progressively became an immediate preparation for death. Not only did this single official penance involve very severe penitential discipline so long as the sinner remained relegated to the ordo poenitentium, but even after he had been reconciled he had to observe grave obligations that to some extent kept him separate from the world and its dangers. These were considered as guarantees against a relapse. He must not carry weapons or engage in any sort of commerce. He must live in continence. That is why in many places canonical penance was not allowed to be imposed on married

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persons without the consent of both partners. It is also why it came to be compared to a monastic profession, a re­ nunciation of the world, an immediate preparation for the beyond. One can understand how from the fifth and sixth centuries it was in fact reserved for a small number of Christians who wanted to prepare for death in solitude and repentance. Lastly, we must note that this official penance could not be imposed on clerics or religious.14 Contemporary writers claimed that this was a traditional and apostolic custom, but in fact there are few traces of it before the fourth century. And it is very difficult to see precisely what motivated this exclusion. Was it because canonical penance was considered at the time as a kind of religious profession and therefore could not be imposed on one already a cleric, non bis in eodeml Whatever the reason, it is a fact that a cleric or a monk who committed a grave sin was considered a recidivus and was thereupon placed on the same footing as the Christian who had relapsed into sin after being subjected to canonical penance. Thus another important part of the com­ munity was excluded from the official penance of the Church. All these features, whose origin is not always clear, had reduced canonical penance to a quasi-exceptional form of penance, rarely imposed before the end of life and only as an immediate preparation for death. Fervent Christians asked for penance because they wanted to make a worthy prepara­ tion for death. It was a development that created a very difficult situation for the pastoral ministry: how could Christians who had gravely sinned do penance? Hence it is not surprising to find traces of non-official and exceptional forms of penance in various Churches for those not qualified for canonical penance or who preferred to put it off until their last days.

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There were bishops and priests who recommended their people to “do penance” in order to “receive penance” at the end of their life. It was also through the practice of penance that the recidivi, those who had returned to their sins after canonical penance, must ask God for pardon. Clerics and monks had to expiate their sins in solitude so as to obtain forgiveness. In some Churches this “retreat” was advised as a quasi-general means of obtaining the remission of sins. This expression of conversion was considered to be a satis­ faction for sins, because it established an effective separation from the world and a putting into practice of “religion” in the monastic sense. It was regarded as a kind of religious profession, as a renewal of the baptismal promises with the aim of obtaining forgiveness.15 Together with this “public” conversion, the traditional works of penance—fasting, alms­ giving and prayer—were recommended. In some regions confession to a priest was counselled as a penitential practice. This raised the question: Did these exceptional forms of penance gradually receive liturgical consecration or were they at least recognized by ecclesiastical authority? We know that in some places Viaticum was granted at the end of life to those who had lapsed into sin after canonical penance. But this eucharistie communion was a sign of reconciliation with the Church and with God. The conversio was in a sense a public form of penance which entailed a liturgical rite, the benedictio poenitentiae given as the sign of this conversion. In some Churches there was a custom of admitting to eucharistie communion sinners who had expiated their sins by private works of penance and had returned to a better frame of mind. In some places there was even a benedictio poenitentiae to mark this authorization to take part in the Eucharist. A number of synods and councils were against such customs which they condemned as dangerous abuses.16 All

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these exceptional forms of penance which were introduced into many Churches with the approval of ecclesiastical authority, without being recognized as official forms of penance, did however create the'shape in which a new form of penance, later to be recognized by the Church as co­ existing with canonical penance, was to develop. This “non­ public” penance must therefore be explained as an offshoot of the development of canonical penance and, as we shall see, includes the same essential elements.17 A final aspect of this development concerns excommunica­ tion. We have noted that, from the beginning of the Church, the sinner, who had committed a grave sin, was considered unworthy of taking part in the Eucharist and was separated from the community of believers. This position as a sinner was ratified by segregation in the ordo poenitentium, through the assignment of official penance. In this way canonical penance entailed a “liturgical excommunication” . Quite early in the history of the Church, however, another form of excommunication appears. In this form the impeni­ tent and recalcitrant sinner is cut off from the community by disciplinary and coercive measures. In theory there is an obvious difference between the two forms: liturgical excom­ munication is a penitential remedy; disciplinary excommuni­ cation is a form of punishment and condemnation. And yet the continuous development both of canonical penance and disciplinary measures makes it very hard to distinguish between the two.18 At the end of the sixth century canonical penance was considered in some places to be a disciplinary penalty imposed by the bishop on public and recalcitrant sinners. There were a number of penalties for clerics and religious, among them an excommunication unrelated to canonical penance, since such persons were not eligible for this form of penance. The relation between liturgical

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excommunication and official penance took a number of different forms, especially in the Eastern Churches. It is this development which explains the existence of the stationes poenitentiae, the various categories of penitents.19 But what­ ever the explanation of this complicated history, the fact remains that Christians were sometimes punished by excom­ munication without being subjected to penance. Thus the reconciliation of the excommunicated is distinct from the liturgical reconciliation after canonical penance. A special reconciliation appears to have been granted to heretics who were converted.20 In conclusion we may notice during this period a form of “private confession” unrelated to the official penance of the Church.21 It was practised in monasteries and recommended as an exercise in humility. It was considered to be most helpful for spiritual direction and for progress towards perfection. This confession was made to the “saints” i.e. to those well advanced in the spiritual life or to one’s spiritual father, and they would guide the soul along the paths of perfection. When this practice was introduced into the Western monaster­ ies it was at first outside the context of official penance, the expiation of grave sins. No power was required in the one who received the confession; he need not be a priest. In the East, where the practice was widespread, the distinction was not so precise. It sometimes had a penitential significance and led to reconciliation with God. A similar ,development was beginning to emerge in the West during the fifth and sixth centuries. This first period in the history of ecclesiastical penance may be summarized thus: There existed an official penance—■ canonical penance-~which theoretically was the only guarant­ eed form of expiation for grave sins, the only penance recognized by the Church, and which led with certainty to

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reconciliation with God through the Church’s intervention. In practice, however, this official form was reserved to a minority, except in the immediate preparation for death/rhe lack of unity in canonical rulings and the numerous excep­ tions that arosè in the penitential practice of the various Churches produced a complex and undesirable pastoral situation. It is these circumstances that help to explain the development of official penance in the Latin Church after the seventh century. 3. The development o f ecclesiastical penance after the seventh century The occasion of this development, if not its principal cause, was the missionary activity of Irish monks in a number of Churches on the continent. They not only came to preach penance but they brought with them a form of penance better adapted to the real situation of Christendom. It came to be accepted more or less rapidly in the Latin Churches as official penance co-existing with canonical penance.22 The isolation in which the Celtic Churches had existed and the fact that they were directed by monks gives a partial explanation of their special characteristics and practices. As regards penance it is important to note that their official penance had never been so public and so rigid as canonical penance. It contained the same elements, but it was much more simple and private. In particular, it could be received more than once during life: it was the normal remedy in use for the remission of sins after baptism. It included no public status of penance {ordo poenitentium) with lasting obligations that effected a real separation from the world. It could be imposed and received by clerics and religious. It was more private and could be received after grave sin without the intervention of the community. A priest was sufficient; the

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sinner confessed his faults to him and it was the priest who, after the penance was done, granted reconciliation with the Church and with God. In principle this reconciliation was granted only when the penance had been completed. But the custom developed of allowing the penitent to take part in the Eucharist before his work of “satisfaction” was finished. The works of penance were fundamentally the same as those in canonical penance; the traditional practices—fasting, alms­ giving, prayer, pilgrimages—which the Church took over from the past. The penance given was, in principle, very severe. This ecclesiastical punishment as a rule also counted as a civil penalty in reparation for the breach of public order. The penance could be either changed (commutatici) or redeemed (redemptio). A different penance could be asked for, should the one given prove impossible or too hard, for example, if the penitent fell ill he could ask that fasting be commuted into prayer. Or the penance could be redeemed by money to be devoted to almsgiving. This custom probably originated in the Wehrgeld of the German and Celtic peoples. A crime could be “redeemed” by a sum of money proportionate to it. Clearly such a practice opened the way to flagrant abuse; rich penitents could redeem their penance without discomfort or even have it performed by their serfs. When the Celtic missionaries arrived on the continent they brought this form of penance with them. They preached the necessity of penance and urged Christians to be converted. The sinner, they said, should submit to ecclesiastical penance, confess to a priest and carry out the penance imposed. When he considered it fitting the priest would permit participation in the Eucharist, the “reconciliation with the altar” . The Celtic missionaries were not equally influential everywhere and as a result we do not find an identical development of

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penance in all the Latin Churches. In Spain, particularly, the reaction against the new practices was violent. In Gaul, on the other hand, things went smoothly, for in that territory canonical penance had almost ceased to exist, and a number of customs introduced for pastoral purposes had created a climate favourable to the rapid spread of the Celtic form of penance. In a number of Churches on the continent books known as penitentials were drawn up for the assistance of priests in confession. These books were a collection of the most varied material, patristic and canonical texts relating to official penance, together with recent texts, all assembled without any order. Ancient texts were revised by the compilers. The disciplinary confusion was further aggravated by the lack of coherence in the doctrine itself. The great difficulties which these writings provoked explain the hostility to the peniten­ tials during the Carolingian reform. At the synod of Châlons (813) those works “quorum auctores incerti, certi errores”, were condemned. At the time of the reform some bishops wanted to re-introduce canonical penance. But they were aware that development had occurred and so they formulated the principle which was to underlie penitential practice in the following period: to obtain pardon for hidden faults private penance would suffice; for public sins there must be severe and public penance, canonical penance, in fact. In most Churches, however, the principle alone was admitted ! Whatever influence the Celtic missionaries may have had in the Latin Churches, it is a fact that grave difficulties per­ sisted owing to lack of unity in discipline and to the absence of any systematic doctrine on sacramental penance. It was only gradually that some unity was achieved in penitential practice as the result of the unification of canon law and the working out of a theological synthesis relating to the

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sacrament of penance. Here we shall dwell only on the chief aspects of this development, without tackling the problems whose complexity is due in part to the insufficiency and confusion of the sources for this period. The authors of collections of canonical decrees, of patristic anthologies or of liturgical books (ordines) are satisfied as a rule with gathering together texts from previous ages and widely different regions. Doctrinal texts or comments are very rare. As in the preceding centuries the necessity of ecclesiastical penance, that is, penance under the guidance of the Church and effected by the power of the keys, is clearly stated to be the means for expiation of grave sins committed after baptism. Slight faults are pardoned by prayer, mutual con­ fession and other works of penance. Whatever the mode of expiation it must be done in union with the Church, for outside the Church there is no remission of sins. The Church’s intervention for the purpose of the expiation of grave sins, far from following a definite rite and being reduced to a judgement and a declaration of pardon, included, in this period, a number of different actions and was continuous throughout the duration of the penance. It began by settling what satisfaction was required and ended with the recon­ ciliation of the sinner, who was then admitted to the Eucharist. The initiative to penance belongs to the sinner. Repent­ ance, the detestation of his sins, should lead him to penance. Under the action of divine grace he will be converted and desirous of expiating his wrong-doing. As the Fathers and the writers of this period explain, etymologically penance is a self-imposed punishment for the expiation of sins that are regretted and hated.23 This repentance, this inner penance, should be expressed by an external act of expiation and penance by which, with the help of the community, sins will

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be destroyed. The duration and modalities of this external penance is decided by the Church, taking into account the sinner’s dispositions, the sincerity and intensity of his repentance. The imposition of the requisite “ satisfaction” is the business of the priest. This is the reason why the sinner makes his confession to the priest, as minister of the Church. During this period, confession, the avowal of one’s sins, gained an increasingly important place in the structure of the Church’s official penance. It was not only, as in previous times, a psychological and moral exercise of spiritual direction, but now formed an essential part of ecclesiastical penance. Contemporary writers give a number of explana­ tions of the need and meaning of this confession. It is not only indispensable as a means for the priest to know the penitent’s state of mind, his sins and his sorrow, and for him to be able to prescribe a proportionate satisfaction.24 It constitutes in itself an important part of the expiation of sin. This idea has connections with many passages in the Fathers.25 Confession is penance. It is an expression of repentance, an act of humility, a work of redemptive expiation, since confession to a man causes shame. Through this submission to the Church’s minister, through this humiliation, the remission of sins is obtained and effected. It is thus understandable that from this time onwards confession became a synonym for official penance. A number of ordines confessionis were compiled as guides for priests in the ministry of penance. In this ministry confession was the most usual form. Canonical penance during this period was con­ sidered as being a special penance for public sins. Later it was to become an exceptional form imposed for the most serious offences.26 In practice it was very rarely imposed. The obligation of confession became from this time the subject

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of canonical regulation. Uniformity was not reached until the general law promulgated at the fourth Lateran Council (1215) which imposed annual confession on those who have sinned gravely and are preparing themselves for the obligat­ ory Easter communion. Although at this period the necessity for confession is partly based on the powers which the priest possesses as minister of the Church and delegate of the bishop, the general explanation remains vague. The powers of the Church and its ministers are indeed clearly stated. They are emphatically asserted against objectors, but the precise signi­ ficance and the exact bearing of the priest’s action and of the Church’s part in the sinner’s reconciliation with God, are not defined. God grants the remission of sins which are expiated in ecclesiastical penance. Penance, confession, under the Church’s guidance, obtains pardon for sins. This remains the traditional doctrine. But theologians at this period had not reached the stage of settling the part played by each of the elements in this penance or of defining its sacramental nature and meaning. An important change in penitential practice affected the time and the rites of reconciliation. There were an increasing number of exceptions with regard to the time which had normally been at the conclusion of the penance imposed. In some Churches a custom arose of granting a provisional reconciliation at the time of confession when the sinner was sick or dying. But it was understood that if he recovered he should carry out the penance, and when that was done he would be reconciled again. From the tenth century we find liturgical rulings that envisage reconciliation at the time of confession, but add a further rite of reconciliation at the conclusion of the penance. In the eleventh century the custom was to grant a reconciliation, an “absolution” , at the time of

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confession. The rite of reconciliation was not uniformly regulated; there were different forms. That of Maundy Thursday concluded the official penance of Lent. The im­ position of hands was a major element in the rite of recon­ ciliation. It was accompanied by a number of prayers and formulas of absolution. The priest prays for the sinner, as formerly the entire community prayed. He imposes some work of satisfaction or grants the remission of ecclesiastical penalties. He ends by reciting one or more prayers of absolution.27 It was only in the thirteenth century that the indicative formula of absolution became obligatory. This change was linked with the theology of the sacrament of penance which was then developed. The priest declares that the sins are now pardoned; in the name of the Church and of God he unbinds the sinner. During the eleventh century there was an increase in the custom of general absolutions granted by the pope or bishops. What they meant is not clear. Sometimes they were prayers for the absolution of someone to whom a letter was sent or for those assisting at a religious ceremony. Sometimes they were real “remissions” of a penance, that is, of some peni­ tential satisfaction imposed by the Church, granted on account of a pilgrimage or because of some exceptional work done for the Church. At the time of the crusades a “general absolution” was. granted to those who were going to fight for the defence of the holy places. That service was considered to be a form of penance by means of which all sins were expiated. All these practices (out of which “indulgences” originated), absolutions from the works of penitential satis­ faction, encountered fierce hostility at the time from bishops and theologians (for example, Abelard). This was due not only to manifest abuses but also to the fact that, since the formulas were confused and the theology of the sacrament of

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penance lacking, the meaning of these absolutions was far from evident.28 Towards the end of the eleventh century certain writers discussed the theoretical problem of the bearing of the priest’s intervention and of the reconciliation granted by the Church. Some works approach the question of the relations between the pardon granted by God at the moment of con­ version and the absolution granted by the Church at the moment of reconciliation. At the beginning of the twelfth century the central problem was, under the influence of Abelard, presented in a clear-cut manner: if sin is pardoned in conversion and repentance what need is there for confes­ sion and satisfaction? What does the priest’s intervention signify? What power have priests in this matter and what is the significance of the absolution which they give? It was only in the thirteenth century that theologians succeeded in working out a doctrine on the sacrament of penance in which all its aspects found their place. The first attempts at a solution made by the masters of the twelfth century, although imperfect, prepared the ground for the syntheses of the scholastic theologians. They were handicapped by the extreme confusion in penitential practice as illustrated in the canonical collections and the patristic anthologies. *

*

*

*

*

We may now sum up this brief historical survey of the development of penitential practice in the Latin Church. The existence of an ecclesiastical penance, entailing complete reconciliation with God in the event of grave sin, is an un­ deniable fact in the history of the Church. The external forms of this penance underwent important development before attaining the stereotyped form we have today. It follows that the meaning of this rite can only be grasped within the

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framework of this development. It is of the utmost import­ ance to see ecclesiastical penance as a living reality in which God, the Church and the sinner collaborate in the destruction of sin. That is how the Fathers always described it. And theologians must do the same when they make the analysis which is indispensable for a thorough and systematic study of the nature of the sacrament of penance, that is, of the dimensions of that penance which the Christian in the Church of Christ must perform.

FO O T N O T E S TO C H A PT E R II 1A n excellent account with a bibliography is to be found in B. Poschm ann: D ie Busse (H andbuch der D ogm engeschichte, IV . 3), Freiburg-im -Br., 1951. There is a cop ious bibliography in J. G rotz: D ie Entwicklung des Busstufenwesens in der vornicänischen Kirche, Freiburg-im -Br., 1955. 2St A ugustine: Serm o 351 (P.L ., 38, 1535-1549) and Serm o 352 (P .L ., 38, 1549-1560). 3N o te here already the eschatological aspect o f ecclesiastical p en an ce/ through this condem nation man escapes the ultim ate condem nation/ Ecclesiastical penance, liberation from sin, is a pledge o f eternal life. 4A t this period penance was m ore or less public; n ot confession, o f course, but expiation. In the Churches o f the East various categories o f “penitents” were distinguished according to their obligations and especially by the place set aside for them in the Church, and by the share in the liturgical services allow ed them. A similar diversification into different degrees appears also to have existed in som e Churches o f the W est. Cf. J. G rotz: op. cit. 5A n exam ple o f the public reconciliation o f penitents is to be found in the Pontificale Romanum. Cf. L'E glise et le pécheur, Paris, 1949, pp. 197-225: L a confession, Paris, 1956, pp. 90-7. 6St Am brose: D e Poenitentia, I, c. 8: “ in baptism o utique rem issio peccatorum om nium est; quid interest utrum per poenitentiam an per îavacrum hoc ius sibi datum sacerdotes vindicant? U num in utroque m ysterium est.” Cf. Didascalion, II, 41, 2 (ed. F . Funk, Paderborn, 1905, vol. I, p. 130); Pacianus: E pistola I, 6 (P.L ., 13, 1057). 7St L eo I: E pistola 108 (D .B ., 146).

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8Cf. B. Poschm ann: Poenitentici secando, B onn, p. 488; C. V ogel: La discipline pénitentielle en Gaule des origines à la fin du V ile siècle, Paris, 1952, p. 68. 9Cf. P. Anciaux: La théologie du sacrem ent de pén itence au X lle siècle, Louvain, 1949. 10Cf. e.g. S. G onzales Rivas: L a penitencia en la prim itiva Iglesia espanola, Salam anca, 1949; C. V ogel: op. cit. \ P. Galtier: “ Les origines de la pénitence irlandaise” , in Recherches de sciences religieuses, 1954, pp. 54-85 and pp. 204-25. 11The possibility o f penance after baptism belongs to the faith o f the primitive Church. Even Protestant writers now admit that it was not H erm as w ho introduced it. Cf. H . von Cam penhausen: K irkliches A m t und geistlichen Vollmacht in den ersten drei Jahrunderten, Tubingen, 1953, p. 239, 4. Consequently certain passages in the Fathers which state that there is no rem ission o f sins after baptism should n ot be allow ed to sway our opinion. W hat these Fathers mean is that in the case o f post-baptism al sins painful and severe expiation is necessary. A man who has com m itted a grave sin after the gift o f regeneration can secure reconciliation with the Church and G od only by m eans o f severe penance. In their term inology there is only one “rem ission” (rem issioaphesis), that granted by baptism . This is the m eaning in H erm as, Cyprian, Origen etc. Cf. B. Poschm ann: op. cit., p. 242. 12In the Shepherd o f H erm as (beginning o f the second century) we find the earliest affirmation that penance can be once only. This is by virtue o f a psychological principle: to com m it a grave sin after penance proves that the repentance and penance were n ot authentic. H ence H erm as concludes that there can be only one genuine penance. By the tim e o f St A m brose this pastoral principle, based on the sinner’s psychological condition, has becom e a canonical rule. St A m brose form ulates its dogm atic basis: “ Sicut unum baptism a ita una poenitentia, quae tarnen publice agitur; nam quotidie nos debet poenitere peccati, sed haec delictorum leviorum , illa graviorum ” {D e poenitentia II, c. 10, P.L., 16, 524). 13St Am brose: D e poenitentia II, c. 11, (P.L ., 16, 524): “ Poenitentia agenda eo tem pore quo culpae defervescat luxuria.” ; C ouncil o f A gde (506): “ Juvenibus edam penitentia n on facile com m ittenda propter aetatis fragilitatem .” ; Council o f Orleans (538): “ U t ne quis benedictionem poenitentiae juvenibus personis credere praesumat; certe conjugatis nisi ex consensu partium et aetate jam plena earn dare non audeat.” 14This rule is to be found from the fourth century: “ Poenitentium agere cuiquam non conceditur clericorum ” (Pope Siricius); Leo I: E pistola 167: “ Alienum est a consuetudine ecclesiastica, ut qui in

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presbyterali h onore aut in diaconii gradu fuerint consecrati, ii pro crim ine aliquo per m anus im positionem rem edii accipiant p o en iten d i. . . U n d e huiusm odi lapsis ad prom erandam m isericordiam D e i privata est expetanda secessio, ubi illa satisfactio, si fuerit digna, sit etiam fructuosa.” 15G ennadius: D e eccl. dogm , 53: “ Sed et secreta satisfactione solvi m ortalia crim ina non negam us, sed m utato prius saeculari habitu et con fesso religionis studio per vitae correctionem et jugi im o perpetuo luctu m iserante D e o veniam consequam ur.” Cf. B. Poschm ann: Die Busse, pp. 59-61; C. Vogel: op. cit., pp. 128-38. 16A violent reaction against these new custom s m ay be seen in canon 11 o f the C ouncil o f T oled o (589): “ Q uoniam com perim us . . . non secundum canonem sed foedissim e pro suis peccatis hom ines agere poenitentiam , ut quotiescum que peccare voluerint, toties a presbytero se reconciliari expostulent.” (P.L ., 84, 353). 17C atholic scholars have failed to reach agreem ent on the inter­ pretation o f this com plex developm ent. P. G altier, K . A dam and others hold that very early in the history o f the Church there was a private form o f penance that had com e into existence within the structure o f canonical penance. The existence o f this private form is denied by B. Poschm ann and K . Rahner. They say that exceptional form s o f penance were never recognized as such nor ratified by any general and official liturgical rite. A nother interpretation is put forward by J. G rotz. In his view the developm ent o f canonical penance m ust be seen as starting from a form o f penance without excom m unication. In the Church, to begin with, there m ust have been a liturgical penance with prayer and im position o f hands by the bishop, hallow ing the sinner’s confession, as its essential elem ents. U nder the influence o f rigorist tendencies, both inside and outside the Church, a liturgical excom m unication was intro­ duced as a preparation for canonical penance. The growing connection between this excom m unication and ecclesiastical penance explains why the latter becam e increasingly severe and stereotyped. The original form o f ecclesiastical penance was, on this view, m aintained in existence together with canonical penance, and was the source o f the exceptional form s o f penance to be found in different Churches as well as o f “ private” penance in the Celtic Churches. A s K. Rahner points out, this theory o f G rotz seems to have been inspired by dogm atic pre­ conceptions rather than by the analysis o f sources. The data on which it is based are to o vague and insufficient to provide a refutation o f the other interpretation. Cf. K. Rahner: “D ie Busslehre im Hirten des H erm as” , in Z eitschr. fü r Kath. Theol., 1955, pp. 385-431. 18Cf. C. Vogel: op. cit., pp. 64-5; B. Poschm ann: Poenitentia secuncla, p. 294, 3,

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19The problem o f the relation between the different form s o f excom ­ m unication and the official penance o f the Church rem ains very com plex. The existence and growth o f categories o f penitents undoubt­ edly was very influential in the Eastern Churches. B ut it m ay be questioned whether in the W est they had the influence attributed to them by G rotz. 20On the question o f the im position o f hands in the rite o f recon­ ciliation, cf. J. Coppens: L' im position des m ains e t les rites connexes dans le N .T . et dans l'Eglise ancienne, W etteren, 1925, pp. 387-92; B. Poschm ann: D ie Busse, pp. 61-4. 21This form o f confession was ordained by e.g. Pachom ius, St Basil, Cassian and St Benedict for their m onks. 22Cf. B. Poschm ann: D ie abendländische Kirchenbusse im frühen M ittela lter, Breslau, 1930; P. A nciaux: op. cit., p. 7-55. 23A typical exam ple o f an etym ological explanation often quoted during this period is taken from the E tym ologiarum L ibri, V I, 19, 71 o f Isidore: “A punitione poenitentia nom en accepit, quasi punitentia, dum ipse h om o punit poenitendo, quod m ale adm isit; nam nihil aliud agit quem veraciter poenitet, nisi ut id quod m ale fecerit, im punit esse n on sinat.” This sam e definition m ay be found in the little w ork w hich was circulated under the nam e o f St A ugustine from the eleventh century and w hich had considerable influence on the early scholastic writers: D e vera e t fa lsa poenitentia c. 19. (P.L . 40, 1128). 24The necessity for confession as an avow al o f sins to the priest was the subject o f theoretical discussions. C anon 33 o f the synod o f C hâlons (813) is an exam ple o f such discussions. T he text o f this canon is given by Burchard o f W orms (f 1025) with his ow n interpolations to m eet the controversies o f his time. H ere is the original text with Burchard’s additions: “ Q uidam dicunt D e o solum m odo confiteri debere peccata (ut Graeci), quidam vero sacerdotibus confitenda esse percensent (ut tota sancta Ecclesia); quod utrum que n on sine m agno fructu intra sanctam fit Ecclesiam ; ita dum taxat ut et D e o , qui rem issor est peccatorum , confiteamur peccata nostra et cum D a v id dicamus: D elictu m meum cognitum tibi feci, etc. (et h oc perfectorum est). E t secundum apostoli institutionem (sed tarnen ap ostoli institutio n obis sequenda est) confiteamur alterutrum peccata nostra et orem us p ro invicem ut salvemur. C onfessio itaque, quae D e o fit (quod justorum est) purgat peccata; ea vero quae sacerdoti fit, docet qualiter ipsa purgantur peccata. D e u s nam que, salutis et sanitatis auctor et largitor, plerum que hanc praebet suae potentiae invisibili adm inistratione, plerum que m edicorum operatione.” 2BA text o f the eleventh century sums up this traditional idea: D e vera e t fa lsa poenitentia, c. 10 (P.L ., 40. 1122) “ Erubescentia enim ipsa

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partem habet rem issionis: ex m isericordia enim h oc praecepit D om in u s, ut nem inem poeniteret in occulto. In h oc enim quod per seipsum dicit sacerdoti, et erubescentiam vincit tim ore D e i offensi, fit venia crim inis: fit enim per confessionem veniale, quod com m iserat m ortale. M ultum enim satisfactionis obtulit, qui erubescentiae dom inans, nichil eorum quae com m isit, nuntio D ei denegavit . . . Laborat enim m ens patiendo erubescentiam . Et quoniam verecundia m agna est poena, qui erubescit pro Christo, fit dignus misericordia. U nde patet quod quanto pluribus confitebitur in spe veniae turpitudinem crim inis, tanto facilius consequetur gratiam rem issionis” . This text, circulated under St A ugustine’s nam e, contains m any ideas to be found in the Fathers. 26A t the end o f the twelfth century writers distinguished three form s o f penance for grave sins: solem n penance which can only be received once and is im posed for very grave sins; public penance, im posed for public offences; and private penance. Cf. P. Anciaux: op. cit., pp. 370-73. 27Cf. J. Jungmann: D ie lateinischen Bussriten in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Innsbruck, 1932. 28 See appendix at the end o f this b ook , pp. 166-81.

C H A P T E R III

The Nature and Structure o f the Sacrament oj Penance In the light of this development of ecclesiastical penance in the Latin Church, the theological description of the nature and structure of the sacrament acquires its full significance.1 If Christian penance is to be genuinely redemptive and an effective remedy for sin, it must be sustained by faith in Christ and orientated to the Church. In short, it must be sacramental. 1. The existence o f the sacrament o f penance and its institution by Christ Penance is one of the seven sacraments of the economy of salvation in Christ. This dogmatic definition2 is a reflection of the Church’s corporate life. As we have seen, the sinner’s reconciliation with God is achieved through ecclesiastical penance and reconciliation with the Church. The meeting between the prodigal son, seeking forgiveness, and the love of the Father who is calling him, takes place in a visible action, an effective symbol, within the Church. This meeting between God and the sinner, which is effected by and in the Church, forms what is called the “sacrament” of penance. A man is brought under the active influence of the Redemp­ tion and given a real share in it by baptism. Similarly, he obtains God’s forgiveness, the remission of sins, by ecclesias74

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tical penance. Hence, throughout tradition, it has been considered to be a second baptism, a second plank of salvation. Like baptism, penance is a sacrament, an action which expresses and accomplishes some reality of divine grace. Its sacramentality is based on the fact that the sinner’s reconciliation with God presupposes the intervention of the Church which confirms, sanctions and hallows his penance. It connects his expiation visibly and effectively with Christ’s Passion, having as its purpose the destruction of his sin and the re-establishment or strengthening of his life-giving union with God. This sacramentality principally depends upon the effective power of the mysteries of Christ by which men are saved. We come into contact with these mysteries in the actions of the living Church, the environment of salvation. The Church is the institution and the community of salvation, the con­ tinuation of Christ’s redemptive work. Its mission is to lead men to holiness, that is, to enable them to participate in the divine life, to direct and ensure the growth of that life in them. As an institution of salvation it is the meeting place between Christ and men. It gives certainty and security to the founda­ tions of the community of believers in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Through faith and the sacraments, under the direction of the hierarchy, men are united to Christ so that they can take their part in the mystery of his Death and Resurrection, and thus build up his Body. Towards sinners, the Church has a special mission. A man’s initial conversion is ratified by the Church in baptism. After a mortal sin his penance must be sustained and hallowed by the Church in order that he may regain communion with Christ and obtain forgiveness in the gift of the Holy Spirit. For all Christians, the Church is a help and a support in their efforts towards total freedom from sin. In union with

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the Church, they will produce in themselves that death to sin, begun in baptism, so that they may more thoroughly live for God in union with Christ among the community of believers. In the person of the apostles, the Church received from Christ the power to reconcile the sinner with God. By the action of the hierarchy, by the penance it imposes and the absolution it grants, the conversion of a sinner who has sub­ mitted to the Church is completed and hallowed. Thus penance is a means of salvation, a sign and a source of grace; it is a sacrament of Christ in his Church. The pastoral power —the authority to impose penance and grant absolution—is here joined to the power of “order”, thanks to which these acts of the Church become deeds that sanctify. In the ministry of penance the two powers are closely connected. The ques­ tion at issue is that of expiation to destroy sin. Ecclesiastical penance is a work of redemptive “satisfaction” in Christ. Reconciliation with the Church is a sign of reconciliation with God, a sign that effects what it signifies.3 In Scripture, the evangelists bear witness to this delegation of power to the apostles by Christ. It is in Christ’s name that they bind and loose on earth; their judgement is confirmed by God (Matt. 18. 18). The Church’s intervention is sanctioned by God. This power of the keys was entrusted in a special manner to Peter, the prince of the apostles (Matt. 16. 19). St John describes how Christ, after his resurrection, unmistakeably affirmed the life-giving mission of the Church expressed through its hierarchy: “I came upon an errand from my Father and now I am sending you out in my turn. With that, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit: when you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven,when you hold them bound, they are held bound.” (John 20,22-23). By these words, Christ declared the Church’s mission in one of its most striking aspects: the remission of sins.

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Ecclesiastical penance is a sacrament because of its relation* ship with Christ, who is the surety for its practical result. It is rooted in the effective power of Christ’s redemptive work, and it expresses and makes present the powers received by the Church from him to carry on and complete that work. Penance is indeed a sacrament of Christ. When the apostles preached penance, they were conscious that they were doing his will (Luke 24, 46-49). They expressed their faith in Christ not only when they granted remission of sins by baptizing, but also when they removed sinners from the community, in his name and for their salvation, as did St Paul in the Church of the Corinthians (I Cor., 5). And this apostolic conviction has been echoed throughout the Church’s history. The Church imposes the actio poenitentiae and grants reconcilia­ tion in virtue of the powers it has received from Christ. Sub­ mission to the Church is the sole guarantee of union with God in the Spirit. Peace with the Church is the pledge of communion in the divine life. This essential and constitutive relationship between ecclesiastical penance and Christ is the source of its sacramentality. When the Church proclaims that Christ instituted this sacrament, it is expressing its faith in the practical power of his Passion which men experience through the actions of the Church. It is saying that penance depends on Christ for its meaning and efficacy. How did the external rites of this sacrament originate? As with most of the sacraments, it is a question of certain human actions whose religious significance belongs to human nature.4 In every religion and among all races, rites and actions are found that represent an attempt of sinful mankind to express its repentance and to obtain forgiveness. To do penance, to expiate sin, to make confession to God or man— every religion has some symbolic way of expressing these purposes. These religiously significant actions, as practised by

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the Jews in apostolic times, were taken over by the Church. Christ himself alluded to these Jewish customs when he established the mission and power of the apostles with regard to sinners. When he said to them: “If he will not listen to the church then count him all one with the heathen and the publican” (Matt. 18, 17), he was undoubtedly referring to such customs.5 It follows that the external rites adopted by the Church in this sacrament not only correspond to the providential pre­ paration of actions and symbols rooted in human nature, but also to Christ’s own will, giving his apostles authority and a special mission towards sinners. There is only an imperfect and analogous resemblance between the rites of ecclesiastical penance and previous practices. The real meaning and fundamental efficacy of these actions of the Church depend on Christ. In the Church they are sacramental actions, that is, endowed with the power of Christ’s Passion, and vivified by the Spirit. And this divine power acts through the Church in order to bring to its fruition the inner summons to a converted life. 2. The nature o f the sacrament o f penance In continuity with tradition, the definitions of the Council of Trent declare this sacrament to be a judgement, a tribunal.6 The repentant sinner asks for pardon and submits to penance. The absolution given by the priest is not just a declaration of pardon but an act of reconciliation, made with full power, in the name of the Church and of Christ. The meaning and content of these expressions are not to be deduced a priori, beginning with some theoretical definition of what constitutes a judgement or a tribunal. The contrary is true. The use and meaning of these formulas are to be explained in the light of the development of penance.

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Theology uses these technical terms in order to mark two essential aspects of the sacrament: the particular form in which the Church intervenes and the meaning and location of the sinner’s personal effort within the sacramental reality. Ecclesiastical penance has, in fact, always taken a judicial form. It presupposes a judgement of the repentant sinner who wants to expiate his sins. It requires the intervention of the holder of the keys. It is to him that the sinner must submit in order to obtain divine pardon. The Church’s minister must impose a work of redemptive satisfaction. He has to judge not only the sin but the repentance and the penance. The reception of the sinner’s confession presupposes a judicial power, an authoritative mission, a power of jurisdiction. Through this judicial process the sinner gains reconciliation with the Church and pardon for his sins. The Church is the community of salvation, its actions sanctify and impart grace. Penance and its immediate result, reconciliation with the Church, are sacramental; what they achieve is divinely effective. Through the judicial action of the priest who grants reconciliation with the Church, the sinner is led to recon­ ciliation with God. The Church’s action, the giving of pen­ ance and of absolution, is a sacrament of forgiveness and of reconciliation with God. In ecclesiastical penance, the two powers entrusted by Christ to his apostles are essentially united. If we want to express the nature of the sacrament accurately we must keep in mind this twofold aspect of the Church’s action. Ecclesiastical penance is both judgement and pardon. It is condemnation and expiation. Through both of these together, the sinner is led to reconciliation. Ecclesiastical penance is thus absolution and liberation, restitution of friendship with God by means of the restoration of com­ munion in Christ. But this reconciliation with God in Christ

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is the result of the actio poenitentiae, of the expiation imposed and hallowed by the Church. In our time, it is confession that forms the chief “penance” imposed by the Church on the sinner. The work of satisfaction indicated by the priest is its complement of expiation, and this often takes the form of what may be truly called an “indulgence” . Hence it is in­ complete to define penance as “the sacrament of friendship”, or to restrict the priest’s function to that of acquittal.7 These definitions, because incomplete, threaten to falsify the entire outlook on this sacrament, for they neglect its essence. Of course, like every sacrament, penance is a source of grace and an act of God’s love. But it is as penance that it is a source of grace; it remakes the relationship of love by means of a work of satisfaction, which is redemptive because it is expiation in union with Christ’s Passion. The essential place of personal effort to be made by the sinner in ecclesiastical penance is shown in the way in which penitential practice developed. And theological reflection on the nature of this sacrament emphasizes it further. In the early forms of ecclesiastical penance the significance and importance of the sinner’s actions were so evident that they even gave its name to this sacramental reality: actio poenitentiae. This expiation, inspired by sincere repentance and sustained by the action of the Church, leads the sinner to reconciliation with the Church and obtains pardon for his sins. The passages quoted from St Augustine and St Leo the Great clearly express the mind of the early Church. When, at a later date, the emphasis was put on confession, on avowal of sin to the priest, the same fundamental idea remained. The importance of confession lies in the fact that it forms an important part of expiation. Confession is a work of redemp­ tive satisfaction imposed by the Church on the repentant sinner. .

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At the time when theology was making more explicit the function and meaning of the priest’s action, St Thomas and his school strenuously upheld the necessity for personal effort as forming a part of the sacrament. Tradition has constantly affirmed the need for the sinner’s penance and the part it plays in the sacrament. In any case, it is a fundamental law of the economy of salvation that the justification of a con­ scious and free man presupposes personal commitment and free consent. This law has a special verification in each sacra­ ment. In penance, as in marriage, the personal contribution is a constitutive part of the sacrament. Without free and conscious participation by man in both these matters, no sacrament exists. The sacrament of penance, by which a man obtains justi­ fication and is reconciled with God, is distinguished from that of baptism by the fact that this justification demands expiation. Penance is a baptismus laboriosus, a grievous and painful baptism, as tradition affirms.8 In baptism a man is united to Christ’s Passion by a sign of faith in the efficacy of his Death and Resurrection. But in penance, St Thomas says, a man is joined to the Passion by really sharing in Christ’s sufferings.9 The repentant sinner obtains the fruits of Christ’s Passion inasmuch as he shares in it by expiating his sins under the guidance and with the help of the Church. This participation in Christ’s sufferings is sacramental: it must take place within the Church if it is to be fully effective. Christ’s redemptive work operates fully in man only in and through the Church. By his Passion and Death Christ accepted God’s judgement on sinful mankind; his Resur­ rection produced liberation from sin and victory over it. The repentant sinner’s expiation, carried out under the guidance of the Church—his confession and satisfaction—makes the judgement and condemnation of sin effectively present.

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Absolution and reconciliation with the Church express sacramental liberation and the destruction of sin.10 The repentant sinner is saved by the power of Christ’s Passion to the extent in which he achieves a likeness to this mystery within his own person by accepting penance under the guidance and with the help of the Church. This parti­ cipation in Christ’s Passion is real and sacramental because it is sustained and guaranteed by the Church. For it is through the Church that Christ’s redemptive actions come to us. The sinner’s repentance, his sincere submission to ecclesiastical penance make the personal contribution required from him as an essential element of the sacrament. When a man takes part in the sacrament of penance, it is truly an act of self-condemnation, a painful detachment from sin, a work of expiation in order to be healed. Thus the sacrament of penance is a judgement, an expiation, an absolution and a pardon. Its real nature is as authentically expressed in the action of the penitent as in that of the priest. It is the meeting between the penitent sinner and his Saviour Christ through the performance of ecclesiastical penance. Penance works for the destruction of sin: it is a condemnation and an expiation whose aim is liberation and reconciliation. We shall see the importance of retaining this essential meaning of the sacrament. Only with this in mind can the sense and bearing of both the penitent’s and the Church’s actions be understood. It can now be seen why the sincere intention of submitting to ecclesiastical penance is indispensable not only for perfect contrition but for all genuine contrition. “There can be no real contrition,” says St Thomas, “without the intention of confessing.” 11 There can be no reconciliation with God without the intention of doing penance, that is, in present circumstances, without submitting to the ecclesiastical

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penance of confession. All perfect contrition is the starting point for a sacramental reality; it has an inner dynamism moving it to be hallowed by the Church. The need for inward penance to be expressed externally is based on the general laws of the economy of salvation in which the condition of sinful mankind is included. The personal decision to be con­ verted is settled and sealed, completed and hallowed by its externalization in a reality within the Church, in a sacra­ mental action. 3. The structure o f the sacrament o f penance In order to understand its structure and the meaning of the terms “matter” and “form” as applied to it, we must be sure we have grasped its real nature. In addition, care must be taken to distinguish the problems which arise about the essential structure of the sacramental reality, from those concerning the sacramental sign (sacramentum tantum). In each of these the terms matter and form have different meanings. The external rite is sacramental inasmuch as it expresses the sacramental reality which it signifies and makes present. The composition of the rite expresses the structure of the sacramental reality itself. The sacramental reality of ecclesiastical penance is the collaboration between the Church and the sinner with the aim of destroying sin, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and by virtue of the powers entrusted to the Church by Christ. It therefore presupposes the sinner’s participation and the priest’s action in the name of the Church and of Christ. The actions of the penitent are taken up and hallowed by the priest’s action so as to make up an effective penance, reconciling the sinner with the Church and God. These actions are like the substratum, the material principle (sicut materia) of the sacramental reality. Through the intervention

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of the priest, the Church’s minister acting in Christ’s name, they are hallowed. And that is the reason why the priest’s action is considered to be the formal element in ecclesiastical penance.12 The totality of the actio poenitentiae is the sacrament of the remission of sins, that is, the providential means, the instru­ mental cause, through which the grace of Christ is made present in the sinner. It is in this sense that the texts of St Thomas, which have been more or less literally adopted by the Church’s Magisterium, must be understood. “In this sacrament, the acts of the penitent take the place of the matter, and those of the priest acting as Christ’s minister play the part of the formal principle that completes the sacrament (ut formale et completivum sacramenti).”13 Every sacrament produces its effect not only through its formal element, but also through its matter, the two elements together making only one sacramental reality... . The remission of sin is the effect of penance chiefly through the power of the keys belonging to the ministers, since it is through them that the formal element of this sacrament comes into being. In the second place, this remission is the effect of the penitent’s actions. These latter arise from the virtue of penance, but have a special reference to the Church.14 The sinner’s conversion, made concrete in external penance under the guidance of the Church, initiates the sacramental reality as soon as it turns towards the Church through the intention of submitting to ecclesiastical penance. In this sense contrition forms part of the sacrament; in fact, its principal part.15 The liturgical rite, the sacramental action, expresses the essential structure of the sacrament. Like every sacramental rite, it is made up of certain things done (elementum) and of

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words (verbum), whose essential meaning, coming from Christ, remains unchangeable in the Church. The things done may change, the words may be altered as the centuries pass, but their inner meaning, the reality of divine grace which they express and make present, never alters. This “substance” (the essential meaning) of the sacrament was, in fact, instituted by Christ, the source of sacramental grace and of the powers of the Church.16 The rite of ecclesiastical penance, which expresses the sacramental reality, includes the words and actions of both the sinner and the priest. “In penance there is an element which is the outer sign only (sacramentum tantum), and this element consists of the external actions of the sinner and of the priest who grants absolution.” 17 In the course of the historical development of penitential discipline, its rites have altered. In the first period the actio poenitentiae clearly expressed the sinner’s submission to the Church’s minister and the performance of more or less public expiation under the Church’s guidance. The intervention of the Church’s minister accompanied the various stages of this penance. It included several rites of blessing (imposition of hands) as well as various prayers of absolution. Nowadays the rite, the sacramental action, is usually confined to the sinner’s confession and the priest’s absolution.18 This rite, although simplified, is a clear expression both of the sinner’s sub­ mission to the penance imposed and of the Church’s inter­ vention through its minister. It includes deeds and words. The words said by the priest are called the forma of the sacrament, because they give a special expression of the hallowing of the penitent’s action. The materia of the sacra­ ment is not a thing, a material object; it is what the penitent does under the influence of divine grace. The priest’s action completes the things done in the sacrament, just as his inter­

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vention hallows the sinner's penance. “In the sacrament of penance, the actions of the penitent, motivated by an in­ spiration within him, take the place of ‘matter’. Therefore it is not the minister, but God by his interior action, who administers this ‘matter’. But the minister gives the sacrament its completion by granting absolution to the penitent.” 19 The form of the liturgical rite thus corresponds to the sacrament’s own essential structure. The unchanging centre of this rite is its special signifiying of divine grace through which this particular ecclesiastical action becomes, in truth, Christ’s sacramental remedy through and in the Church. Christ decided that the healing of the repentant sinner should be begun and completed by means of a liturgical action in which the Church would collaborate through both its minister and the sinner. When he gave his apostles the power of the keys for the remission of sins this settled the nature of the sacrament as a judgement for the purpose of reconciliation. But he left the Church to decide the external forms in which the sacrament should be expressed and presented. The con­ siderable development which these rites have undergone has left the unchanging central point of the sacrament intact. It remains the adequate and effective expression of the sacra­ mental reality which Christ instituted.

FO O TN O T E S TO C H A P T E R III H o com plete this theological account, the follow in g works m ay be consulted: V. Heylin: D e poenitentia, M echlin, 1946; E. D oron zo: D e poenitentia, IV voi., M ilw aukee, 1949-56; P. Galtier: D e poenitentia, R om e, 1950; M . Schmaus: Katholische D ogm atik, B k, IV, 1, M unich, 1952, pp. 417-549. 2Concilium Tridentinum, Sessio VII, can. I (D .B ., 844). 3Cf. B. Poschm ann: “D ie innere Struktur des B ussakram ent” , in

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M ünchner Theologischen Z eitschrift, I, 3, 1950, pp. 13-20; Cf. below , chap. VI. 4St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I ll, qu. 84, art. 7, corp. and ad. 2. 5Cf. P. Galtier: A ux origines du sacrem ent de pénitence, R om e, 1951; C. H . H unzinger: D ie Jüdische Bannpraxis im neutestamen fliehen Z eita lter, G ottin gen (unpublished thesis), 1955. 6Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 2 and 6, can. 9 (D .B ., 8 9 5,902 and 919). 7A s is done for exam ple by P. Charles: “D octrin e et pastorale du sacrem ent de p énitence” , in Νοιιν. Rev. Théol., 1953, pp. 449-70;P. M ellet: L a pénitence sacrem ent d ’am itié (C oll. Etudes R eligieuses), B russels, 1953. 8“ U t merito poenitentia laboriosus quidam baptism us a sanctis Patribus dictus fuerit” Cone. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 2 (D .B ., 895). 9St Thom as: Sum. Theol., III, qu. 49, art. 3, ad. 2; Summa contra Gentiles, IV, c. 72. 10Cf. especially: M. Schmaus: “ R eich G ottes und B ussakram ent” , in M ünchner Theol. Z eitsh crift, I, 1, 1950, pp. 20-36. This brings ou t the particular aspect o f the eschatological significance o f the sacrament o f penance. 41St Thom as: Comm. in IV S e n t., D . 17, 2. 5. 2 ad. I; 3. 1. 4; 3. 5. 1; Quodl. IV, 10. D e fo rm a absolutionis; in M att. 16. 2; In John 11, 6, 6. 12In this respect the distinction betw een “m ateria” and “form a” concerns the philosophical problem relating to the essential structure o f the sacrament. Cf. H . Schillebeeckx: D e sacram ent eie heilseconomie, A ntw erp, 1952, pp. 355-91. 13St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I ll, qu. 84, art. 7; D ecretum p ro Arm enis (D .B ., 699); Cone. Trid., Sess X IV , cap. 3 (D .B ., 896). 14St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I ll, qu. 86, art. 6. 15C ontrition belongs to sacramental penance inasm uch as it is directed towards confession. In this sense its efficacy m ay be said to be sacramental. B ut it only becom es w holly sacramental through and in practical subm ission to the power o f the keys. Cf. below, chapter VI. 16On this, cf. H . Schillebeeckx: op. cit., pp. 393-454. 17St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I ll, qu. 84, art. 1, ad. 3. 18A part from exceptional cases, allow ed for in canon law. O nly the com plete rite fully expresses what sacramental penance signifies. A nd w hen th eology works out the doctrine o f the sacram ent it is from this rite that it should start. 19St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I ll, qu. 84, art. 1, ad. 2.

CHAPTER IV

Interior Penance The historical development of penitential discipline and the nature of the sacrament make it clear that, if a Christian’s penance is to be successful and result in reconciliation with God, it must be taken up and hallowed by an action of the Church. Ecclesiastical or sacramental penance presupposes collaboration between the repentant sinner and the Church through its hierarchy, with the aim of destroying the sin. The remission of sins is the work of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit; under the present circumstances of the economy of salvation it can be fully attained only in an action of the Church. This action is an instrument of salvation, a means of grace, in short, a sacrament. In order to give further definition to this sacrament a description is needed of its constitutive elements and its characteristic aspects. To keep in line with the traditional theological treatment of the subject we shall study, in succes­ sion, interior and external penance. Starting with the sinner’s initiative, that self-condemnation about which the Fathers speak, we shall lead up to the externalization of repentance in expiation under the guidance of the Church. External penance hallowed by the priest leads to the sinner’s complete reconciliation with the Church and God. The study of interior penance or contrition raises numerous 88

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problems both theological and psychological. Unfortunately these problems have not always been properly distinguished. This has produced pseudo-problems, and theology has more than once been diverted into an impasse. On the one hand, for example, oh several occasions, problems regarding the description of justification have not been clearly distinguished from those relating to the means of obtaining it. On the other hand, as the result of an erroneous and incomplete concep­ tion of the sacramentality of penance, the problem of interior penance has at times been stated inaccurately and in a false context. This was the case with the early masters of scholast­ icism; and it is still the case with numerous theologians who, following Duns Scotus, distinguish between two ways of justification—that of sufficient repentance and that of the sacrament of penance. It is not surprising that from such a position the problem of the distinction between contrition and attrition should have led to the endless and fruitless quarrels between “contritionists” and “attritionists” . Matters were made worse by the only too frequent neglect of the important development which these two terms have under­ gone during the history of theology. We have pointed out the limits within which the comple­ mentary elements of penance, made manifest in the Church’s penitential discipline, must be studied. They were formulated clearly by St Thomas. The Council of Trent took no definite line with regard to the quarrels among the theological schools. Nevertheless, the basic positions of Thomist theology— repeatedly put forward in documents of the Magisterium—■ alone enable all the aspects of penance to be accounted for. Any distinction between two ways of justification, any dis­ association between repentance and sacramental penance, gives a false aspect to the whole question and leads to insoluble problems.

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This study of interior penance will therefore be made in the context of the teaching of St Thomas. In an attempt to describe the process of conversion leading to the destruction of sin, the various elements and aspects of contrition will be noted.1 St Thomas’s chief concern is, of course, theological. But he does not neglect the psychological issues which arise in the study of contrition. Several writers in our time have dealt with the psychology of repentance, and we shall use their results in order to complete the description of contrition. 1. The contrition and justification o f the sinner Contrition is central to penance. It is an act of the virtue of penance and forms part of the sacrament. For repentance, detestation of sin, is the central act of the virtue of penance and the basis of the sinner’s part in ecclesiastical penance. Without contrition, without repentance, there is no remission of sins. The Council of Trent makes this clear: “Contrition, which holds the first place among the penitent’s actions, is grief of soul and detestation of the sin committed, together with the resolve not to sin again in the future. This process of contrition has been necessary at all times for obtaining pardon from sin; it is precisely this that makes the baptized sinner fit to receive the remission of his sins, provided it is accompanied by trust in the divine mercy and a firm purpose of doing whatever is required for the proper reception of this sacrament (of penance).” 2 In order to understand the meaning of contrition it must be put back into the general context of the sinner’s justifica­ tion as that is, in fact, brought about in the present economy of salvation in Christ. Justification is a complex happening that includes both an action by God and a work done by man. These two activities are necessary in different ways and include various aspects.

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God’s action takes place in tlie sinner’s heart through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and is completed by the priest’s ministry in the name of Christ and the Church. The sinner’s part, also, is indispensable for justification; without the action of the human will, justification is impossible. In the thought of St Thomas—as his vocabulary shows—the sinner’s part is considered to be a “preparation” for the divine grace of remission of sins. This preparation implies a right dis­ position and a receptive attitude; but it does not necessarily precede justification; it can be simultaneous with it.3 The essential reason why human co-operation with the divine action is necessary springs precisely from the nature of justification. It is the acceptance of grace in the soul which converts the sinner, that is, changes the course along which his will is deeply channelled. Man’s will, being free, cannot be transformed without his co-operation and consent. The necessity for this human co-operation also becomes evident from a consideration of the position from which justification starts: the state of sin. The foundation of sin is an act of the will; it cannot therefore be eliminated without another freely performed act, without the will’s consent and an alteration in its course.4 The justification of a sinner, then, respects the nature of man. It presupposes his conversion, a re-direetion of his will, a fresh donation of his freedom. This preparation by the sinner, his co-operation, has a twofold aspect that arises from a consideration of either the goal of justification or its starting point: it is both conversion to God and detestation of sin. Faith and contrition are thus seen to be linked as the two complementary aspects of conversion, like the two poles of repentance. The sinner’s return implies in him an attitude of welcome, consent, trust, humility, hope. It is faith, in the Biblical sense, The movement of man towards God takes

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different forms and can be more or less explicit. When it is that of a sinner, it must always include detestation of sin and contrition of heart. The sinner’s return implies a detestation of sin as well as a desire for union with God. The destruction of sin is indispensable: it is the obstacle that separates a man from God. The sinner’s will must therefore be detached from his sin if he is to receive the grace of justification. These two aspects of the sinner’s part in his justification by the grace of God are essentially inter-connected. They form one and the same movement of the soul; they belong to the same conversion of the will when it alters its course by turn­ ing away from sin in order to adhere to God. We shall come back to this when dealing with the motive for repentance. The point to note here is that this human preparation acquires definition in its Christian context. The faith in question is faith in God who saves us through Christ; it is the glad acceptance of the mystery of Christ. Detestation of sin, repentance, must be directed to Christ’s Passion and brought in to living relationship with it through faith and the sacra­ ment. The sinner’s repentance must be sustained by faith and directed towards ecclesiastical penance. Real contrition, real detestation of sin must, therefore, necessarily involve the intention of submission to God’s will as it has been made manifest in Christ and the Church. Contrition presupposes the willingness to submit to ecclesiastical penance so that the sin may be destroyed. Hence the definition of contrition as the detestation of sin together with the firm purpose of con­ fessing and doing the work of satisfaction. Contritio est dolor voluntatis pro peccatis cum proposito confitendi et satisfaciendi.5 Confession and the satisfaction imposed by the priest are, in fact, the providential and Christian means for the destruction of sin. Real repentance, real contrition, cannot exist without this willingness to submit to the Church,

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without the firm purpose of confessing. Interior penance implies a willingness to do external penance in the Church; external penance—confession and satisfaction—is the ex­ pression of contrition and the way it becomes concretely real. “Perfect” contrition, in the thought of St Thomas, is primarily the repentance which accompanies justification. It is the human participation, the consent of human freedom to that justification which God effects in Christ. “Perfect” contrition is by that very fact effective contrition; it is, of course, repentance under the influence of justifying grace. Through this contrition sins are remitted. This provides the explanation of all the passages in which contrition is defined as “sorrow for sin, inspired by grace” . Sorrow for sin is contrition when it is sustained by grace. Repentance becomes “perfect” through justifying grace. In this sense, all contri­ tion, as opposed to “attrition”, is inspired by grace, is justifying. The same idea is expressed in another form: repentance is said to be contrition when it wipes out sin, and that amounts to saying that it is sustained by justifying grace.6 Charity, also, like grace, cannot be separated from “perfect” contrition. Ontologically, there is reciprocal dependence between contrition and charity. No contrition without charity. For it is charity, uniting man to God, that remits sins. In the third section of this chapter we shall dis­ cuss in what way this mutual dependency extends into the psychological sphere. At this point it must be noticed that contrition must have a motive on the same level as charity and that charity is bestowed on the sinner according to the intensity of his contrition, his hatred of sin. 2. Repentance and conversion Contrition is the part man takes in the destruction of sin through the grace of God in Christ. It is both preparation and

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consent; it is man’s collaboration in the divine action. It may be described either in its moment of completion in justifying conversion (St Thomas’s “perfect contrition”), or in its pro­ gress towards justification. The sinner’s conversion is the focal point of the call to repentance, central both to the message of the prophets and the gospel of Christ: God desires the sinner’s conversion in order that he may five.7 It is in a new and contrite heart that divine grace is received. f This conversion of the sinner—his repentance or contrition of heart—is the central act of penance, the condition of ' justification. St Thomas explains the etymology of the word contrition by contrasting it with that of attrition. The word contrition in its strict sense, refers to a material action. A body is said to be contritus when it has been reduced to tiny fragments, com­ pletely broken up and pulverized. But when it is described as attritus, then its destruction has not been complete. On account of a resemblance between a man’s spiritual conver­ sion and this transformation of matter, the word contrition is used to denote this spiritual change. The man who perseveres in sin is compared to a hard, rigid, inflexible body. The act which destroys sin, which breaks this rigidity, gets its name from the material transformation it resembles. Contrition is the action which destroys sin. And just as attrition denotes only an imperfect destruction of matter, so, in the spiritual order, it means only an imperfect detachment from sin.8 Definitions of contrition as humility of mind or heart recall the original meaning of the word. For just as pride, which makes the mind or heart hard and inflexible, is the origin of sin, so humility of heart detaches it from sin. Contrition in the spiritual realm denotes, therefore, the act of repentance in which sin is destroyed inasmuch as the hard­ ness of the will is broken. Contrition is sorrowing detestation

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of the sin committed. It is a spiritual sorrow, an attitude of the will·, not an emotion. It is a sorrow activated by a hatred of sin with the purpose of destroying it. The object of contri­ tion is sin, considered as a product of the will, able to be expiated. Its object, therefore, is not sin in general but sin considered as destructible through free co-operation with divine grace. It follows, therefore, that an act of contrition, since it concerns sin as rooted in the will, cannot properly have original sin as its object. If it considers sin as destruct­ ible by a fresh act of the will, through a free conversion, this is precisely because there can no be remission of sin without the action of the will and the new direction given to freedom. The voluntary abandonment of sin, the intention of destroy­ ing it, must pledge the future. Authentic conversion commits one’s freedom and turns away from the sin with its attach­ ments in the present, and guarantees the future. Contrition includes the purpose of sinning no more. Real penance necessitates this sincere commital. “It is essential that penance should make us detest our sins and resolve to improve our life—and this in a sense is its goal.”9 This general description of contrition is a summary of the essential data of tradition. It unites all the psychological aspects of interior penance. Contrition is penance; it punishes with spiritual grief the evil that has been done. It is a con­ version filled with sorrow. “It is not enough to alter one’s mode of life and to give up former sins. Satisfaction must be made to God for these sins by the painful work of penance, by humble prayer, by the sacrifice of a contrite heart.” These words of St Augustine were utilized by the scholastic masters.10 Theological tradition also kept in mind some phrases of St Gregory the Great: “To do penance is to weep over the wrong one has done and not to commit again what is now regretted. For to weep over some sins while continuing

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to commit others, is merely a show of penance, or else indicates a false idea of what it means.” 11 These various aspects of contrition12 are also dealt with by contemporary writers. Repentance essentially implies sorrow, real sorrow of the heart; it begins with remorse which underlies all moral and religious life. At the centre of remorse there lies an experience of grief, a heart-felt realiza­ tion of guilt. A man suifers on account of his sin because he sees it as rooted in his freedom and affecting its deepest values. If we are to reach a definition of this grief, it must be carefully distinguished from other attitudes, emotions or feelings. Remorse is distinguished from regret by the element of free­ dom it contains. It makes a man want to strike out that past for which he is responsible. It is more than a vague feeling of guilt;13 it is an active attitude towards a past that is felt to be present in the free acceptance of the will; it is a profound conflict of the will, a self-condemnation of that past to which it feels itself bound. It is sorrow in a different sphere from feeling; it is not just a matter of emotional dejection, although this may some­ times accompany remorse. It is a sorrow of the will; it is a personal, free, spiritual act of self-judgement and condemna­ tion. It sees the sin as closely bound up with freedom and tainting its spiritual value, and the sight brings suffering. The depth of evil is laid bare by the great pain of this admission. The description of repentance or contrition as a condemna­ tion, a judgement uttered by the tribunal of the mind is to be found in both ancient and modem writers.14 It is a traditional metaphor for the heart-ache and sorrow of repentance. Repentant sorrow is already on the way to a new life. Only that remorse which becomes repentance enters the realm and acquires the dignity of freedom. The very act of condemna­ tion commits the future by setting free from the past. Such

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grief is a rebirth; it contains both joy and hope. Heart­ breaking sorrow of this kind is heart’s-ease. It is the first step to a new order of things and initiates expiation. Self-con­ demnation makes the past present and destroys it by creating the future. Conversion, which is the very heart of repentance, is precisely this return over the past by freedom which breaks away from it after acknowledging it as its own. The past is in the present because it is rooted in the ego, still degrading the person. It is destroyed when the present is transformed by the rejection of sin in heartfelt sorrow. This, then, is the mysterious event we call conversion. It functions in the heart of man and it shows that he is free. The sorrow of repentance, the heart-break over sin, are the conditions for a new fife. Freedom, become rigid in evil, is liberated, and the hard heart softened. This conversion leads on to expiation which restores and re-establishes order. Amendment of the will is the indispensable condition for the destruction of sin and its effects. Conversion which makes a new man is one of the most striking images of human freedom. It is a spiritual pheno­ menon of the whole person, committing itself by its actions and endowing them with meaning and value. One of the aspects of the tragedy of modern man lies in the fact that having lost his sense of freedom he has in consequence lost his moral status. The real meaning of repentance is only to be seen in a religious and Christian context which bestows on human freedom its full significance at the same time revealing the true dimensions of sin as the refusal of the love of God in Christ. 3. Conversion and the “perfection” o f repentance Theologians and psychologists assert that “justifying” and authentic conversion is instantaneous. The action of re­

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directing the fundamental choice of the will takes place, as does the entry of justifying grace, in instanti.15 We may note at once that this instant cannot be grasped, that this moment is not subject to verification. It does not take place necessarily or entirely in the zone of consciousness. Neither the basic disposition of the will, nor the action of grace, nor the presence of charity, are, as such, matters of which we are aware. There are only “signs” of this conversion, which shows itself in attitudes and deeds. The reality and worth of conversion, the authenticity and depth of contrition, are revealed by their concrete results, in the way repentance is expressed by expiation, and a corrected will made manifest in an ordered life. This instantaneous conversion and justifying contrition is generally preceded by a more or less lengthy and conscious period of preparation. Repentance is begun as the result of various feelings or actions with regard to sin. The attitude to sin, the correction of the will, may pass through various stages before reaching authentic conversion and practical repentance. Theologians and psychologists are really recording this period when they try to define the motives for repentance and the intensity of the detestation of sin. These questions are necessarily complex, for they are in the domain of human freedom, the field in which free actions receive their motiva­ tion; a realm of mystery, by definition. The path of repent­ ance varies a great deal in individual cases, and there is no absolute way of deciding what the relationship is between the motivation and the free action. The relations between the perfection of the motive, the intensity of repentance and the authenticity of conversion are bound to be complex; they form part of the mystery of human freedom. The problems of the intensity of repentance, the sincerity of conversion, like those concerning the motives of contrition,

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must be examined from the point of view of the goal at which they are aiming, the destruction of the sin committed. If there is to be a genuine conversion, a practical re-direction of the personal will, then the correction of the will must be con­ cerned with the sin. as such. The various aspects of this process of conversion will now be examined in the light of St Thomas’s teaching. Repentance for sin, detestation of it, generally covers a more or less lengthy period of time. A sinner’s conversion may go through various stages before it becomes authentic and effective. According to St Thomas there are three stages in the sinner’s attitude to his sin: fictitious or non-existent contrition; attrition or insufficient contrition; full, total, and sufficient contrition. At first the sinner is not really repentant and does not hate his sin. He may regret it, he may confess it, but it is only the fear of punishment that moves him. At bottom., his will is not detached from his sin. With attrition, however, we reach a genuine form of repentance; it is im­ perfect; the penitent is not yet fully contrite; his contrition is not entirely sufficient; it must become perfect. Attrition does not produce a disposition ready for divine grace; the sorrow is not deep enough for contrition.16 It follows that there are two ways of considering contrition: either at its start, or when it reaches perfection. To begin with, it is the attitude of a sinner who thinks about his sin and regrets it, but his sorrow is attrition not contrition. It becomes perfect with the advent of grace and this presupposes that the sin is detested intensely. “Attrition and contrition differ as regards the intensity of sorrow and the presence of grace.” 17 These two aspects are mutually connected: “Not every act of the will is a sufficient preparation for grace, nor every kind of sorrow sufficient for the remission of sins.” 18 Thus the terms attrition and contri­ tion have retained in the spiritual domain the meaning they

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had in the material domain: attrition denotes imperfect, con­ trition perfect destruction. How does St Thomas define perfect repentance and intense contrition? He asks, first of all, what originates detestation of sin. Repentance may be initiated by several different feelings or passions. In this matter no certain and universal conclusion can be drawn. Usually a man’s repentance begins with fear, although sometimes with love. In fact these two feelings are involved in the repulse of evil and the quest for good. Fear first; punishment, hell, the last judgement, these, at the start, make a man run from sin. Hence the saying in Ecclesiastes: fear is the beginning of wisdom. A man who refrains from sin because he is afraid is not yet “righteous” but that is the way in which justification begins. There are indeed different kinds of fear, just as there are different kinds of love. Each of them may play a part in the process of conversion but they do not all lead to genuine repentance. In the view of St Thomas, that begins the moment the sinner detests his sin, that is, when the will begins to detach itself from the sin. So long as the sinner is controlled by fear of punishment, that is, by servile fear, he still lacks real repentance. But it may initiate such repentance: it may be considered as the origin or principle of the sorrow of attrition; it may be sounding the first notes of repentance.19 What, then, is required for real repentance? St Thomas deduces its motive from its goal. When repentance is genuine the sinner regrets and detests his sin more because it offends God than because it hurts himself. Real repentance is char­ acterized by regret for sin as being in opposition to God. The goal aimed at in detesting it is reconciliation with God. This is the reason why the sinner must detest his sin as an offence against God.20 Does this mean that repentance must be inspired by love? On this point St Thomas’s teaching is very

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carefully qualified. According to him, it is sufficient if the sinner detests his sin as intrinsically evil, as an “injustice” to be set right. He must sincerely want to be reconciled with God. But it is a minor matter whether he is moved by con­ scious love of God or by hatred of the sin. The two attitudes are only the two sides of a single tendency of the will detach­ ing itself from sin. To detest sin precisely because it is sin, to get away from it because it is unjust and intrinsically evil is a sufficient motive for effective repentance, for contrition. For to detest sin belongs to the same order of charity as the direct love of God.21 It is necessary to stress the importance of this fine of approach to the definition of true repentance and authentic conversion. In a certain way we meet it again in psychological descriptions of repentance in modem writers. The way to repentance must be made ready by shame, regret, fear. It only becomes moral and effective repentance when it faces the sin, deep-seated in the personality, and resolves to reject it. Thus the goal of repentance determines its motive, in the same way as the motive conditions the value of the act of repentance. Recent psychology has shown how complex is the motivation of human actions.22 The motive is not the “cause” of the free act, it emerges from the free act itself. It is when freedom commits itself that the motive becomes clear. If repentance is to be effective and conversion authentic, then the will must reject the sin, condemn it and depart from it. However com­ plex the preparation for repentance and the path to conver­ sion may be, however mingled and often indiscernible the pressures and solicitations to it, repentance and conversion only become real when the will rejects the sin having first admitted its existence and condemned it. By this freely performed correction, the will rejects the sin as such; it gets at its root. But when it does this, it provides the motive; it

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endows it with its effective character. And this brings us to the final aspect of efficacious penance, as described by St Thomas. It is not the motive as such which determines either the value of repentance or the “perfection” of contrition. It is a quality belonging to the act of the will; its intensity, its depth, its authenticity. As has been observed above, if grief is to be inspired by grace it must reach a certain intensity. St Thomas deals formally with the question of the intensity required for contrition in two passages. “If sorrow is to conclude in contri­ tion, then the unhappiness of being separated from God must be greater than any happiness hitherto experienced in any temporal reality.” 23 It is essential to realize what sort of sorrow is in question: Contrition comprises two kinds of sorrow: a sorrow of the mind which is the detestation of the sin committed, and this can be so slight as to be insufficient for contrition, if, for example, sin is less bitter to a man than separation from his last end, just as love may be so trifling as to be insufficient for charity. The second kind of sorrow is that experienced in the senses and an insufficiency of this kind does not affect contrition because it is not essentially bound up with it.24 It is precisely because sin severs us from our last end, God, that it should grieve us more than any other thing. So that repentance is only effective and conversion authentic when the sinner rejects the sin with his whole personality, when he reverses his fundamental decision. Sorrow of mind is sufficient when it envisages the sin as intrinsically evil with such intensity that it breaks loose from it. The practicality of repentance, the genuineness of conversion, the “perfection” of contrition, take place in the depths of the soul where the basic “projection” of freedom is decided. It involves in the

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fullest sense of the word, a real conversion of the heart, an effective re-orientation of freedom. And this intensity of sorrow, this authenticity of conversion, can be such that it leads to a renewal of the whole person, a “perfect” and entirely effective re-orientation of all his activity. The sorrow of contrition, says St Thomas, may be so intense that it destroys not the sin only but also all its injurious results.25 In other words, the re-orientation of the will may be so thorough and profound that its repercussion transforms every tendency in a man and clears him completely from sin. In that case there will be no further obstacle to the acceptance and radiation of grace and charity received with such fervour. Grace can then find expression in “perfect” charity towards God, animating human dynamism in its entirety. Conversion has been achieved, contrition made perfect from every point of view, both in the fundamental orientation of the will and in tendencies and actions. As a rule however, this total trans­ formation of a man, his complete liberation from sin, pre­ supposes a slow and painful realization of the inner conver­ sion by penance and asceticism and by prolonged and persevering effort by taking part in the life of the Church. In concluding this psychological description of repent­ ance, we must remind readers that genuine conversion and perfect repentance are not intrinsically evident to the mind. According to St Thomas, while it is easy to estimate the degree of intensity required in sorrow for sin, it is exceedingly difficult to decide, in a given case, whether the penitent has attained the necessary disposition. It can be asserted, indeed, that it is impossible to know with certainty that one is contrite, not only because it is impossible to know whether one is in a state of grace, but because in any case measure­ ments in the sphere of our inner dispositions are difficult to make. This uncertainty provides St Thomas with an argument

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for the necessity of confession.26 As we shall show later, it is through the expression of repentance in external penance, by the sinner’s submission to ecclesiastical penance, that con­ version is completed. This explains why, in St Thomas’s view, both penitent and priest must be satisfied with certain “signs” of contrition and of authentic repentance. These signs are related, not to the motive, but to the sincerity and intensity of the detestation. The willingness to submit sincerely to ecclesiastical penance is an indispensable element and an important indication of the truth of repentance. In our final chapter we shall explain how ecclesiastical penance leads the sinner, who is as yet only in the state of attrition, to real contrition. By “perfect” contrition, we understand efficacious repent­ ance inspired by justifying grace and accompanied by the virtue of charity. It includes a sufficient detestation of sin as intrinsically evil or as an offence against God. In this way it is perfect both ontologically (the presence of grace and charity) and psychologically. Attrition is the sinner’s road to contrition. It is genuine repentance, genuine hatred of sin. But there is an ontological and psychological difference between it and contrition. When, however, the moment comes that grace is accepted, the psychological difference ceases. This grace, acting through charity, is dynamic; it leads repentance to its plenitude, it makes conversion so thoroughly effective that it affects even man’s various tendencies and liberates him entirely from the results that sin has left behind. Conversion, like perfect contrition, must develop into total penance, so that all traces of sin may be exterminated, so that a man may die to sin.

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4. Some aspects o f the development o f the terms “attrition” and “contrition” The term “attrition” only appears as a technical expression in theological treatises at the end of the twelfth century. The Fathers of the Church in their pastoral exhortations did indeed describe the approaches to repentance and the stages of conversion. They were aware that the fervour of conversion and the intensity of compunction may be greater or less. But they did not really raise the problem of the amount of repent­ ance required for grace. Stated in these terms it belongs to the days of the Scholastic theologians. The Fathers demanded that repentance should be sincere and compunction of heart genuine; the sinner should be determined to sin no more. In their commentaries on the prophets they observed that God alone can remit sins, granted compunction in the heart. A contrite heart wins forgiveness. Similarly, they emphasize that pardon for serious sins can only be completely and certainly secured through the actio poenitentiae, under the guidance of the Church. Reconciliation with the Church is the pledge and the guarantee of divine pardon; the remedial action that certainly secures it. As we saw in the passages from St Augustine and St Leo the Great, there is an essential relationship between compunction and the actio poenitentiae. When the sinner takes the initiative to accept ecclesiastical penance, he is performing an act of self-condemnation. Penance under the Church’s guidance is the expression of compunction: it is expiation and a restoration of the dis­ rupted order of things. In many passages it is also emphasized that account must be taken of the penitent’s disposition in order to decide how long the penance shall last. These Patristic statements, which occur in the Penitentials and collections of canons, observe that the bishop should measure

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the penance according to the fervour and intensity of com­ punction.27The very form of canonical penance illustrates the essential unity between penance and its ecclesiastical aspect. In the course of the development of ecclesiastical penance these two aspects became obscured and passed into the back­ ground of theological thought. At the end of the eleventh century certain canonists, Bonizo of Sutri, Ivo of Chartres, raised the problem: why should a penance be imposed on sinners to whom God has already granted pardon because of their contrite hearts? This is the answer they gave: the Church can judge external acts only; God alone can scrutinize the heart. This is the reason why the Church has to impose an external penance which will be the sign (sacramentimi) of interior penance. Submission to the Church and the performance of the “satisfaction” imposed are both the result and the expression of true repentance. This answer, however, although it accounts for one aspect of external penance, is incomplete. The profound and essential bond between interior and external penance is neither observed nor stated. The early scholastic masters began with the problem at this stage and produced a similar solution. The sacramental dimension of penance was not really marked out.28 The influence of Abelard was considerable in this problem of the relation between contrition and external penance. His was a voluntarist conception of sin, reducing it to interior consent alone. Remission of sin followed contrition of heart which destroyed the consent previously given to the sin. External penance was necessary only as regards the remission of the temporal blemishes which the sin had produced. This hypothesis weighed heavily on all attempts at the solution of the problem throughout the twelfth century. Matters had to wait until the thirteenth century masters cleared it up.

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As for the problem which concerns us here—the distinction between imperfect repentance and perfect contrition—that was not discussed as such. Of course, some relevant points may be gleaned out of the multitude of theological discussions of the period.2? For example, a principle fundamental to the problem is that contrition is essentially bound up with charity. Abelard links contrition of heart, which pardons sin, with the love of God. He rejects fear as a sufficient motive for repentance. Two theologians in the middle of the century mention the following relevant idea: external penance may sometimes bring to completion a repentance which up to then has only been slight; confession sometimes makes contrition more perfect.30 The ecclesiastical aspect of external penance is only incidentally discussed by some writers who de­ scribe confession as a form of “satisfaction” made to the Church.31 At the end of the century the term “attrition” made its appearance in the theological treatise on the sacrament of penance. Its meaning quickly developed on logical lines, in the sense that the different aspects of it which the various writers dwell on are complementary. Those who first used the term understood it to denote a clearly defined part of contri­ tion. For contrition includes sorrow for sin, the decision to confess it, and the decision to sin no more. Attrition is heart­ felt for sin. By definition, then, it is incomplete repentance; it does not suffice for the remission of sin and it must be accompanied by a resolve to confess and to sin no more.32 Two authors of the same school add a fresh element: Alan of Lille presupposes a certain intensity of sorrow; contrition is “sufficient attrition” . Raoul PArdent considers attrition as a kind of sorrow, a form of expiation which is imposed, whereas contrition is sorrow freely accepted in expiation. Further precisions were added: contrition is sorrow which is sufficient

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for all grave sins when it is united with the resolve to confess and to sin no more. And in this repentance, justifying grace is received. Contrition is thus repentance that has attained perfection both ontologically and psychologically. Attrition is imperfect repentance which, by definition, does not suffice for justification since it is defective psychologically.33 As will be observed, we now have all the elements of the distinction between attrition and contrition which St Thomas was to clarify and synthesize. We shall not delay over the various attempts at a solution made by St Thomas’s predecessors.34 Several of them state clearly that attrition becomes contrition through the presence of grace. But it is difficult to see what they considered to be the cause of this grace. It is a difficulty mainly due to the fact that the sacramental aspect of penance and the precise function of the priest’s action had not yet been clearly marked out. We have seen how St Thomas assembled the various elements of penance into a unity by finding the right place in the pattern for each of them. This synthesis was abandoned by Duns Scotus who distinguished between two ways of justification. By doing this he put the problem of the distinction between attrition and contrition within an entirely different context. Contrition is sorrow for sin inspired by grace. Attrition is the same sorrow, but without grace. Sins are pardoned when attrition is sufficient for the reception of grace, or else by the sacrament of priestly absolution. When the sinner’s attrition is insufficient he obtains pardon by the second way of justifi­ cation, the sacrament of penance, that is, by priestly absolu­ tion. Duns Scotus does not think that the sacrament of penance is a real completion of interior penance. It is not a matter of a more thorough personal commitment, but simply of an external complement. Sufficient attrition is a different way of obtaining pardon, a divine remedy that grants grace

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ex opere operato. This teaching assumed an extreme form in the work of theologians with a nominalist tendency. It is partly based on a voluntarist conception of sin and its remission. The state of sin is the obligatio poenae, a juridical notion which.explains the distinction between two ways of justification. From this time the discussions between theologians of different schools were concerned with the question of what qualities are necessary in repentance if it is to suffice for justification, either in the sacrament or apart from it. Attrition or imperfect contrition loomed large in Scotist theory, widespread in the sixteenth century. The problem of the distinction between attrition and dontrition was chiefly looked at from the point of view of the motive for detesting sin. The Council of Trent expressly refused to take sides between the two schools. The definitions formulated in it can be incorporated in either the Thomist or Scotist systems. In passing, it should be observed that the notions of contrition and attrition in them do not exactly coincide in meaning with those of the early scholastics or St Thomas. Attention is directed rather to the motive. Attrition is said to be “generally inspired by a consideration of the rankness of sin or the fear of hell or of punishment” while contrition is made “perfect through charity” . The Council, however, does not go into further detail, but insists on the fact that attrition is a genuine form of repentance, “which excludes the intention of sinning” .35 After the Council of Trent several theologians tried to work out the main stages of the history of the sacrament of penance in the Church, with the aim of refuting the assertions of the Reformers. In speculative treatises secondary questions became dominant. Since the Council had defined the essential datum of faith, theologians sought for precision about the

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qualities required for “imperfect” repentance regarded as the “disposition” required for the sacrament of penance. The lack of precision left by the Fathers of the Council in their definitions of attrition and perfect contrition—to avoid favouring either theological opinion—led to interminable and often useless quarrels between “contritionists” and “attritionists” . Among other points, these discussions dealt with the necessity for beginning the “love of charity” with attrition. The contritionists held that this is in fact necessary, and they based their opinion upon a wrong interpretation of the diligere incipiunt in one of the definitions of Trent (Sess. VI, c. 6).36 These discussions, leading to no result and raising pseudo­ problems are increasingly disregarded by contemporary theology. It is now realized that the problem of the distinction between attrition and contrition was falsified by any concep­ tion which made the sacrament of penance an external substitute for defective repentance. The latest historical studies have demonstrated how regrettable the neglect of the ecclesiological aspect of penance has been. Without this essential aspect the nature of the sacrament can never be understood. We may add that the relationship between external and interior penance still seems to be insufficiently expressed. It is in and through external penance that repent­ ance takes place and conversion is achieved, both from the ecclesiological and psychological point of view. This last aspect cannot properly be examined unless the problem of the motive as an essential or determining factor is discarded. We shall return to these problems in the final chapter on the sacramental efficacy of Christian penance.

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F O O T N O T E S TO C H A P T E R IV xT he description o f interior penance— conversion and contrition— are form ally related to grave sin. T hey apply only analogically to the rem ission o f venial sin. M ortal sin alone gives the com plete n otion o f sin, as containing all its aspects. C onversion and repentance m ust therefore be considered primarily with reference to the rem ission o f m ortal sin. 2Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 4 (D .B ., 897). 3Cf. H . D on d ain e: L 'attrition suffisante, Paris, 1934; H. Bouillard: Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas d'Aquin, Paris, 1944; P. Anciaux: L e sens de Vadage “ E x a ttrito f it contrit us” chez Pierre Lom bard, S. A lb ert le Grand, Guillaume d'A uvergne et S. Thomas d'Aquin, L ouvain, 1947; M . Flick: L 'a ttim o della Giustificazione secondo S. Tommaso, R om e, 1947; Ch. R . Meyer: The Thom istic Concept o f Justifying Contrition, M undelein (U .S .A .), 1949. 4W hat is being discussed here is the justification o f an adult, i.e. o f a m an responsible for his actions. F or the m om ent w e are concerned with the conversion o f a Christian who has sinned gravely. T he case o f the justification o f a child in baptism , w ho is as yet incapable o f free activity, is n o t here considered. In that case, however, the general laws o f the econom y o f salvation still rem ain intact. G od speaks to m an in the conditions under w hich he is existing and account is taken o f what he is capable. T he justification o f a child by baptism does n ot dispense w ith the necessity for personal response and com m itm ent when the child becom es able to m ake them. Cf. H . Schillebeeckx: op. cit., pp. 606-20. 5St T hom as: In I V S e n t., D . 17, q. 2. 1. 1; Cf. In IV S e n t., D . 17, q. 2. 5. 2; q. 3. 1. 4; q. 3. 5. 1; Quodl. IV, 10; D e form a absolutionis; In M att. 16, 2; In John 11. 6. 6. 6St Thom as: In I V S e n t., D . 16, q. 2. 2. 2: “Talis autem displicentia dolor contritionis dicitur quando est gratia inform ata” . Cf. In I V Sent., D . 17, q. 2. 2. 6; D e V en tate, 28, 8; “ In ipso m o tu contritionis justificantur poenitens . . . Tunc autem aliquis justificatur quando gratiam recipit, unde simul cum gratiae infusione et justificatione est m otus contritionis: sed m otus attritionis praecedit quasi praeparatorius” , In I V Sent., D . 17, q. 1 .4 . 2. Cf. S w nm a contra Gentiles, IV, c. 72. ’N o te, am ong the m any prophetic texts: Isaiah, 58, 1-7; Jeremiah, 7, 1-16; E zech., 18, 30-1; and 33, 10-11; Joel, 2, 11-14. On the N ew Testam ent, cf. R . Schnackenburg: “Typen der M etanoia-Predigt im N eu en T estam ent” , in Münchner Tlieol. Z eitsch rift, I, 4, 1950, pp. 1-13. 8St Thom as: In I V S e n t., D . 17, q. 2. 1. 1; q. 2. 1. 2 ad 3.

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9St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I lia , q. 90, art. 4. Cf. In I V Sen t., D . 14, q. 1. 1. 3, q. 1. 3. 4; D . 16, q. 1. 2. 2; D . 17, q. 2. 1. 2, q. 1. 2. 2; D e V en tate, 28, 5; Summa Contra Gentiles, III, c.|158; Sum. Theol., Ilia , q. 85, art. 1-3; q. 86, art. 2; P. Anciaux: op. cit., pp. 37-40. 10St Augustine: Serm o 351 (P.L., 38, 1549); cf. P. A nciaux: La théologie du sacrem ent de pénitence, p. 25, 2 and p. 144, 3. 11St Gregory: In Evang., L. II, H om il. 34 (P.L ., 76, 1256); cf. P. Anciaux: op. cit., p. 28, 4 and p. 30, 2. 12Cf. am ong others E. D e Bruyne: E thica, vol. I, Antwerp-Brussels, 1934; M . Scheler: Reue und Wiedergeburt', V. Jankelevitch: L a mauvaise conscience, Paris, 1951. 13The existence o f a feeling o f guilt and o f consequent neurotic behaviour raises a number o f difficult theoretical and practical problem s. Pius X II alluded to them in his D iscourse to Psychotherapists, 13 April, 1953 (A .A .S ., X X X X V , 1953, pp. 278-86). F or an introduction to these problem s, cf. L. Beirnaert: “ Sens chrétien du péché et sentim ent de culpabilitité” , in Trouble e t lumière (Etudes Carm elitaines), Paris, 1949, pp. 31-41; J. Vieujean: “ Le sens du péché et ses déviations” , in Psychologie et pastorale, Louvain, 1953, pp. 79-129; M orale sans péch é (Recherches et débats, 11), Paris, 1955; H . H aefner: Schulderleben und Gewissen, Stuttgart, 1956. 14Cf. V. Jankélévitch: op. cit., p. 30: “ It is, therefore, w ithout rational justification that traditional ethics uses the m etaphor o f the interior tribunal. In that secret session in w hich m y ow n person is the direct concern, the work in hand is n ot to find ou t w hat has been done — that is know n all too w ell— but to estim ate its significance in a scale o f values. It is n o t a question o f discovering the datum , or o f bringing the past into the present, but o f judging. A nd I m yself am the datum .” Cf. ibid., pp. 28, 124-31; E. D e Bruyne: op. cit., vol. I, pp. 160, 166, 199-200. 15V. Jankélévitch: op. cit., p. 145: “W hen evil has reached its crest or peak and is about to subside, the transition is always instantaneous. R epentance has its stages and is a matter o f tim e; it is self-conscious and can give an account o f itself. B ut conversion takes place in the flash o f an instant w hich is Q uasi-N ihil or N ih ili-in star.” Cf. Ibid., pp. 138-9; M . Scheler: op. cit., pp. 97-100; cf. M . Flick: op. cit., pp. 92-103, on St T hom as’s teaching. leSt T hom as: In I V Sent., D . 17, q. 3. 5. 1; D . 18, q. 1. 3. 1; D . 22, q. 2. 1. 3; In M a tt. 16, 2; In John 11. 6. 6; Quodl. IV, 10. 17St Thom as: D e V en tate, 28, 8 ad. 3; In I V Sent., D . 17 q

2 . 2. 6. 18St Thom as: D e V entate, 24, 15. 19/h I V S e n t., D . 14, q. 1. 2 .1 , q. 1. 2. 2; D . 17, q. 1 .3 . 3; D e V en tate,

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28, 4; Sum. TfieoL, Ila-IIae, qu. 19, art 2, 4 and 6. Cf. P. Anciaux: L e sens de Γadage . . . pp. 48-54. 20In I V Sen t., D . 14, q. 1. 1. 4; D . 17, q. 2. 1. 1. ad 3; D . 20, q. 1. I. 1. ad 1; Sum. Theol., Ia-IIae, qu. 113, art. 8; I lia , qu. 85, art. 2; qu. 86, art. 1 ad 1; qu. 86, art. 3. 21In I V Sent., D . 20, q. 1. 1. 1. ad 1; In E pist. a d H ebr., 12, 3; Sum. Theol., Ia-IIae, qu. 113, art. 5 ad 1; I lia , qu. 85, art. 5 corp and ad 1. It is im portant to n ote the difference in approach to the problem o f the m otive for contrition between St T hom as and later writers. H e agrees that the m otive m ust be worthy o f charity, but according to him , it is n ot bound to be a m otive o f perfect charity. This latter belongs to a further perfection o f contrition, and is n ot necessary for justifying grace. 22Cf. P. R icoeur: L a philosophie de la volonté, vol. I, Paris, 1950; J. N u ttin : Psychanalyse et conception spiritualiste de Γhomme, Louvain, 1955. 23St Thom as: In III Sent., D . 31, q. 1. 4. 3; cf. In I V Sent., D . 17, q. 2. 3. 1. and ad 4; Quodl. I, 9. 2iI n I V Sent., D . 17, q. 2. 5. 3. 25In I V S en t., D . 17, q. 2. 5. 2; D . 14, q. 2. 1. 3. 2Hn I V S en t., D . 17, q. 2. 3. 1. ad 4; q. 2. 5. 2. ad 1; D . 21,q.2.2. ad 2; In III Sent., D . 23, q. 1. 2. 1. ad 1; D . 27. q. 2. 4.4.ad 2;D e Veritate, 10, 10; Sum. Theol., I lia , q. 80, art. 4 ad 5. 27P. A nciaux: L a théologie du sacrem ent de pénitence . . ., p. 31, 1, p. 259, 2 and p. 260, 2. 28P. A nciaux: op. cit., pp. 51-5. 2Hbid., pp. 154-63, pp. 254-72, pp. 462-89. 30T he passages are to be found in Zacharie de B esançon (P. Anciaux: op. cit., p. 263, 4) and in Richard o f Saint-Victor (P. A nciaux: op. cit., pp. 265-66). 31Sum m a “N e a d M en sa m ” (P. Anciaux: op. cit., p. 435) and H uguccio (P. Anciaux: op. cit., p. 445). In the sam e sense, St Bonaventure, In I V Sen t., D . 17, q. 3. 2. 2. 32Sim on o f Tournai: Summa (P. A nciaux: op. cit., p. 401); Summa “ B rem s dies hominis” {ibid., p. 402); M agister M artinus {ibid., p. 381); Q uestiones P repositini {ibid., pp. 474-5). 33P. Anciaux: op. cit., pp. 473-80. 34B. Poschm ann: D ie Busse, pp. 88-9. ™Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 4 (D .B ., 898). 3«The Fathers o f the C ouncil o f Trent (Sess., VI, cap. 6) describe the preparation for justification and indicate the various dispositions o f the repentant sinner. Som e theologians have w rongly taken the expression diligere incipiunt as necessitating a beginning o f love as

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charity, at least if they m ean by this the necessity for an explicit m otive o f love. T he text states clearly that true conversion presupposes an authentic attitude towards sin. W hen the detestation o f sin has becom e sufficiently intense grace is received. This authentic conversion and sincere repentance always presuppose willingness to subm it to the Church by receiving the sacrament o f penance. Every attem pt at a solution outside the context o f the econom y o f salvation, w hich is sacramental, only leads to insoluble questions. This is the opinion, am ong others, o f A . Perinelle: V a ttritio n d'après le Concile de Trente et d'après saint Thomas d'Aquin, K ain, 1927.

CHAPTER V

External Penance and the Sacramental Rite The chief aspects of interior penance have been dealt with. We turn now to see how this interior penance is taken by the Church so that it becomes the sacrament of penance. Con­ version must be given expression ; it implies a willingness to make expiation for sin in union with Christ by submission to the Church. That is why it should lead to external penance under the Church’s guidance and thus end in complete reconciliation with God and the complete elimination of the sin. Thus external penance, taken up by the Church and hallowed, is the effective sign of the sinner’s conversion, the sacrament of reconciliation. The ecclesiastical act, which is the outward expression of contrition, includes both what the sinner does and what the Church does through its minister.1 1. Confession The necessity for confession was solemnly proclaimed by the Council of Trent, in opposition to the assertions of the Reformers.1 Because of Christ’s institution of the sacrament of penance, in the way we have explained, the universal Church has always held that the confession of sins was also instituted by the Lord, and that, by divine law, it is of obligation for all who have sinned after baptism. Our Lord

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Jesus Christ left priests to take his place as guardians and judges to whom mortal sins committed by believers must be submitted, so that by virtue of the power of the keys they may give sentence of either absolution or condem­ nation.2 The necessity is based on the nature of the sacrament as instituted by Christ when he gave priests power to remit sins. This is confirmed by the history of the Church’s penitential practice. Right from the beginning the remission of grave sins involved the sinner in the acceptance of ecclesiastical penance. The expiation of mortal sins had to take place under the guidance of the Church. Whatever development the rites of penance may have undergone, their constant factor was the sinner’s submission to the Church.\lt is from the holder of the power of the keys that he must request some form of remedial satisfaction. He must confess his sins so that the Church’s minister may impose the penance and decide its form—how long it shall last and what has to be done. Confession in some form or other, in more or less detail, has always been necessary. With the development of the actio poenitentiae and the sacramental rite, the emphasis centred on confession as the chief expression of the sinner’s repent­ ance in union with and guided by the Church. For confession is a kind of summary of the sinner’s penance, sanctioned by the Church. It makes both contrition and the acceptance of ecclesiastical penance manifest and concrete .' That acceptance is an act of contrition and a continued confession.) In the same way, confession to a priest is an act of contrition and of ecclesiastical penance. The discipline of this penance, and the way of confessing have varied; and differences remain between the practices of the Latin and Eastern Churches. The necessity for confession has been defined by the Church’s legislation. Individual rules of synods and councils

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prepared the way for the general law on the obligation of confession promulgated at the IYth Lateran Council in 1215. This law, incorporated in the Code of Canon Law (canon 906), obliges every believer who has reached the age of reason to confess his sins at least once a year.3 The whole tradition of the Church, sanctioned by the Council of Trent, affirms that grave sins must be submitted to ecclesiastical penance through confession to a priest.4 Confession is obligatory for grave sin, as the Canon Law reminds us.5 The Church imposes confession as a preparation for Easter Communion, made obligatory in the same decree of the IVth Lateran Council.6 Reconciliation with eucharistie comA munion is, in fact, the idea behind ecclesiastical penance./ This relationship between the sacrament of penance and the Eucharist is evident in the Church from the beginning!) It explains the fact that in the case of grave sin, however perfect the sinner’s repentance, he may not receive communion with­ out having been to confession, if it is possible for him to do so.8 The Church thus imposes confession as a general rule on every Christian who has committed a mortal sin; it makes it obligatory, in case of grave sin, to go to confession at least once a year. Obviously the reference is to an honest confes­ sion, to a disclosure made in a penitential spirit. The ecclesi­ astical precept is not obeyed by a sacrilegious or a deliberately invalid confession.9 The disclosure of sin is imposed as an ^ act of penance and a part of the sacrament. And since it is essentially necessary, the sinner should submit to it as soon as possible. He will go to confession as soon as he has the chance because he wants to be reconciled with the Church and with God. Repentance cannot be effective, contrition cannot be perfect, without the intention to confess and to accept ecclesiastical penance.

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Within the Christian economy ecclesiastical penance is necessary if mortal sins are to be remitted. It is a matter of divine law, and it is sanctioned by the ecclesiastical law which makes confession obligatory. Grave sins alone form an obstacle to the love of God and entail the deprivation of grace and charity. These alone divorce a man from the com­ munion of saints and make him unworthy of partaking of the Body of Christ. It is for this reason that they are the necessary and obligatory subject of confession. Moral theology works out the objective and subjective conditions that are essential in determining the gravity of sins. For an action to be mortal it must be intrinsically serious, and done freely and consciously. The sinner must know that it is gravely wrong and that he has done it with the intention of doing it. In practice it is always a complex and difficult business to settle the gravity and culpability of a concrete action, because all its aspects, subjective and objective, have to be taken into account. It must not be judged in the air, in abstracto, apart from these aspects. What has to be decided is the meaning and the bearing of a concrete action performed by a definite person. This action must be looked at in the light of the fundamental outlook and the moral conscience of that person. By ecclesiastical law, mortal sins alone have to be sub­ mitted to the sacrament of penance. But if we confine our­ selves to the juridical context in this matter and say that the minimum required is enough for us, we soon meet insoluble and futile problems. “How far can I go without committing grave sin?” Such an attitude makes nonsense of the Christ­ ian’s life and work. In the same way the practice of the sacrament of penance runs the risk of being falsified if it is looked at only from the point of view of the requisite mini­ mum. Mortal sins alone are bound to be confessed, but the

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sense and import of the sacrament go far beyond this neces­ sary- and urgent condition. Confession is a sacramental remedy to inflict death on sin and to procure freedom from its consequences. The more it is considered with this wide and unobstructed horizon, the less likely are both confessor and penitent to run into insoluble problems about the dis­ tinction between mortal and venial sin. The Christian will submit to penance when he is conscious of having sinned gravely. He will ask the Church’s help in healing all the sins committed. If he has knowingly and deliberately committed a grave sin, he will confess it before receiving eucharistie communion. He will submit himself to ecclesiastical penance as quickly as possible so as to become reconciled to the Church, and, with the help of the community, to take up again an active life in the service of God and his neighbour.10 The extent and usefulness of ecclesiastical penance are not restricted to the remission of grave sins. Confession is recom- 'S mended by the Church for the healing of venial sins and for the total destruction of those mortal sins that have already been submitted to the power of the keys. Both venial sins, and grave sins that have been already confessed, constitute the optional and useful subject of confession. The utility of the confession of venial sins was solemnly re-affirmed by the Council of Trent against the Reformers and by Pope Pius VI against the errors of the synod of Pistoia.11 It was emphasized by Pope Pius XII in the en­ cyclical M y siici Corporis Christi,12 The explanation of the Church’s insistence on this matter springs from the very nature of ecclesiastical penance, of which confession is the ritual expression. It is true that venial sin does not take aw ay\/ grace or charity from a man. It does not presuppose a dis­ position fundamentally opposed to God’s love. But it does produce a weakening of love, and makes it tepid and torpid.

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Man’s course to God is not entirely altered but it is wavering. To remedy this weakening, to erase these daily faults, the inmost will must re-assert itself in an act of love. A man must make real his fundamental purpose so that it may become completely effective. There are various ways of doing this. All of them presuppose a deepening of love, an increase in the fervour of charity by a free act. An act of penance, especially when hallowed by the Church, as is the act of confession, is intrinsically directed against venial sins. Every act which renews and augments the fervour of charity destroys venial sins in the sphere of its operation because it implies an act of penance, at least implicitly.13 All the sacra- V* ments and sacramentals which both presuppose and call for an act of love, lead in this way to the pardon of venial sins. Among them all, the sacrament of penance provides a pro­ vidential means, a Christian remedy in the fight against sin, in the completion of conversion, in the increasingly pervasive destruction of the consequences of sin. Mortal sins, that have previously been confessed, provide a useful subject for confession. It is true, of course, that con­ version that has been expressed outwardly and made perfect in sacramental penance, has cleared man’s heart from sin and set right his basic disposition. Through sincere confession a sinner regains grace and charity. And yet it will not neces­ sarily or even generally reach that degree of charity which will destroy all the consequences of sin in man. Although a fundamentally right attitude to God has been regained, it has not yet effectively permeated the whole of a man’s activities and desires. It has not yet become totally incarnate because charity has not yet inspired perfect integration. The process of conversion and the perfecting of contrition are far from complete. Effective union with God through a growing freedom from sin is still an important objective to be

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reached. And this is why repeated submission to ecclesiastical penance is strongly recommended to the Christian who has committed mortal sin. Each sacramental confession is a fresh opportunity for him to re-affirm his conversion and to make his willingness to love God more real by loosing himself from the bonds of previous sins. The consequences of sin are more thoroughly destroyed, and the life of the community in union with Christ is more deeply and intimately shared. Death to sin is brought about by submission to ecclesiastical penance in union with Christ’s redemptive Passion. When the Church thus so strongly urges frequent confes­ sion it is emphasizing the full significance of confession as a providential remedy. It is not only the indispensable means for effecting complete reconciliation when grave sins have been committed. It is also and essentially a privileged aspect of the fight against sin, a Christian remedial method for un­ loosing the bonds of sin, an indispensable means of spiritual progress. The shame involved in confession is a remedial expiation. In addition, it leads to increasing self-knowledge, inspires new struggles to get rid of sin, and deepens the love of God and one’s neighbour. The two aspects of confession which were separate in the practice of the early Church, have gradually become united. The sacrament of penance far from being only a remedy reserved for grave sins is rightly con­ sidered to be a privileged expression of that penance which is indispensable in the whole Christian way of life. Once the inner meaning of confession is realized it becomes possible to say what are the conditions that make it authentic and effective. It is the expression of the conversion of a sinner who submits to ecclesiastical penance so that he may obtain pardon from God for his sins through the merits of Jesus Christ. Confession is an act of contrition. The words used in it must be inspired by an inner hatred of sin. If the sinner

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accuses himself to the priest, this is because he has condemned himself in his heart before God. As an act of contrition, it implies a willingness to make expiation according to God’s will in Christ. It implies submission to the Church as a result of which the penitent’s union with Christ the Redeemer is made real. It must therefore involve an act of faith in Christ and in his Church. The confession of sins to the priest is sacramental; the penitent’s action springs from the baptismal character imprinted in him, and hence it is a sign of his faith. It is inspired by the desire of regaining peace with God in the Church and so it is a request for pardon motivated by hope and sustained by trust in the divine mercy. Sacramental confession, being an act of contrition and a sign of faith, is also a work of expiation. Self-disclosure to the priest is an act of penance; it is a public gesture of sub­ mission to ecclesiastical penance. Self-disclosure to the minister of the Church is a way of expiation through the shame that has to be overcome, the self-condemnation it expresses, the inner determination to lead a new life now made outwardly. Confession, in fact, is the perfect example of a public gesture of penance, in the shape of submitting to ecclesiastical penance. It is a work of redemptive satisfaction through its organic relationship with Christ. Through the priest’s absolution, confession as a work of ecclesiastical penance, is taken up and hallowed so that it becomes the sacrament of penance, the effective sign of conversion and pardon. Thus it is most true to describe confession as the meeting between the repentant sinner and the redeeming love of the Father, through Christ in the Holy Spirit. This meeting is arrived at and completed by the mediation of the Church in the sacrament of penance. This latter is a ratification of the Alliance, the seal and guarantee of peace with God through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

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This essential significance of confession shows the radical difference that exists between self-disclosure in the sacrament of penance and any form of analysis or psycho-therapeutic confession.14 The analogies are superficial, the differences essential, because their whole formative contexts are totally and radically different. Self-disclosure in the sacrament is a religious act within the Christian context. It is the outward expression of conversion and it brings about a return to God in the wake of sins destroyed in union with Christ. It is a voluntary act of expiation of a moral fault and its significance is religious. The Church’s requirements concerning the qualities required for sacramental confession can now be understood. It must be sincere; it must be the expression of a genuine hatred of sin, an honest determination to get rid of it, a firm purpose of not sinning again. In a word, it must be an act of contrition, expressed by word of mouth, to a minister of the Church.15 Grave sins must be integrally confessed: each mortal sin must be submitted in its gravity to ecclesiastical penance, by disclosing it to a priest. Hence it is that a penitent must confess every grave sin of which he is aware, and indicate the essential elements which go to its make-up from a moral point of view (species, number, circumstances, etc.). In the case of venial sins or of grave sins previously confessed, some individual sins will be selected. There is no necessity to confess all the daily faults of which one is conscious. On the other hand, if the confession is to play a real part in the renewal of life, it cannot be made in a vague and impersonal way. The conflict is indeed against deep-seated vices; we have to oppose tendencies to egoism, pride, sensuality, luke­ warmness and cowardice which are general enough. At the same time it is essential for a Christian to accuse himself of those definite, particular faults by which he has knowingly

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departed from some aspect of the demands which Christian living makes upon him. In other words, confession must be sufficiently concrete and precise to be the starting point of a of a new, warm-hearted, sincere and authentic commitment to the practice of holy living. Formalism is the inherent danger in any activity that is regularly repeated. To avoid it, the penitent’s attention should be drawn to all the aspects of a Christian life, the negative ones in the conflict with sin, the positive struggle to achieve goodness. In the conflict with sin, a change in the point of attack may prove useful. It is indispensable to keep the multiformity of Christian existence in mind, to realize the source of its inspiration in the theolog­ ical virtues, and the way it enters into the concrete reality of everyday life through the various duties pertaining to each man’s condition. If frequent confession is to yield results its context must be a deeply religious and generously sincere Christian life. Confession is the outward expression of conversion, the way in which conversion becomes a reality fully in this world. It is an act of contrition and a sign of faith in Christ. It is submission to the Church in the person of its minister. Through the action of the priest it becomes sacramental penance which some work of satisfaction will complete. 2. The minister o f the sacrament o f penance The penance of the repentant sinner becomes sacramental when done in submission to the Church and under its guidance. With the help of the whole community and through the action of the hierarchy, the sinner is led to complete reconciliation with God or sustained in his daily fight with sin. The Church regulates and hallows this penance through the powers granted to the apostles by Christ. Through the Church’s action it is Christ himself who sustains the sinner’s conversion

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and makes it effective. In the ecclesiastical “action”, it is Christ who reconciles him with the Father. The development of ecclesiastical penance illustrates the fact that the Church’s intervention has taken different forms. In the earliest period the participation of the community as a whole was clearly expressed in the prayers and rites of canonical penance. At that time the ministry of official penance was reserved in principle to bishops, the successors of the apostles. Then gradually, in an increasing number of cases, a priest was allowed to assign the penance and effect the reconciliation. But he could only do so as dependent upon the bishop. A certain amount of hesitation prevailed, especi­ ally in the Churches of the East, owing to confusion between non-penitential confession and ecclesiastical penance. There was similar confusion in the Latin Church about confession to lay people.16 In spite of these uncertainties, the Church has always related the ministry of penance, in principle, to the powers entrusted by Christ to the apostles and their succes­ sors. The minister of ecclesiastical penance acts in the name of the Church with the powers transmitted to him by the successors of the apostles. Doing so, he is a minister of the Church and acts in the name and person of Christ. As the theology of the sacrament of penance was system­ atically developed, and canon law became codified, the traditional functions of the minister of penance were incor­ porated in the system and clearly and technically expressed. The minister of penance is the bishop and the priest.17 For the valid exercise of this ministry, the power of order and that of jurisdiction in the penitential tribunal is essential.18 The necessity for these two powers springs from the nature of the sacrament and this is to be seen in the practice of the Church and is defined in technical terms in systematic theology. Ecclesiastical penance is a work of expiation and

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reconciliation with a sacramental significance. This sacrament takes the shape of a judgement, as a condemnation or an acquittal. Hence the ministry of penance must have a special sacramental power and juridical authority.19 The ministry of penance has, in principle, always been exercised in dependence upon the bishop. To impose penance and effect reconciliation with the Church and God, it is necessary to have the power of the keys which was given to the apostles and their successors. As this ministry became more private in the course of history, the dependence of the priest on the bishop became more emphasized by the writers of the different periods. In the twelfth century questions about the minister of penance illustrated the traditional con­ viction as to the necessity for the power of the keys. The power of “order” which creates the radical capacity to hold the power of the keys, is not, in itself, enough. The ministry must, in addition, be guaranteed by effective authority. And this presupposes that, with reference to the penitent, the priest must have the care of souls. He must have been given a pastoral office, a “jurisdiction”, with regard to the sinner. The power of the keys certainly belongs to the priest, but he cannot use it unless he has jurisdiction in the tribunal of penance. This penitential jurisdiction presupposes either a pastoral office or a more restricted cura animarum.20 These ideas were later made more precise: “ordinary jurisdiction” —bound up with a pastoral office—was distinguished from “delegated jurisdiction” given to a priest who is called to a small or larger share in the bishop’s pastoral work.21 This necessity for the two powers of order and of juris­ diction in the ministry of ecclesiastical penance is based on the nature of the sacrament. The sacrament of penance is a means of grace by way of a judgement, an expiation, a re­ conciliation. Grace flows through the sacrament in the form

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and by means of a judicial act, an expiation of an ecclesiastical nature. The priest acts in the name of the Church and of Christ when he imposes the penance and when he reconciles. It is a judgement in the strict sense that he utters, and the condemnation he pronounces before he acquits the sinner is authentically juridical. It is, of course, a peculiar kind of judgement. Being sacramental, it leads to forgiveness, and it is pronounced in the Church’s name, with the power given by Christ to the apostles. One can only grasp its nature by relating it to the nature of the Church, the institution and community of salvation, endowed by Christ with both a principle of life, the power of “order”, and a principle of unification and authority, the power of jurisdiction.22 There­ fore in the ministry of penance, it is not only a sacramental power, the power of “order” that is required, but also an authority to judge and acquit the sinner in the name of the Church. This latter is a real power of jurisdiction, that is a pastoral power, or a share in this power in the care of souls. It is dependent upon the power of jurisdiction inforo externo, but it should not be confused with it. Apart from the power of “order”, the minister of penance must have juridical authority in foro poenitentiali, in the name of the Church and with respect to the sinner. This juridical authority has both an individual implication, the spiritual good of the repentant sinner who is to be reconciled, and a social implication because sin affects the community of the Church and the sacrament of penance is a sacrament of the Church. The sinner’s reconciliation with God in Christ is effected by ecclesiastical penance which leads to reconcilia­ tion with the Church. Penance is submission to the Church in order to obtain divine forgiveness. The ministry of penance is made sacramental through a juridical act. The require­ ments laid down for the two powers in ecclesiastical penance

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respect the nature of the sacrament and the essential rela­ tions between them in the Church.23 The ministry of ecclesiastical penance is in organic relation­ ship with the powers of “order” and of jurisdiction. Its valid exercise occurs in the sphere of pastoral authority or within the limits of juridical delegation. The defined limits of juris­ diction determine its range with regard to place, and its extension with regard to persons. Some sins may be reserved to the supreme authority in the Church, the authority that regulates the ministry of penance. On the other hand, these restrictions of the power of jurisdiction in the tribunal of penance cease to count in cases when the spiritual welfare of believers or the social welfare of the Church demand it. Canon law indicates the conditions when the Church’s power of jurisdiction makes good what is lacking in the jurisdiction of the minister.24 It also foresees the cases when a priest may exercise the ministry of penance without having received the requisite power of jurisdiction; for example, in danger of death all restrictions connected with the power of juris­ diction are removed. In such cases, the priest acts in the name of the Church by virtue of this general concession of power.25 It is traditional in the Church to describe the priest as judge, physician, father and teacher, when he is practising the ministry of penance. At the Council of Trent his work was compared to the “exercise of a judicial act” .26 All these expressions must be interpreted according to the nature of the sacrament and the ministry of the priest in this sphere of the Church’s fife. It is important to distinguish between the priest’s essential and ministerial function in the sacrament of penance, and any subsidiary work he may do for the penitent. For believers must primarily see in the priest whom they approach as

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confessor, the minister of the Church and of Christ who, in their name, must accept repentance and confession, and com­ plete them by a sacramental hallowing. This is the priest’s essential function in this sacrament, and it transcends all his personal qualities and merits. When he is acting as confessor, he does so in the name of the Church and of Christ by virtue of the powers given by Christ to the apostles and their successors. He performs this function as a minister of the “mysteries” of those realities through which Christ becomes present in the Church. It is a sacramental function, whose ground and guarantee is his ordination and power of juris­ diction. Its validity is assured if the confessor is a priest with jurisdiction over the penitent, and respects the liturgical rules, meaning to do what the Church wishes to be done. The priest, as minister of the sacrament of penance, should accept the Christian’s confession, his repentant self-disclosure and his intention to lead a new life, and complete it sacra­ mentally. He should add some “penance” and give absolu­ tion in the name of Christ and the Church. The implication is that the priest should welcome the penitent with kindness, since it is his mission to help him carry out and complete this act of penance. And if he is to be a worthy minister, he must realize what he is doing and the sacramental nature of his action. He must behave as a minister of the Church, one of whose “notes” is holiness, and he must act in Christ’s name, inspired by deep faith in the Saviour and in mother Church of which he is a weak and sinful member. The essentials of his task should always be foremost, and these should not be confused with secondary and subsidiary aspects.27 It is true that the ministry of penance leaves room for a certain amount of spiritual direction. But this latter is more personal and specialized and the traditional distinction between it and confession should be maintained.28 “In practice it may well be

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difficult to keep the rôles of confessor and of advisor apart. But the sacred nature of the sacrament should make an adequate solution easy enough. Visits to and from the priest are much to be desired, and possible abuses avoided by observing the proper formalities.” 29 The priest’s ministerial function in this sacrament does, of course, include spiritual education and help. The Church has always presented the priest’s function in confession as being not only judicial but also one of spiritual assistance. He must be the “physician of souls” . And a fruitful ministry in the confessional demands the acquisition of the necessary qualities and capabilities. The work to be done is that of helping a repentant sinner, sustaining his conversion, guiding him in his struggle towards a new life and in his conflict with sin, leading him to a more perfect state of contrition and a deeper and more ardent repentance. The priest must help the penitent with every means at his disposal. When it seems use­ ful or necessary he can help him to make a more complete confession by putting prudent questions that meet his needs. He should encourage him with suitable advice, and add any warning that may be relevant. He must make him realize what the love of God and his neighbour really demand. Above all he must show him the true contours of Christian life by explaining the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, whence it springs. He must show how these should inspire the concrete and daily duties that belong to his state of life, for it is in these that the love of God and one’s neigh­ bour is put into practice and made real. He should also try to get to know, as far as possible, the penitent’s exact situation. Without sufficient knowledge of his special circumstances, with regard to age, sex, tempera­ ment, education, environment, position in life, the priest can hardly carry out satisfactorily the various aspects of his

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ministry. His essential functions, those of hearing the confession, giving a penance and granting absolution pre­ suppose some knowledge of the penitent. If necessary, he should question him so as to be able to form a judgement about his disposition and the things he has done wrong. For he has to assign a work of satisfaction of proper proportions and adapted to meet the case. He cannot give absolution unless the penitent is in the right disposition to welcome the grace of forgiveness. He must base himself on the signa contritionis, those indications which express and guarantee the sincerity of repentance, and chiefly on the solidity of the intention to leave off sinning. For the efficacy of the sacra­ ment essentially depends upon the disposition of the sinner. On the one hand, without repentance, there can be no real sacrament, since it presupposes, takes up and hallows the act of the penitent sinner. On the other hand, sacramental grace will be received in proportion to the depth and fervour of the repentance. When the priest is certain that repentance is totally absent and that this will not be remedied, he must refuse absolution. So long as he has not that certitude he must grant it, when he has done everything possible to bring the sinner to a better frame of mind. There are exceptional cases when the priest’s action has to be reduced to its most essential ministerial function. When there is danger of death he can give absolution with the short formula, provided the conditions laid down by canon law exist. In special circumstances during a war, he may some­ times give absolution in communi, to a group of people. In such cases he must follow the special rules laid down in the Instructions of the Apostolic Penitentiary.30 The point to be retained is that the Church always demands that, as far as possible, contrition shall be externally expressed. In addition, when a sinner has been granted absolution without con-

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fession, he must, as soon as he has the opportunity, explicitly confess any grave sins not previously disclosed. The Church intends that the whole sacramental reality—the sinner’s repentance and the priest’s action—shall find expression in the sacramental rite. As far as possible the external rite should be the personal action of both the sinner and the priest, because the sacrament only comes into existence through this collaboration based on the powers of the Church and inspired by the Holy Spirit. The present rite of absolution, although much abridged, still clearly expresses the different aspects of what it signifies. After the confession and the priest’s admonition, the latter gives the additional penance. He asks the penitent to make an act of contrition, thus reiterating his repentance and his wish for pardon. At the moment when the sacramental action reaches its culminating point, with the priest about to grant absolution, the collaboration must be expressed by a prayer said together. Both the penitent and the priest ask God to graciously bless and hallow their co-operation. While the penitent expresses his repentance and his wish to live a better life, the priest turns to God. During this prayer he raises his right hand. In this gesture we find an authentic trace of the ancient imposition of hands which signified reconciliation with the Church, restitution or reinforcement of the con­ nection with the Christian community and the grace of the Holy Spirit. The priest prays: “May almighty God be merciful to you, pardon you and lead you to eternal life, Amen. May the almighty and merciful Lord grant you pardon absolution and the remission of your sins, Amen.” The remission of sins is, in fact, the work of the Father’s almighty love through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is God himself who pardons through Jesus Christ. Hence the priest continues: “May our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you” . But this recon-

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ciliation with God is granted to the believer through re­ conciliation with the Church which the priest’s ministration brings about: “And by (the Church’s) authority, I absolve you from every bond of excommunication, suspension and interdict, according to the extent of my power and your own needs” . The judicial act, the absolution from ecclesiastical penalties, the restitution of an organic relationship with the community is sacramental: it is a work of redemptive healing effected by grace in Christ. “I then absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.” The sacramental rite is not an ending but a begin­ ning. The submission to ecclesiastical penance is a remedy that has as its purpose fresh vigour in Christian living in union with Christ’s Passion within the communion of saints. So the priest concludes: “May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merits of the blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints, ensure that all the good you do and all the evil you have to suffer shall be for the remission of your sins, for the increase of grace and the reward of eternal life, Amen” . 3. Sacramental satisfaction and Christian penance The sacrament of penance is actio poenitentiae, a work of expiation imposed by the Church aiming at the sinner’s reconciliation with God and the complete destruction of sin. Ecclesiastical penance aims at a total liberation from sin: the remission of the sin itself and of its consequences. In our time, confession is the principle part of the sacramental expiation imposed on the sinner by the Church. As an act of contrition hallowed by the priest, it leads to reconciliation with the Church and God. It is efficacious contrition and it brings about the remission of sins in relation to the Church and to God. This sacramental expiation does not necessarily or generally destroy all the consequences of sin. Conversion

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has not yet become fully incarnate nor liberation from sin completely achieved. The Church teaches that not all the temporal penalties are necessarily remitted by sacramental confession.31 It is true that a sincere confession effects a practical conversion and re-establishes the sinner in a life­ giving union with God. There is no more “eternal punish­ ment” to expiate. But all the potentialities of this conversion need to be fully developed by the growth of charity and its integral permeating power. The complete destruction of the results of sin will be achieved in this life by works of penance or the acceptance of suffering, by all the opportunities which growth in charity will provide. Total liberation from sin will be effected by the sufferings of purgatory. These results of sin are called temporal in order to distinguish them from eternal punishment. Every action which heals, diminishes and corrects those results of sin that persist after its remission remits temporal punishment. Sacramental expiation (the period of penance) is assigned to the repentant sinner by the Church with the aim of the complete destruction of the sin, that is, its remission and the healing of its consequences. During the first period of the Church’s penitential discipline—canonical penance—recon­ ciliation was granted only at the end of the work of expiation when the Church considered that sufficient satisfaction had been made. The reconciliation signified both absolution from sin and remission of temporal punishment. To the extent in which the penitent’s interior disposition harmonized with the external penance the expiation was completed. In the course of the development of penitential practice the custom arose of granting reconciliation immediately after confession. Parallel with this, the Church sanctioned the imposition of additional and complementary works of satisfaction. It has thus come about that, in modern practice, the sinner who has

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confessed has, ipso facto, done an important part of the expiation imposed by the Church. But he still has to complete his conversion by progressive liberation from sin. The satis­ faction, the “penance” given by the priest in the Church’s name, provides an opportunity for him to carry on the work of destroying the results of sin, gives him a sacramental means for the remission of temporal punishment.32 When he is considering this complementary penance, the priest must take into account both the penitent’s dispositions and the sins he has committed. For it depends upon the intensity of contrition and charity, of devotedness to Christ as to how far the consequences of sin are destroyed by sacra­ mental confession. Expiation through confession is a sacra­ mental means for the remission of temporal punishment precisely because it is a privileged opportunity of expressing conversion and of making it incarnate in union with Christ through and in the Church. It is through the fervour of his charity that a Christian participates in the lifegiving com­ munity which brings him into organic union with Christ. This progressive incorporation unleashes a man from sin and its bondage. The work of satisfaction he has to do should complete his sacramental expiation, depending, of course, on the wrong he has done. It must be in proportion with this latter and adapted to its gravity. It must provide the opport­ unity to intensify hatred of sin by actions that heal and strengthen the weakness of love.33 The satisfaction imposed in the present practice of the Church may seem surprising. More often than any strictly penitential work, it will be a prayer, some act of piety or charity. It is of real importance, however, that the expiatory character of the “penance” should not be wholly neglected: especially where grave sins are concerned the priest must take care to impose a real penance, though adapted to the

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possibilities and circumstances of the penitent’s life. At the same time the present practice does bring out the relations that exist between sacramental penance and the practice of penance in daily life. A Christian’s whole life should effect that death to sin in order to reach fullness of life in Christ in the Church. By progressively freeing a man from sin penance tends to make real the new life in Christ. Penance practised in daily life is associated with Christ’s Passion by the sacra­ ment of penance. This hallowing of daily penance through the priest’s ministerial action from the power given to the Church is based on its nature and meaning as the community of salva­ tion. Union with Christ’s Passion, with his death and resur­ rection, becomes more profound, liberating and life-giving from the fact that it is sustained by the Christian community. The degree of union with the Church through faith and the sacraments and neighbourly charity decides the level of our share in the communion of saints. And it is this that illu­ minates the final prayer in sacramental penance: “May the Passion of Christ, the merits of the blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints, ensure that all the good you do and all the evil you have to suffer count for the remission of your sins, for the increase of grace and as a pledge of eternal life” . When the priest acts in the Church’s name, the whole of Christian life becomes hallowed in its penitential aspect. Whatever satisfaction may be imposed, it is always a prayer, always an act of faith in Christ and the Church, in order that death to sin in union with Christ within the communion of saints may become a reality every day. The present practice of sacramental satisfaction is, in a sense, an “indulgence” . Instead of imposing some special work of expiation, a temporal punishment, a period of penance, to destroy the results of sin completely, the Church

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prescribes a prayer, an act of piety, a charitable deed. This act is an expression of faith and charity that will make daily life in Christ penitentially alive and fruitful. The remission of temporal punishment will be effective according to the degree of faith, charity and hatred of sin. Hence the additional and complementary satisfaction is also specifically sacramental. It takes up the daily practice of penance and hallows it within an action that signifies faith and conversion. It leads to the destruction of the results of sin in union with Christ within the Christian community. It signifies and brings about the remission of temporal punishment in the sight of God.34 This essential significance of sacramental satisfaction also explains the true meaning of indulgences whose origin is bound up with the development of sacramental penance.35 The acts to which the Church attaches indulgences are special opportunities for the Christian to express his union with Christ in the work of eradicating the consequences of sin. It is presumed that grave sins have been pardoned in confession, and then these acts can serve to make conversion more real, sin more hated and its results removed. They are acts of faith, piety or charity taken up by the Church and associated with Christ’s Passion. The present practice of the Church emphasizes the close relationship between the sacrament and the daily practice of the Christian virtue of penance. That virtue has a wider range than submission tó ecclesiastical penance through confession. Still, it is in that sacrament that the virtue is most perfectly expressed. It is in that sacrament that it discovers its founda­ tion, and it there becomes hallowed. The penance of a Christian man has its roots in baptism, ratified later by personal faith and it is extended between the two poles of the sacramental rite and the daily practice of the virtue. The virtue, in the strict sense, entails constructive hatred of sins

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committed, aiming at complete freedom from them so as to live totally for God. Since this involves a fundamental attitude of man’s moral and religious life with a well defined purpose of expiating sin, penance is rightly considered to be a specific virtue. It concerns a basic tendency, a radical dynamism by which a man takes up a considered position with regard to sin and his liberation from it. The origin of this dynamism may be described in two ways. It is a moral tendency in the religious sphere. On the one hand, this can become a virtue only in and through a personal effort and involvement of the sinner. Hence at least the beginning and the predisposition of this virtue must originate within a man himself as a moral being, free and responsible. On the other hand, in the present economy of salvation, penance is a supernatural virtue; if it is to be effective it must result from divine grace: sanctifying grace must come into action. From this point of view the origin of the virtue is divine grace in Christ that must penetrate the life of the Christian and all his tendencies through the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.36 Penance is an essential aspect of Christian asceticism whose purpose is to achieve complete freedom from both sin and the tendencies to it.37 Penance directly envisages sins that have been personally committed; asceticism aims at obtaining freedom from the consequences of human sin that are to be found in all of us. Penance and asceticism may be described from two complementary points of view: from either their external practices or from the interior attitude which is expressed and externalized in these practices. Thus a descrip­ tion may be given of the external forms they have taken in the history of mankind and the Church. But it is more important to examine what the interior attitude, the inner disposition, must be if these practices are to be meaningful

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and really produce what they intend. In every man some acts of penance and asceticism normally occur. But even though there may be similarity in externals, there are considerable differences in motive, purpose and inner inspiration. Christian penance and asceticism are essentially religious, theological and sacramental. They must be grounded in progressive communion with Christ through progressive incorporation in the Church. They must achieve an imitation of Christ in order to take part in his redeeming work. This endows them with their specific significance, and alone enables them to maintain their dynamic and positive direction towards a fuller Christian life directed by charity, the central virtue of that fife. When this happens the social dimension of Christian life which arises from the sacramental realities of the Church is properly respected. Asceticism is progressive liberation from sin under the inspiration of love in union with Christ. Penances that are sacramentally imposed, voluntary privation, life’s trials, sufferings and difficulties, are all seen as opportunities for an ever increasing detachment from sin in union with Christ’s Passion and in communion with the whole Church.38 Asceticism is a form of the imitation of Christ with the aim of sharing in the mystery of his death and resurrection. When a man has been converted to Christ and begins to hate his sins, penance develops into asceticism so as to clear away all the results of sin. This love of Christ and one’s neighbour will grow and inspire an asceticism that will carry the cross for others also. It will become a work of expiation for others so as to fill up what is lacking in Christ’s Passion for his Body, the Church (Col. 1. 24). This death to sin and acceptance of the cross have a sacramental foundation. Through baptism Christians enter into the mystery of the Lord’s Death and Resurrection; it is then that they are marked and anointed

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with the sign of his cross. The development of Christian penance is supported and hallowed by the sacrament of penance, while asceticism is promoted by the eucharistie sacrifice. This sacramental celebration is the commemoration and the making present of Christ’s sacrifice through the con­ secration of the sacrifice of believers in the sacrifice of the Church. Both the virtue and the sacrament of penance move towards an increasing share in the Church’s life and in that of Christ, and the Eucharist is a culminating point of these mysteries. Confession of sins at the Confiteor, with its obvious social implication, forms a fitting introduction to the sacrifice of the community; sacramental confession is the restoration or re-inforcement of ecclesiastical and eucharistie com­ munion.

FO O TN O T E S TO C H A P T E R V 1On the opinions o f Protestants in the R eform ation period: Cf. E. R oth: D ie P rivatbeichte und die Schlüsselgewalt in der Theologie der Reform atoren, G üttersloh, 1952. In recent years a num ber o f Protestant theologians and pastors have realized and stressed the religious and Christian significance o f confession. Cf. M . Thurian: L a confession, N euchâtel, 1953; J. L oosen: “W iederlebung der B eicht im Protest­ antism us der G egenwart” , in Scholastik, 1953, pp. 57-62; J. Lisow ski: The Teaching and P ractice o f Penance in the Church o f England, L ond on , 1954; F . W ulf: “Evangelische dürfen beichten” , in G eist und Leben, 1956, pp. 367-70. . 2Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 5 (D .B ., 899), can. 6-8 (D .B ., 916-8). sConc. Lateranense IV, cap. 21 (D .B ., 437): “ O m nis utriusque sexus fidelis, postquam ad annos discretionis pervenerit, om nia sua solus peccata saltern sem el in anno fideliter confiteatur proprio sacerdoti, et iniunctam sibi poenitentiam pro viribus studeat adim plere, suscipiens reverenter ad m inus in Pascha Eucharistiae Sacram entum .” C .I.C ., canon 906: “ O mnis utriusque sexus fidelis, postquam ad an nos dis­ cretionis, idest ad usum rationis, pervenerit, tenetur om nia peccata sua saltern sem el in anno fideliter confiteri.”

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i Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 5 (D .B ., 899-901), can. 7 (D .B ., 917). 5C .I.C ., can on 901 : “ Q ui post baptism um m ortalia perpetravit, quae nondum per claves Ecclesiae directe rem issa sunt, debet om nia quorum p o st diligentem sui discussionem conscientiam habeat, confiteri et circum stantias in confessione explicare, quae speciem peccati m u tent.” *Conc. L a t., IV, cap. 21 (D .B ., 437); C .I.C ., canon 859: “ Omnis utriusque sexus fi delis, postquam ad annos discretionis, id est ad rationis usum , pervenerit, debet sem el in anno, saltern in Paschate, Eucharistiae sacram entum recipere, n isi forte de consilio proprii sacerdotis, ob aliquam rationabilem causam , ad tem pus ab eius perceptione duxerit abstinendum .” 7O nly a m an w ho is n ot unw orthy m ay approach the Eucharist (I Cor. 11, 27-9). A general confession o f sins is the preliminary to the celebration o f the Eucharist (D idache, c. 14, 1): E cclesiastical penance prepares and achieves reconciliation with both C hrist’s m ystical and eucharistie B ody. 8C .I.C ., canon 856: “ N em o quern conscientia peccati m ortalis gravai, quantum eum que etiam se contritum existim et, sine praem issa sacra­ m entali confessione ad sacram com m unionem accédai; quodsi urgeat nécessitas ac copia confessarli illi desit, actum perfectae contritionis prius eliciat.” 9C .I.C ., canon 907: “ Praecepto confitendi peccata non satisfacit, qui confessionem facit sacrilegam vel voluntarie nullam .” 10It w ill be realized that a positive and dynam ic form ation o f the m oral conscience is indispensable if the practice o f confession is to bring results. G eneral rules m ust ob viou sly be applied to the particular circum stances o f each case, with reference to the penitent’s intellectual, em otional, m oral and spiritual developm ent. Particular understanding and delicacy are needed in cases o f “ scrupulosity” in the technical sense. Cf. A . Snoeck: “ La pastorale du scrupule” , in Nouv. R evue Théo!., 1957, pp. 371-87 and pp. 478-93. 11Cone. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 5 (D .B ., 899). E rrores synodi Pistoriensis, D e poenitentia, sect. 12, 39 (D .B ., 1539). 12Enc. M y s tic i C orporis Christi (A .A .S ., X X X V , 1943, p. 235): “ A s a sure m eans o f advance in virtue, w e strongly recom m end the devout custom o f frequent confession which the Church, inspired by the H oly Spirit, has introduced. It increases self-know ledge, fosters Christian hum ility, eradicates bad habits, com bats spiritual negligence and tepidity, strengthens the will, is a m eans o f spiritual direction, and as a direct result o f the sacrament, increases grace.” 13St T hom as: Sum. Theol., I lia , qu. 87, art. 1-3; qu. 90, art. 4. Cf. H . Schillebeeckx: op. cit., p. 632-6. 14Cf. R . Allers: “ A utour d ’une p sychologie de la con fession ” , in

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Trouble et Lum ière, Paris, 1949, pp. 88-91; T h. M üncker: D ie p s y ­ chologischen Grundlagen der katholischen Sittenlehre, D usseldorf, 1953, pp. 307-9; V. W hite: G od and the Unconscious, L ondon, 1953, pp. 163-4; R. H ostie: Du m ythe à la religion, Paris, 1954, pp. 149-66; A . Snoeck: Biechi en psychoanalyse, Bruges, 1957. 15Apart from exceptional cases when an oral confession is im possible. See below , section 2. 16Cf. A . Teetaert: La confession aux laïques dans Γ É glise latine Louvain, 1926. ^Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , can. 10 (D .B ., 920). C .I.C ., can on 871: “ M inister huius sacramenti est solus sacerdos.” 18C .I.C ., canon 872: “ Praeter potestatem ordinis, ad validam peccatorum absolutionem requiritur in m inistro potestas jurisdictinois, sive ordinaria sive delegata, in poenitentem .” 19Cf. am ong others: B. Poschm ann art. cit.; K . M örsdorf: “D er hoheitliche Charakter der sakram entalen Lossprechung” , in Trierer Theo/. Z eitschrift, 1948, pp. 335-48; T. J. R oorda: “ D e natura potestatis absolvendi a peccatis” , in Eph. Juris Canonici, 1948, pp. 353-81 and pp. 514-40. aoCf. P. A nciaux: La théologie du sacrem ent de pénitence . . ., pp. 308-25 and pp. 500-604. A t the end o f the twelfth century these passages are to be found: “ A d h oc dicimus quod ad h oc quod p ossit ligare et solvere oportet quod habeat jurisdictionem , quia executio clavium non nisi in subiectis habet locu m .” (p. 568). “D icim u s quod quidam habent claves, sed non executionem clavium , ut sim plici m onachi. A lii habent parvam executionem , ut sim plici sacerdotes. A lii m agnam ut episcopi. D o m in u s papa maximam. H ereticus nullam . . . A d solvendum et ligandum exigitur jurisdictio. U nde cum non habeat jurisdictionem hereticus, n on potest ligare et solvere.” (p. 580). “D e sacerdotibus qui n on habent curam gregis, dicimus quod habent alas ligatus. H abent quidem potestatem ligandi et solvendi, h oc est enim annexum (ordini). Sed hanc potestatem habent in habitu tantum et n on in u su.” (p. 585). St Thom as: Sum . TheoL, Suppl. 17, art. 2 ad 2: “ Omnis potestas spiritualis datur cum aliqua consecratione. Et ideo clavis cum ordine datur; sed executio clavis indiget m ateria debita, quae est plebs subdita per jurisdictionem . Et ideo antequam jurisdictionem habeat, habet claves, sed n on habet actum clavium .” aiC .I.C ., canon 197. 22Cf. J. Fuchs: “ W eihesakram entale G rundlegung kirklicher R echtsgew alt” , in Scholastik, 1941, pp. 496-520; K . M örsdorf: “Zur G rundlegung des Rechtes in der K irche” , in M ünchner Theo!. Z eitsch ­ rift, 1952, pp. 329-48; Eichm ann-M örsdorf: Kircheurecht, vols 1-2, Paderborn, 1953; W. Brieven: “ D e tweeledigheid van de hiërarchische

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m achten in de K erk” , in Collectanea M echliniensla, 1955, pp. 407-17. 23T he aspect o f jurisdiction in the practice o f penance occupies a less definite p osition in the Eastern Churches. This follow s from their ecclesiology in which the juridical elem ents are less prom inent than in the W est. 24C .I.C ., canon 209: “ In errore com m uni aut indubio p ositivo sive facti, jurisdictionem supplet Ecclesia pro foro tum externo tum intern o.” ' 25C .I.C ., canon 8S2: “ In periculo m ortis om nes sacerdotes, licet ad confessiones n on approbati, valide et licite absolvunt quoslibet poenitentes a quibusvis peccatis aut censuris, quantum vis reservatis et notoriis, etiam si praesens sit sacerdos approbatus, salvo praescripto can. 884, 2252.” w Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 6 (D .B ., 902) and can. 9 (D .B ., 919). 27“ H o e zuiverder de priester ingesteld is op zijn door sakram entele th éologie gesteund gebed, zonder moraliserende o f psychologische inslag, des te beter. H et moraliseren en het psychologisch ingrijpen k om t enkel op de tweede en op de derde plaats. D it in te zien is van wezenlijk belang. D e drang om te moraliseren is immers alte groot en kan de ziel schaden, wanneer dit geschiedt ten koste van de wijding van h et sakram enteel gebeuren. O ok voor h et gem oed van de biechteling werkt h et kw etsend voor al wanneer passende takt en discretie ontbreken.” A . Snoeck: B iechi en Patoraalpsychologie, Bruges, 1958, p. 13. 28Cf. D irection spirituelle e t psychologie (Études Carmélitaines), Bruges, 1951, pp. 111-28. 29Cf. A . Snoeck: op. cit., p. 12. 30This short form ula is called the essential form , “form a ad validitatem ” o f the sacram ent o f penance. Cf. e.g. Instructio Sacrae Poenitentiariae, 25-3-1944. s lConc. Trid., Sess. V I, cap. 14 (D .B ., 807), can. 30 (D .B ., 840); cf. St Thom as: Sum. Theol., Ilia , qu. 86, art. 4-5. a2Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 8 (D .B ., 904), can. 12-13, 15 (D .B ., 922-3, 925). aaConc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 8 (D .B ., 905). 34W e m ay n ote in passing that the expression “ temporal punishm ent” m eans tw o things. First, it m eans the results o f sin that remain after external punishm ent has been rem itted, i.e. after sanctifying grace has been received when the inner direction o f the will has been “ converted” , These results are an attachm ent to sin in hum an appetancies and con ­ stitute an obstacle to total self-giving to G od and on e’s neighbour. A nd this is “ tem poral punishm ent” as it relates to G od. Secondly, it m eans tem poral punishm ent in relation to the Church. F or in order to eradicate these results, the Church assigns som e penance, as formerly it prescribed

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a period o f penance. This ecclesiastical tem poral punishm ent counts as a sacramental rem ission o f tem poral punishm ent in the sight o f G od. A s penitential practice has developed, con fession has becom e the principal penance, the central act o f the sacrament. This sacram ental action ratifies and crowns every penitential practice that ought to form part o f a Christian’s life. A t different m om ents o f the liturgical year the Church calls on believers to give a special expression to their penance in union w ith the whole com m unity in order to elim inate sin entirely, that is for the rem ission o f tem poral punishm ent in the sight o f G od . 35See Appendix, pp. 166. 36From this point o f view there are tw o opinions am ong theologians. Som e adm it the existence o f infused m oral virtues, others deny their necessity. Cf. P. de V ooght: “ Y a-t-il des vertus m orales infuses?” in Ephem. Theol. Lovart., 1933, pp. 232-42. 37Cf. L'ascèse chrétienne e t l ’homme contemporain (Cahiers de la Vie spirituelle), Paris, 1951; Pénitence et pénitences (Cahiers de la R oseraie, 2), Bruges, 1953. 38Co«c. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 9 (D .B ., 906).

CHAPTER VI

The Sacramental Efficacy o f Christian Penance Ecclesiastical penance is the sacrament of the sinner’s recon­ ciliation with God, the sacrament of the remission of sins committed after baptism. Its place is in the current started by baptism which saves a man from the death caused by sin through incorporating him in Christ within the community of the Church. The “second baptism” is not without pain; penance, hallowed by the Church, is one of its constitutive elements. By the Church’s intervention, a Christian’s penance is associated with Christ’s Passion and becomes sacramental. It is thus led to its perfection.1 When a sinner’s conversion is expressed and made real in ecclesiastical penance, based on the powers given by Christ to the Church, then the sacra­ mental means is established which adapts it perfectly for eradicating sin. To state clearly the efficacy of penance it is not enough to enumerate its various aspects. It is indispensable to see what it signifies sacramentally. Unless its sacramental nature and what that implies is clearly set out, the specific features of the efficacy of penance in the Church cannot be delineated. This sacramental signification of the efficacy of Christian penance is related both to the Church and to the human being concerned. 145

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1. Its relationship to the Church Its relation to the Church guarantees its efficacy as a sacramental sign. It is a sacrament of reconciliation with God and it makes present a sacramental grace of remission and healing. This relation to the Church becomes evident from the study of penitential practice in the early centuries. It has been brought out also by theological studies of the mystery of the Church. The essential importance of the Church, the institution and community of salvation, in the Christian economy (Faith—sacraments—grace) cannot be denied. It stands out plainly in the history of the Christian community; it is affirmed, at least as regards its essential aspects, in the earliest apostolic preaching and it forms one of the capital points of the theology of St Paul and St John. But the formu­ lation of precise ideas about the mystery of the Church and of the relation to it of faith, the sacraments and grace, with all the various aspects involved, went hand in hand with the progressive development of systematic theology.2 The relationship between Christian penance, with its aim of becoming reconciled with God and destroying sin, and the Church, is very obvious in the sacramental rite. In the early period, during the time assigned for canonical penance, we can observe the different occasions when the Church inter­ vened and what this signified. The actio poenitentiae is the sinner’s penance under the guidance of the community and with its help. It includes the intervention of authority, imposing a penance and granting reconciliation. Since ’ penance is a reality within the Church, pardon and restora­ tion to life-giving communion with Christ are guaranteed. The essential mediation of the community and of the ecclesi­ astical hierarchy is quite as real today in the present organiza­

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tion of sacramental penance. It still stands out clearly in the liturgical rite. Willingness to submit to ecclesiastical penance is an indispensable condition and an essential element of fruitful contrition. Confession is a public expression of this submission, aiming at reconciliation with God and eradica­ tion of sin. Absolution is the productive sign of reconciliation with the Church and God, of the restoration or the develop­ ment of communion with Christ. The need for the Church’s action in penance, and what it means, has become apparent in proportion to the growth in understanding of the Church’s function in Christian life and penance. This understanding is the result of reflection during the centuries of Christian tradition. The Fathers were definite on the necessity for ecclesiastical penance and they based themselves on Christ’s gift of the power of the keys, and on the essential part played by the community and the hierarchy in the remission of sins. They followed up the earliest theological thought on the mystery of the Church and emphasized the significance of mediation of the Church in the work of reconciling the sinner with God. Union with the Church is the basis and the guarantee of the grace and gift of the Holy Spirit. When the Church effects the reconcilia­ tion of the sinner, he is brought back into the environment of grace and charity, the mystical and hierarchical body of Christ. The sinner’s penance is guaranteed and sustained by the prayers of the community and the hierarchy. The prayer of the Church avails; it is uttered in the name of the Lord and in the power of the Holy Spirit.3 The sinner’s work of expiation is inspired by the faith of the Church with which he associates himself by submitting to ecclesiastical penance in order to add finality to his conversion and to obtain the grace of pardon. The actio poenitentiae is considered by the Fathers to be a reality that belongs both to the Church and

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to the human person. It is the public expression of the sinner’s conversion (his faith and repentance), his submission to the Church for its help and guidance on his journey back to God in Christ. He is himself a member of the Church and his penance is necessarily ecclesiastical, because of his baptismal character and his acceptance of the Church’s authority. The ultimate reason why penance intrinsically pertains to the Church is that it is rooted in the present conditions of the economy of salvation in Christ. Participation in the divine life in Christ (grace) progressively follows the various stages of incorporation in the Church (the grace of the sacraments), through a wider and deeper charitable communion with the Christian community.4 Sin is the rejection or diminution of love and when committed by a baptized person it is bound to be essentially related to the Church. So is penance, and not merely as expiation to restore disrupted order in the community, but because only through and in the Church can grace and charity deepen and grow. Christian penance obtains its specific meaning and its sacramental value through the mediation of the Church, through its essential connection with the Church. It is sacra­ mentally effective for the same reason. Reconciliation with the Church is the sacrament of the repentant sinner’s recon­ ciliation with God in Christ not only because it ensures pardon, but because it is the culmination of conversion, eradicating sin and bringing charity in Christ to perfection. It is in this sense that grace obtained through ecclesiastical penance is sacramental. Brought into existence by a sacra­ ment, an act of the Church, it brings about a special form of incorporation, a deeper communion with the living Church and hence with the divine fife in Christ. For as the result of ecclesiastical penance, the sinner is either brought

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back into the community of grace and charity or else enabled to share more thoroughly in its life. It is a sacramental participation in Christ’s Passion, conforming the sinner to the suffering Christ so that he may more profoundly share in the mystery of the Redemption. 2. In its relation to the human person The sacramental efficacy of a Christian’s penance, founded on its relation to the Church essentially and necessarily contains a personal dimension. Through the Church’s action, his penance is taken up and hallowed and thus made into the sacrament of penance. Its efficacy depends essentially upon his personal participation in ecclesiastical penance. The fundamental law of justification is applicable here, modified by the special data of the sacramental economy. Some human participation is always an essential for justify­ ing grace which becomes present according to the state of mind of the repentant sinner.5In St Thomas’s view, a sinner’s justification is always effected in an act of contrition. Attri­ tion is only the preparation which should develop into the “grace of contrition” . A sinner’s conversion is instantaneous both in the new direction of his will and his acceptance of justifying grace. But this climax may be the end of a more or less lengthy preparation. So long as the will is not totally re-directed the inner disposition will be only that of sorrow­ ful attrition. As soon as repentance and hatred of sin become sufficiently intense, justifying grace is received into the soul. When this happens we have perfect contrition, contrition that achieves its purpose. Motive comes into it inasmuch as it expresses and conditions the sincerity and intensity of repent­ ance. But there is no necessarily perfect harmony between conscious motivation and the “perfection” of repentance.6 There is no immediate experience or perception of either the

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presence of grace or of the intensity of repentance. Moreover, the presence of grace and the state of perfect contrition do not exclude a certain illogicality in our behaviour, due to luke­ warm love or to a failure to make that charity, which we fundamentally possess, radiate as fully and as practically as it should (venial sins). This law of justification is applied according to the condi­ tions of the sacramental economy. The remission of the sins of a baptized person takes place through the sacramental means of ecclesiastical penance. Human preparation, the sinner’s own share in the destruction of his sins, forms an essential element of this penance, and consequently, a con­ stitutive element of the sacrament. Sincere repentance and practical conversion, perfect contrition, presuppose a willing­ ness to accept this penance; and acceptance is the providen­ tial, specifically Christian means for completing the process of conversion and the destruction of sin. Conversion expressed as expiation, repentance brought to maturity by penance—these are taken up into the sacrament. These activities which are intrinsically human and religious become specifically Christian when brought into organic relationship with the Church. The connection between contrition and external penance results from both the nature of a man’s repentance and conversion and the present conditions of the economy of salvation. The grace of Christ is offered to men by the Church in the sacraments. The Church takes up certain kinds of human activity and unites them to Christ’s Passion, thus making them signs of grace that effect what they signify. This explains why the three essential aspects of every sacrament are inseparable: the sacraments are acts of Christ because acts of the Church which incorporates certain human activities that are done under the influence of faith. Christ’s redeeming love meets men in the sacraments of the

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Church in which believers must play their part, because only in a freely co-operative work can grace be received and made present. This essential relationship between personal parti­ cipation and sacramental grace, between personal commit­ ment and hallowing by the Church explains how it is that sacramental grace is received according to the disposition of the subject. This disposition—authentic repentance in the case of the sacrament of penance—is expressed and made concrete in the sacramental reality through acceptance of ecclesiastical penance. This sacramental reality is essentially the fulfilment and hallowing of a Christian’s personal con­ version; he turns to the Church for pardon through Christ’s Passion and, consequently, for total reconciliation with God. The final stage of conversion, the practical reconciliation of the sinner with God is always sacramental. But the relation between the grace of reconciliation and the sacra­ ment of penance can take different forms following the depth and intensity of the sinner’s repentance. Tradition, registered by the Council of Trent, distinguishes two cases: either the sinner receives the grace of pardon before actually submitting to ecclesiastical penance, that is, before confession, or else he will receive it as a result of that submission provided his disposition is satisfactory.7 It may happen that a repentant sinner receives sanctifying grace before he has confessed. Moved by the Holy Spirit his conversion may be authentic, his hatred of sin deep enough for his basic attitude to God to be changed and sin thrown out in the acceptance of divine grace. But in the present economy of salvation this conversion cannot be authentic and effective unless he has resolved on total submission to the divine will in Christ, that is, on submission to ecclesiastical penance for reconciliation with the Church and hence to a

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complete restoration of life-giving communion with God. When these conditions are verified the conversion is true and effective; contrition is perfect; the sinner receives the grace of forgiveness, sanctifying grace and charity, according to his disposition. This justifying grace is already sacramental and pertains to the Church, first on account of the sinner’s baptismal “character”, and secondly because of his resolve to submit to the Church’s penance. His contrition is directed towards its fulfilment in and through sacramental penance; his con­ version aims at reconciliation with the Church. The repentant sinner receives sanctifying grace in and through his con­ version, grounded on the baptismal “character” and on willingness to accept ecclesiastical penance. In fact this is not really an anticipation of the sacrament. For this latter is beginning its action, starting with the baptized sinner’s con­ version with his resolution to confess. The sinner’s initiative is the sacrament’s approach; its power is already beginning to be felt. Contrition is the first moment of the sacrament; when repentance has become deep enough, sanctifying grace is received as the result of the essential connection between perfect contrition and the sacramental penance.8 Actual submission to sacramental penance—the act of confession—brings conversion to its proper conclusion and achieves reconciliation with God. The externalization of conversion in confession and in the acceptance of “satis­ faction” is, by reason of the Church’s intervention, the social ratification of reconciliation and the sacramental hallowing of the remission of sins. Reconciliation with God is confirmed and sealed by this public reconciliation with the Church. Life­ giving union with Christ is corporeally completed by the restoration of communion in the mystical Body and sacra­ mental communion in the eucharistie Body. This sacra­

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mental penance restores and strengthens charity and destroys the consequences of sin (the temporal punishment) in pro­ portion to the quality of the penitent’s disposition, in union with the Church and Christ. Genuine submission to ecclesi­ astical penance is indeed the sacrament of reconciliation with God; it ensures divine forgiveness and sacramental grace. Through confession, sanctifying grace, received in perfect contrition, grows and develops into the fullness of sacra­ mental grace, that is, communion with Christ is reinforced by the restoration of vital and public communion with his Body, the Church, in which the fullness of the Holy Spirit dwells. The depths of contrition and the practical reality of interior conversion are not objects of immediate experience. Neither the authenticity of conversion, nor the instant of justification are immediately perceptible as such. It is only when it becomes outwardly effective and incarnate, in external signs of contrition, that conversion can be seen and grasped. First of all, submission to ecclesiastical penance is the supremely obvious sign and the concrete assurance of the conversion of a baptized person seeking pardon. Then, the absolution given in the name of the Church and of Christ is the sacramental sign of complete reconciliation with God; it ensures peace with God because it brings reconciliation with the Church. Thus submission to ecclesiastical penance is, in truth, an essential and indispensable moment in the developing process of the sinner’s repentance and conversion. His reconciliation with God through the Church entails, as inseparable aspects, ontologically and psychologically perfect contrition, personal self-commitment and the Church’s hallowing. Inseparable aspects because each of them is meaningful and significant only in relationship with the rest within this essentially complex reality.

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There is a second case: it may happen that a sinner receives justifying grace only when he has actually submitted to ecclesiastical penance. He may go to confession, hating his sins to some extent, but insufficiently. His intention is to obtain God’s forgiveness by sincere penance and with the help of the Church. If the hatred of his sins is genuine and if he really means to correct his way of life, he will receive justifying grace through the sacrament of penance according to the rectitude of his disposition. For the grace of pardon and reconciliation can be received only in an act of perfect contrition and repentance. In this case, then, how are we to understand the relations between justifying grace and sacra­ ment, between personal commitment and sacramental grace? Every Christian who has gravely sinned is bound to submit to ecclesiastical penance in order to obtain God’s pardon. The presupposition to the destruction of sin is submission to the divine will in obedience to the conditions of the economy of salvation in Christ. A sinner does in fact submit to God’s will when he humbly accepts ecclesiastical penance, that is when he confesses his sins to a priest. Through confession he gives external expression to his repentance and completes the process of conversion. A sincere confession is a work of expiation that avails; it is a trustful prayer to God for pardon through the mediation of the Church in union with Christ’s Passion. Depending on the depth of his conversion and the intensity of his repentance—and these will be completed and perfected in and through the action of penance—the sinner will obtain the sacramental grace of reconciliation. For ecclesiastical penance is the natural completion and the Christian fulfilment of contrition, the way in which conver­ sion is authenticated and effectively externalized, so that a sinner is made receptive of divine grace in the Church. In this sense attrition suffices as a preparation, as a disposition,

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as a starting point for justification through the sacrament of penance. For submission to ecclesiastical penance, the practical expression of repentance, gives the sinner the chance to complete his conversion and to deepen and stabilize his hatred of sin. Attrition is a sincere form of sorrow for sin: it implies that one is willing to correct one’s way of life and to reject sin.9 This willingness to repent will be brought to completion and maturity by the sacrament of penance, namely, when penance is done under the guidance and with the help of the Church. We have said that sacramental grace is received in pro­ portion to the penitent’s disposition, to the extent in which he actively takes his part in the sacrament. His personal self­ committal is taken up and hallowed by the Church so as to constitute the sacrament. The collaboration between the penitent and the Church is the “instrumental cause” of grace. In this second case which we have been considering, no more than in the previous one, can personal commitment be separated from sacramental hallowing, the climax of contri­ tion from integral reconciliation. The sacrament is not a kind of compensation for what is lacking in the human attitude ! Quite the opposite. The acceptance of penance precisely affords the means of making the attitude right, of making good any deficiency it may have, of bringing repentance and conversion to their completion. Sacramental grace, received according to the rightness of the sinner’s disposition, becomes an increasingly effective reality as he takes an increasingly vital part in the Church’s life. The welcoming of divine love in order that communion with Christ may become more profound is shown in the way we carry out the duties of our state in life wherein the love of our neighbour in the service of God becomes incarnate. Submission to penance, the act of confession, is not a finality but a turning point, a

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critical step in whole-hearted Christian living. The essential relations between interior conversion, external penance and the daily practice of penance are all basic to the sense of the sacrament, to what it signifies. The mutual dependence between the virtue and the sacrament of Christian penance must be realized and explained as existing within the complex dynamism of Christian fife in which the Church’s mediation takes place chiefly in and through the sacramental acts. The completion of conversion by the sacrament of penance, with respect to the perfection that repentance may have reached, is neither necessarily nor directly perceptible. Perfect contrition is not something that can be directly experienced either ontologically, as justifying grace, or psy­ chologically, as the intensity with which sin is hated or as the motive for repentance. This should not cause surprise, for it corresponds with the actual conditions of human and Christian existence.10 Grace, like the basic attitude of the will, is only perceived through signs, mediately through deeds which show that grace is present. Integral submission to ecclesiastical penance is intrinsically an effective sign of conversion and justifying grace. It is this, de facto, according to the penitent’s disposition and the part he takes in the sacrament. The sinner must take the first step and must collaborate if the sacrament is to be valid and effect what it signifies. He may come to confession without being repentant, perform the penitential action without hating his sin or without any will to reform. In that case there will not be the slightest trace of a personal commitment that seeks conversion and redemptive penance; it will be “wholly fictitious” in the traditional phrase. So long as a sinner maintains this attitude he can take no part in a valid sacrament. His confession is not sacramental; it is a sign that does not effect what it

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signifies. It is, indeed, a sacrilegious confession and is more or less grave in proportion to the culpability of the abuse. This case must be distinguished from that of the sinner who comes to confession with some degree of repentance and a genuine although still very imperfect desire to lead a new life. His attitude may still be superficial and tepid while confessing and when absolution is given, in spite of encouragement from the priest. If this is so, the sacrament will not at once be fully effective. In a sense the confession will have no result since, on account of the defective attitude, justifying grace will not be received. Only when conversion has become fully authen­ tic and when repentance has become deep and sufficiently intense, can this grace find an entry and begin to work. Still, there is no abuse or sacrilege because the sinner really is anxious to mend his ways. His will is sound (nonfictus) even though his contrition is not yet very deep. His self-accusation is sincere and he is asking for the Church’s help in securing the remission of his sins. It is allowable for him to come to confession since he is moved by an initial attrition, although on hypothesis, this does not become sufficiently perfect whilst he is taking part in the sacrament. But if he tries to do God’s will by entering actively into the fife of the Church, then he will gradually come to an authentic and effective conversion. A sinner who has resolved to give up his sin and serve God with all his strength through obedience to his command­ ments will obtain the grace of forgiveness when he accepts ecclesiastical penance. Confession, we said, is not a final point but the seal set on the start of conversion which the Church’s action will develop fully if the penitent perseveres. If he has made his confession humbly to a priest, in order to obtain pardon from God through Christ, then he will try to

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keep faithful to the divine will in the Church. Confession is only a step in the struggle against sin. It should take its place within the total sphere of Christian living. The definite resolve to sin no more, a necessity for sincere contrition and redemptive confession has a positive significance: it includes the intention to live as a Christian, faithfully carrying out the duties of one’s state in life, through love of God and one’s neighbour. Sacramental absolution is the sign of reconciliation with the Church. In any case, a sinner who has made a genuine and humble confession may take part in the sacraments, in those actions which specifically belong to the Christian com­ munity. Reconciliation with the Church is the public authorization to share in the Eucharist. Of course, if a sinner has confessed without repentance, there is no possibility for his confession to be sacramental: he has failed to respect the Church’s ordinance. Consequently, for him then to take part in the Eucharist would be an added sacrilege. On the other hand, if he has confessed with a sincere desire to do God’s will by submitting to the Church and yet has not obtained grace during absolution because of some deficiency in his attitude (of which, of course, he will be unaware), he will obtain and receive it when his conversion has fully come to pass. And that goal will be reached through and in an integral participation in the Church’s fife, principally through the sacraments. It is along these lines that we may explain the Church’s traditional teaching that those sacra­ ments intended for believers in a state of grace also bestow sanctifying grace in certain cases.11 This explanation of sacramental efficacy takes account of both the progressive development of conversion and of the disposition required for justification. It respects both the requirements for valid confession and what sacramental

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absolution really signifies. Even though sanctifying grace may not be received during absolution, that does not alter the fact that the sacrament of penance is the necessary remedy if reconciliation with the Church and God is to be obtained. The grace, which may have been obtained a long while after confession, is nevertheless the result of the sacrament. Neither confession, nor any sacrament, can be isolated from the other actions of Christian living. In some cases, effective conversion will be obtained only through persevering in humility and after a long time spent in self-giving devotedness to the duties of one’s position in life and in frequent partici­ pation in the sacraments of the Church. Absolution is an efficacious sign of grace, a genuine guar­ antee of reconciliation with God. If a man accepts ecclesi­ astical penance his sins are remitted when he takes his part in the sacrament and provided his attitude is right. In no case and from no point of view is it permissible to separate the efficacy of the sacrament as issuing from Christ and the Church (its aspect ex opere operato) from that personal commitment which issues in consent and the response to grace (ex opere operantis). 3. In its different aspects Now that we have examined in some detail what penance sacramentally signifies and its twofold relationship to the Church and to man, relations that are essentially comple­ mentary, the various aspects of its efficacy can more easily be understood. These aspects have already been indicated in the preceding chapters. These may now be summarized in a general conclusion. This provides an opportunity to explain the meaning of the technical formulas and abstract expres­ sions which theological tradition uses in order to describe the efficacy of sacramental penance.

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Ecclesiastical penance is a sacrament. It is a form of ^ worship in the sense that it is a liturgical act which expresses the faith of the Church in the Passion of Christ. The repent­ ant sinner associates himself with this act of faith and testifies to his trust in the divine mercy. Sacramental penance is an act of worship; a gesture of faith and an act of praise, made by both the Church and the sinner, a celebration of the mystery of Christ aiming at the sinner’s reconciliation. The liturgical celebration of sacramental penance, centred on the mystery of Christ, has a power of sanctification, of grace {res sacramenti). It achieves the sinner’s conversion, the remission of his sins through sacramental grace. To the extent in which his acceptance of ecclesiastical penance represents a genuine conversion, his mortal sins and eternal punishment are remitted. These two kinds of remission are inseparable; they represent two aspects of the same situation in relation to God. Honest acceptance of penance does away with the state of turning away from God and places the sinner once more in the communion of grace and charity. This state of turning away was conditioned by an excessive attachment to some created reality. The painful path of conversion leads to a position where one is again right with God, and, to the extent in which it is wholeheartedly accepted, it correctly adjusts our attitude to created realities and rids us from the results of sin. To the extent of the sinner’s colla­ boration with the Church, his temporal punishment is remitted by sharing sacramentally in Christ’s Passion.12 Frequent confession procures a growing freedom from sin and its consequences. Christian fife necessarily has a peni­ tential aspect; it is bound to include works of “satisfaction” for wrong done; and all this is hallowed in the sacrament of penance. That sacrament, therefore, includes both the remission of sins and clears away the traces left behind by

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mortal sins. Christian life cannot develop without it, nor charity abound because it is the normal expansion of baptismal grace which spells death to sin. Ecclesiastical penance brings the sinner back into the Christian community of grace and charity. It enables him to share in the divine life in Christ, in that aspect of it which concerns the struggle against sin. It gives him the rank of “penitent” in the Church.13 Life-giving union with Christ and communion with the life of the Church, restored or intensified according to the sinner’s disposition, put him back into the “state of merit”, enable him to act with the power of a Christian, or develop that power.14 Through an integral acceptance of the Church’s penance, a sinner re-enters communion with God or enjoys it more thoroughly. If he had lost sanctifying grace through mortal sin, then this acceptance makes him a fit subject for it once again. And here we meet the eschatological sense of the sacrament. It stabilizes his position with God.15 It restores him to Christian communal life, itself an anticipation of the life to be ultimately shared with the Trinity. In addition, through his part in the Church’s life, he is helped to an ever closer union with the Lord. This progress in Christian living, with its developing freedom from sin, is a pledge of eternal life. As the Fathers put it: by submission to the judgement of the Church, the sinner accepts God’s judgement and escapes damnation. The Church’s judgement brings to the sinner that determination to save him which belongs to the Father and is expressed in our Lord. The sacrament of penance is a special way of participating in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus; it is a saving remedy through which the prodigal son may come home to his Father’s house. Sacramental penance reconciles sinners with God, remits sins and starts the process of their eradication. Its power is

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based on the Church’s mediation, and this relationship with the Church makes it sacramental. In this sense, reconciliation with the Church, the power of penance as an activity of the Church, may be considered as the sacrament of reconciliation with God, of the remission of sins in God’s sight. And this essential aspect, emphasized by the Fathers, can be expressed by the formula: reconciliation with the Church is the sacrci­ mentimi et res of sacramental penance.16 The actual sub­ mission to penance is the sacramentum tantum, the outward sacramental sign. Complete reconciliation with God is the res sacramenti. The development of internal to external penance, guided and helped by the Church, is the sacra­ mental way for the remission of sins.17 The power of ecclesiastical penance comes altogether from the mystery of salvation in Christ. The remission of sins, like the conversion of the sinner, is the work of God through Christ in the Spirit. The divine activity works in the sinner’s soul through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and is finalized by the ministry of the Church. “Christ, the physician of souls, has a twofold way of acting: either he moves the human will to make its own effort in advancing towards goodness and hating evil, or he acts through his representatives by the external administration of the sacraments when what had been begun in man’s soul achieves outward expression.” 18 As baptism is the seal of the winning of faith through incor­ porating a man in the Church, so penance is the hallowing and completion of conversion through reconciling a sinner with the Church. Through faith and repentance a man is inwardly united with Christ; through the sacrament this union is corporeally and externally expressed19 in a visible and collective act which brings him back into the body of the Church and allows him to take part in eucharistie com­ munion.

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F O O T N O T E S TO C H A PT E R VI 1“Penance is both a virtue and a sacrament. A s a virtue it m oves us to reconcile ourselves with G od. It is sustained by faith in the Passion o f his S on w h o, through the sacram ent, turns us away from the wrong w e have done, gives us a fresh adherence to w hat is good , and a resolu­ tion to m ake reparation. A s a sacrament it brings the ch ief act o f the virtue, interior regret, into action and com pletes it in a social rite o f reconciliation through the pow er o f Christ’s b lood .” A . Henry: “ T héologie de la pénitence” , in Pénitence et pénitences (Cahiers de la R oseraie), A bbey o f St Andrew, Bruges, 1953; cf. St Thom as: Sum. Theo!., I lia , qu. 84, art. 3 and 7. 2In theological works on faith, sacram ents and grace, it is very im portant to remember that salvation has a history. It is dynam ic history and in it the function o f the Church stands out clearly. The grace o f the N ew Testam ent fulfils and com pletes the grace o f the Old Testam ent. In the sam e way, sacramental grace, grace in and through the Church, fulfils and com pletes justifying grace, received through spiritual adherence to Christ, or, in the case o f a pagan in g ood faith, sim ply through subm ission to the will o f G od. 3N um erous passages in the Fathers are given in the works o f Posch­ m ann and Rahner. 4“ Sacram ental” grace is a grace pertaining to the Church. It is n ot sim ply a question o f the quantitative increase o f sanctifying grace, but o f a qualitative wealth and o f a deepening participation in the divine life through a developing com m union in Christian corporate living in the Church. L ife in Christ and in the H oly Spirit can only develop fully in and through the Church w hich is the continuation and com pletion o f the redem ptive Incarnation. 5Conc. Trid., Sess. VI, cap. 7 (D .B ., 799): H anc dispositionem seu praeparationem justificatio ipsa consequitur, quae non est sola peccatorum rem issio sed et sanctificatio et renovatio interioris hom inis per voluntariam susceptionem gratiae et donorum . . . justitiam in nobis recipientes unusquisque suam , secundum mensuram, quam Spiritus Sanctus partitur singulis prout vult, et secundum propriam cuiusque dispositionem et cooperationem . 6I f the statem ents o f St T hom as are carefully com pared with those o f the C ouncil o f Trent on the question o f attrition and perfect contrition, it w ill be seen that there is no op position between them. A lthough the C ouncil m ay perhaps p ut m ore em phasis on the m otive, especially as regards attrition, it m akes no claim to define either perfect contrition or attrition by the m otive alone.

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7Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 4 (D .B ., 898): D o c et praeterea etsi contritionem hanc aliquando can tate perfectam esse contingat hom inem que reconciliare, priusquam sacram entum actu suscipiatur, ipsam reconciliatiom en ipsi contritioni sine sacram enti v o to , quod in ilia includitur, n on esse adscribendam . Illam vero contritionem imperfectam , quae attritio dicitur, quoniam vel ex turpitudinis peccati con sideratione vel ex gehennae et poenarum m etu com m uniter concipitur, si voluntatem peccandi excludat cum spe veniae, déclarai n on solum n on facere hypocritam et m agis peccatorem , verum etiam donum D ei esse et Spiritus Sancti im pulsum , n on adhuc quidem inhabitantis, sed tantum m oventis, quo poenitens adiutus viam sibi ad justitiam parat. E t quam vis sine sacram ento poenitentiae per se ad justificationem perducere peccatorem nequeat, tarnen eum ad D e i gratiam in sacra­ m ento poenitentiae impetrandam disponit. H o c enim tim ore utiliter concussi N inivitae ad Ionae praedicationem plenam terroribus poenitentiam egerunt et misericordiam a D o m in o impetrarunt. Q uam obrem falso quidam calum niantur catholicos scriptores, quasi tradiderint, sacramentum poenitenteae absque b ono m otu suscipientium gratiam conferre, quod num quam Ecclesia D e i docuit nec sensit. Sed et falso docent contritionem esse exhortam et coactam , n on liberam et voluntariam . 8It is in this sense that the efficacy o f the decision to subm it to ecclesiastical penance (votum sacram enti) is to be explained: contrition is the starting point and the beginning o f ecclesiastical penance. T he efficacy o f contrition is based on its essential relationship w ith the sacrament. See above, n ote 7. 9Conc. Trid., Sess. X IV , cap. 4 (D .B ., 898). See n ote 7. 10Cf. J. M ouroux: L ’expérience Chrétienne, Paris, 1952. (Eng. trans. Christian Experience, L ondon, 1954.) 11Cf. St Thom as: Sum. Theol., I lia , qu. 72, art. 7 and 2; qu. 79, art. 3; qu. 80, art. 4 ad 5; In I V S e n t., D . 9, qu. 1, 3. 2; D . 23, qu. 1. 2. 1. 12St T hom as; Sum. Theol., I lia , qu. 86, art. 4, ad. 3; Suppl, qu. 6, art. 1 ad. 1 and qu. 10, art. 2. 13“The primary effect o f the sacram ent is to be related to the Church as a penitent, to be given the rank o f ‘penitent’ in the Church. Since it effects union with the Church, it gives grace; but it is grace proper to a penitent, to on e w ho is forgiven and restored. A n essentially m edicinal grace, therefore: grace w hich prom otes adherence to w hat is good , as opposed to evil, which m akes for charity in its aspect o f hatred o f sin and egoism , its active contrast w ith tepidity, idleness and lu st.” E. M ersch: L a théologie du corps m ystique, voi. 2, 1944, p. 304; cf. ibid, p. 287-9; cf. M . Schmaus: op. cit., pp. 498-9. 14This is w hat theologians call “restitutio m eritorum et reviviscentia

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operum per peccatim i m ortificatom m ” . C f St. Thom as: Sum. Theol., I lia , qu. 89, art. 5. 15In theological term s, the sinner m ay again earn merits for eternal life. O rganic relations w ith the com m union o f saints being n ow re­ established, the believer is again in a state o f grace the developm ent o f w hich is an earnest o f his ultim ate condition. Cf. H . Schillebeeckx: op. cit., pp. 601-3; P. de H aes: “ G enade en Verdienste” , in Collectanea M echliniensia, 1955, pp. 289-308. 16See, am ong others, B. Poschm ann: D ie innere S tru ktu r . . . , pp. 19-25; K . Rahner: Vergessene Wahrheiten . . ., p. 362; H . de Lubac: Catholicism e, p. 55, (Eng. trans, Catholicism)·, E. M ersch: op. cit., p. 285 and p. 305; M . Schmaus: op. cit., p. 528. 17This is the m eaning w hich recent theologians give to the ornatus anim ae w hich St T hom as considers to be the sacram entum e t res o f penance. C f. E . M ersch: op. cit., p. 284 and M . Schmaus: op. cit., p. 528-9. T his ornatus o f interior penance is that w hich gives it its p o sitio n and dignity in the Church. 18St T hom as: Sum . Theol., I lia , qu. 68, art. 4 ad 2. 19St T hom as: D e V en tate, 27, 4; Sum. Theol., I lia , qu. 62, art. 6 ad 3.

APPENDIX

The Origin and Meaning o f Indulgences The age-old practice of indulgences is closely connected with the Church’s penitential discipline. In order to understand their meaning one must follow the way they developed in the context of the history of that discipline. The development itself was influenced by the growth of the theology of the sacrament of penance, and hence the study of ecclesiastical penance undertaken in this book provides the foundation for discovering the meaning of the practice of indulgences in the Church. 1. The origin and development o f indulgences The word indulgentia was first used as a synonym for remissio, relaxatio, absolutio, all of them having a general and ill-defined meaning of a pardon for sin, the remission of a punishment or a debt. But in the thirteenth century it acquired a precise theological meaning that expressed a special aspect of penitential discipline. Although the practice of indulgences with their present technical meaning does not go further back than the eleventh century, it is however related to earlier customs connected with the development of canonical penance and expressing the faith of the Christian community in its concern for the repentant sinner,1 For instance, during the persecutions in

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the early centuries the intercession of martyrs was considered to be important, in varying degrees. Repentant sinners, particularly those who had lacked courage to remain loyal to the faith, turned to the “confessors”, Christians who had been imprisoned and tortured for their fidelity. If we are to understand the reason for this custom we must see it in the context of penitential practice during this period. When a sinner wanted to be reconciled with the Church and be sure of God’s forgiveness, he had to do penance, the actio poenitentiae under the guidance and with the help of the Church. The whole Christian community, the laity and the clergy, prayed and did penance for repentant sinners. The liturgical rites devoted to these latter gave visible expression to the communion of saints. At different stages of the time allotted for ecclesiastical penance, the bishop or priest recited special prayers for Church members separated by sin and now returning. Even today the prayers of the Mass during Lent bear witness to this custom. These official prayers of the Church express and ensure the action of the community as a whole with regard to its weak and ailing members. And they manifest the Church’s faith in the power of its intercession {sujfragium Ecclesiae) with God through Christ. The more holy a member of the Church becomes, the closer he is to God and the deeper his charity, and hence the more helpful he will be to his fellows. His prayer, penance, suffering and sacrifice will be correspondingly effective. “ Confessors”, martyrs, were rightly considered to be pri­ vileged members of the community. Were they not imitating Christ absolutely, showing their love by giving their lives? It followed that when a penitent could make sure that a confessor would intercede for him, he was quick to get his expiation backed up by this exceptional charity. This led to

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the idea that such help should shorten the time fixed by the Church for becoming reconciled with the Church and God. In practice this was much abused as the hostility of some of the Fathers proves. All the same it is in line with belief in what the Church means: as the communion of saints and the institution of salvation, it comes to the help of all its members, and in particular of the weak and needy. In the course of the development of ecclesiastical penance this function of the whole community and of its most ardent members became less and less evident. The action of the clergy, however, became increasingly visible. But the same conviction lay behind it. The minister of penance acts in the name of the community and not only in that of Christ. He is a minister of Christ because he is an hierarchical member of the community whom he also represents when he carries out his ministry. From the seventh century the priest’s part in ecclesiastical penance becomes increasingly important. It is his function to decide what the penitential satisfaction shall be, so that the sinner may be reconciled with the Church and God and the consequences of his sin eradicated. At this period there was no distinction between remission of sin and remission of punishment. Ecclesiastical penance had to be done in order to secure total reconciliation, normally granted at the time when the “satisfaction” had been completed. Reconciliation with the Church was the sign that brought about reconciliation with God and absolved from all the penalties the Church had imposed. Right from the beginning the Fathers had declared that the length and the kind of satisfaction ought to be measured by the depth and intensity of conversion, of repentance. It gradually became a custom and even a law that one kind of penance could be exchanged for another, provided there were serious reasons {commutatici). It sometimes happened that a penance might be reduced or

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“redeemed” for another that was less exacting (redemptio). A minister of the Church could reduce the penance, remit a part of it. (The idea behind this was that the Church, in its more ardent members and in the person of its minister, should take on itself the task of performing what was lacking in the work of expiation which the penitent was unable, say from bodily weakness, to complete on his own.) In principle this custom is right enough, but it soon led to the most flagrant abuse. Noblemen had their penance done by their serfs or “redeemed” it with money. It is true that almsgiving has always been considered to be one of the chief works of penance, as expressing detachment from worldly goods and love of the poor. But it is a sphere abounding with tempta­ tions to abuse. About the tenth century we note an important developr ment in the rites of penance. It is then that reconciliation came to coincide with confession, before the work of satis­ faction imposed by the Church had been finished. Formerly, this latter was taken to be the conclusion of penance, while confession was simply an important part of it. As a result of this change in emphasis the remission of a part of the penance came to lose its connection with the sacramental rites. In this period, together with remission of penance, we come across various kinds of absolution, prayers with reference to sinners, issued at special times by the pope or by bishops. They are to be found at the conclusion of episcopal letters, at the end of religious ceremonies, after a sermon etc. As the Church developed her claim to an intermediary power with respect to the reconciliation of sinners, these prayers became more authoritative and indicative in form, and there is mention in them of the powers granted by Christ to his apostles and their successors. So they take their place in the series of liturgical prayers that had to do with canonical penance in

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the earlier period. They express belief in the power of the Church’s action over sinners who have accepted penance. Even today, prayers of this kind are to be found in the simplified rite of confession {Misereatur and Indulgentiam). When one reflects on the lack of development in the theology of the sacrament of penance at this time, the lack of unity in penitential practice as well as the vague and confused formulas of absolution—the same formulas were used for sacramental reconciliation and for general prayers for sinners—the resultant confusion and passionate contro­ versies are understandable. This led to hostility, even within the Church, to these absolutions granted outside the sacra­ ment. There was then no clear distinction between the various forms of absolution. Some indicated that the sinner was now reconciled with the Church and with God and hallowed his conversion, remitted sin and eternal punishment. Others were just general expressions of collective aid for sinners in the form of prayers to God. These absolutions cannot as yet be properly called indulgences because they do not grant, by means of a juridical act, any remission of ecclesiastical penance, of temporal punishment, imposed by the Church. We must take them as isolated expressions of the interest of the Christian community, and especially of its clergy, in securing pardon for the sinner and the obliteration of those results of his sins that remain within him. In this sense they assist and sustain the penitent. To the extent of his union with the Church they may remit punishment in the sight of God because they are the prayers of the Church, certified by the action of the Spirit, and because the Church is the com­ munity endowed with the power of salvation. But besides these sacramental or extra-sacramental forms of absolution, we still find in this period the ancient redemptiones, the custom of reducing penance in one way or another.

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And all these practices taken together led to indulgences in the strict sense. It was a gradual and unconscious develop­ ment, and it is therefore often difficult or impossible to decide what a given absolution in this period really means. In the Latin Church the practice of indulgences, properly ^ so called, seems to have begun about the eleventh century, 3 although in the twelfth century there was still much con­ fusion about the various forms of absolution and about the clerical function in penance. It is only in the setting of the theology of the sacrament, systematized in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that the distinction between the Church’s action in penance and indulgences becomes definite. The practice of indulgences began when the Church expressed and acted on the meaning and function of the communion of saints in its relation to repentant sinners. Its action was authoritative by way of a juridical act that granted a remission of ecclesiastical penance (temporal punishment, in foro Ecclesiae), thus indicating its intercessory function for the sinner. The prayer of absolution became a juridical act in foro Ecclesiae expressing in a visible and obvious way the part taken by the Church in the penitent’s progress towards the eradication of the consequences of his sins. The initial forms of indulgences are to be found in the South of France about the middle of the eleventh century. Remissions of a part of the prescribed penance were granted for a visit to some church or for alms-giving. For example, a third or a quarter, twenty or thirty days, one or several months of the penance were remitted. A prayer of general absolution often accompanied this special and authoritative remission. In this prayer the bishop or priest asked God for the sinner’s complete forgiveness should he die before having done his penance. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries indulgences were rare. Their range was limited; it was

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confined to twenty to forty days, one to three years of penance. Even so the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) was obliged to protest against the indiscretas et superfluas indulgentios. There were plenty of abuses in spite of frequent criticisms by theologians. Together with indulgences, in which the prescribed task is not considered to be a substitute for penance, there were, at this time, real commutationes et redemptiones of penance. The most typical was the absolution given when a man set out on the Crusades. A total and plenary absolution was granted to those who took the cross in order to deliver the Holy Places. This expedition was considered to be difficult, and it made up for all the penance imposed by the Church for the remission of sins and their punishment. In the formula of absolution granted by Urban II these words occur: iter illud pro ormi poenitentia reputetur. This indicates a plenary remission of the whole of ecclesiastical penance. The doctrine of the sacrament of penance worked out the distinctions between the various aspects of ecclesiastical penance, and in the process the forms of absolution used in indulgences became increasingly precise. From the thirteenth century it became normal to add to the indulgence the words: rite contritis atque confessis, in order to relate these particular remissions with the sacrament of penance, as an addition to it, or a completion of it with respect to the consequences of sin. This remission of temporal punishment in foro Ecclesiae based on the function of the community and on the powers entrusted to the Church expresses the traditional belief in the value and efficacy of the intercession of the communion of saints for the sake of repentant sinners. Indulgences for the dead also date from the thirteenth century. To begin with these were granted in the form of a juridical and authoritative act. This was because some theologians at that time con­

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sidered that the Church had jurisdiction over the dead. It was an opinion soon shelved and indulgences for the dead were granted only in the form of a petition, as a prayer of supplication, per modum suffragii. This, then, is the history of the practice of indulgences. As we have shown, it is intimately connected with the develop­ ment of ecclesiastical penance and is only comprehensible in the light of the canonical form of that penance. Unless reference is made to that form the formulas used by the Church in this sphere and their traditional theological explanation cease to be intelligible. For indulgences are remissions granted by a juridical act of a more or less size­ able part of ecclesiastical penance, of the temporal punish­ ment in foro Ecclesiae, based on the action of the whole community—concentrated in its holiest members—and on the powers entrusted to the clergy. This remission of penalties imposed by the Church is considered to be the sign of a remission of temporal punishment in the sight of God, that is, the more or less complete eradication of the consequences of the sin.2 We have noted that throughout the history of the practice of indulgences, the Church has had to take a strong line against flagrant abuses that have falsified this activity of the Christian community for the benefit of repentant sinners. In order to avoid error it is not enough to know the different stages of the history of this practice. We are in one of the peripheral zones of ecclesiastical penance, in one of the least stable, because most human and external of its aspects. Only by honestly thinking the matter out, starting from the mystery of Christian penance, in its ecclesiastical and personal dimensions, both interior and exterior, can the real meaning of indulgences together with their connection with the very nature of sacramental satisfaction, be made explicit. Only a

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living faith and an ardent charity can keep this practice up to the standard of its real value and meaning. 2. Indulgences: their range and meaning3 The practice of indulgences developed along the same lines as did the history of penitential discipline. What they mean and what they cover is derived from the nature of ecclesi­ astical penance. This latter is the sacrament of the sinner’s reconciliation with the Church and God, through which his struggle to be converted and his determination to expiate his sin are taken up, hallowed and fulfilled. Because by nature the Church is the community and institution of salvation, it is in a position to make perfect the penitential work of a Christian. If we are to realize all the aspects of ecclesiastical penance we must bear in mind all the aspects of the Christian community. The progress made in theological thought about the mystery of the Church as the community and institution of salvation has enabled both the sacrament and virtue of penance to be seen again in their proper perspective. And as a result a firmer foundation for the practice of indulgences has been found. It is when this practice is isolated from the sphere of Christian penance as a whole—considered in its relation to the Church and sacramentally—that it becomes side-tracked and leads to the worst abuses. Without faith in Christ and the Church, without devotedness and charity, without sincere effort towards conversion and mortification, the practice of indulgences is no better than a sterile carica­ ture and pointless calculation. It follows that merely to point out the Church’s power in the matter of remitting sins is not enough.4 What must first be set out is the significance of the Christian community through which the believer shares in the mystery of Christ within the communion of saints.5 It is obvious how the

THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF INDULGENCES

175

metaphor of the “treasury of graces” merited by Christ, gathered by the saints and distributed by the Church can lead to confusion. The important thing is to safeguard the profound reality which it is meant to express. Through his Death and Resurrection, Christ has become the originating principle of a new mankind, called to participate in the life of the Trinity through the building up of the community of charity. In this way it is an anticipation on earth of the fullnes of the final and everlasting community. No man can com­ pletely enjoy this participation unless he is integrated in the Christian community. For union with Christ is produced by faith and by the sacraments of faith. It comes into action through charity in Christian living, for the glory of God and at the service of his children. In this sense the Church is the people of God, the new temple, the ark of the new alliance, the pleroma of Christ, his Body and his fulfilment. Within the Church men are called to become children of God through a constantly increased participation in the divine fife. In scholastic terminology this is expressed by saying that the Church has at its disposal the treasury of graces merited by Christ. The practical realization of this Christian fife, of this community of charity, depends upon the response made by men to the call of Christ. To the extent in which Christians— the “saints” as St Paul calls them—five in Christ, the entire community grows and increases in charity with the aim of becoming fully adult in Christ (Ephes. 4. 11-16). Each individual Christian is called to fill up what is lacking in the Passion of Christ for his Body, which is the Church. Through the reality of spiritual communion {in spiritu) in Christ, the increase of charity and grace in the whole body benefits every member in the degree of his union with the Church, his faith and the ardour of his charity. This essential function of the Church as the community of

176

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

salvation is assured by the powers entrusted to it by Christ. The community of Christians is established upon the apostles and their successors whose work is to communicate the faith, celebrate the sacraments and lead believers along “the way” of Christ. It is chiefly through the sacraments, signs of faith, that the Church carries out its function as mediator between men and Christ. In the sacrament of penance the two powers entrusted to the Church, that of “order” and that of jurisdiction, interpenetrate with especial intimacy. Îh e authoritative act, the exercise of the ppwer of jurisdiction, is also a redemptive act, a sacramental rite. The penance prescribed by the Church (confession and satis­ faction) is the sacramental hallowing of the sinner’s effort towards conversion, just as the absolution that reconciled him with the Church is the effective sign of his reconciliation with God. The essential relations between interior penance (contrition) and exterior penance (confession and satis­ faction) explain why the efficacy of ecclesiastical penance^' based-on Christ’s Passion and the Church’s powers, essenti­ ally depends upon the disposition of the repentant sinner. According to the degree of his union in faith with Christ, shown by his submission to the Church, and the thorough­ ness of his repentance, expressed in the effort to lead a new fife at the service of the community, the sinner will be restored to ecclesiastical communion and will share in the fife of the community. Just as a Christian’s penance goes beyond the boundaries of the sacramental rite, so the Church’s function with regard to the sinner goes beyond the ministry of the confessional. Ecclesiastical penance hallows the whole Christian way of living in its penitential aspect. The daily practice of the virtue of penance is united to the Passion of Christ and to the penance accomplished by all the saints through the action

THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF INDULGENCES

177

of the hierarchy. Since the practice of indulgences developed in the context of canonical penance, it should be interpreted with reference to the special characteristics of this form of ecclesiastical penance. Its roots he deep within the mystery of the Church in that aspect of it directly related to sinners. The duties attached to indulgences—acts of piety or charity —serve to relate a Christian’s daily penitential practice to the sacrament of penance. In their outward form, which is explained by the origins of this practice, indulgences are remissions of temporal punish­ ment in foro Ecclesiae, that is, of a more or less sizeable part of the penance prescribed by the Church in confession; and these remissions are granted by a juridical act. This outward form has remained even though the penitential discipline of the Church has run into different channels. In our time, the prescription by the Church of a “temporal penance” is on the whole only an hypothesis, that is, the priest only gives a short penance, apart from exceptional cases. Does this imply that these absolutions from temporal punishment in foro Ecclesiae no longer have any meaning? No; although ecclesiastical penance has changed its outward form these remissions have kept their inner meaning, their implication in the sight of God. For from the time when indulgences, in the strict sense, began, they were considered to be of special account in the sight of God. These remissions of ecclesiastical punishment, based on the intercession and merits of the whole community—chiefly of its holiest members—obtained for the sinner a deeper and more effective share in the com­ munal life, a more radiant charity that would progressively destroy the consequences of sin and effect a cure from which the whole Church would benefit. This cure, this destruction of the consequences of sin obtained by these ecclesiastical remissions, thus signifies a remission of temporal punishment

178

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

in the sight of God. Indulgences have kept this profound meaning unchanged while penitential discipline has de­ veloped. Although their formulas are only intelligible in the light of past forms of ecclesiastical penance, the reality they express in the sight of God has not varied. They are effective means of eradicating the traces of sin on account of the essential function of the Christian community in the relations between Christ and men. This is the sense we should give to the traditional dictum: “The Church authoritatively distri­ butes the treasury of graces” . The practice of indulgences, closely related to the sacrament of penance, is itself based on the interaction of the two powers of the Church that function for sinners. The members of the hierarchy, who hold the powers of “order” and of jurisdiction in full, provide believers with special opportunities for taking part in the life of the community of which they are the responsible leaders and the ministers. To sinners who are repentant and re­ conciled with the Church, they offer “indulgences” as special means of becoming united with Christ’s Passion and with the penance of the saints so that they may get rid of the results of their sins, that is, may be granted remission of temporal punishment in the sight of God. Against this background the traditional formulas used to explain and account for the practice of indulgences becomes explicable. “Indulgences are the remission of the temporal punishment due for sins whose guilt has already been pardoned. Granted by ecclesiastical authority, apart from the sacramental rite, out of the wealth of the Church (ithesaurus Ecclesiae), they avail with God.” 6 For the living, these absolutions are granted in the form of a juridical act; for the dead, in the form of supplication and intercession (per modum sujfragii). The distinction between plenary and partial indulgences arises from the origin of this practice; the

THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF INDULGENCES

179

remission of all the ecclesiastical penalty or of only a part of it. Today this distinction indicates the different importance which the Church attaches to the various indulgences offered to believers. It is on these lines that all the quantitative formulas used in indulgences should be understood. They express with reference to canonical penance the proportional value which the hierarchy grants to the various indulgences. The general conditions which the Church requires to be fulfilled in this matter of indulgences are also explicable in the context of ecclesiastical penance. To benefit from an indulgence one must be a living member of the Christian community, able to share in the common life and in charity. The work prescribed must be done; an act of piety, charity or penance, an act for God’s glory and for the welfare of the community. The indulgence, the remission of temporal punishment is obtained de facto, according to the disposition of the person who does the prescribed work and, if it is to be applied to another, then according to his disposition also. The extent to which this remission actually takes place depends upon the degree of faith, devotion and charity. The indulgence is based on the Passion of Christ and on the action of the Christian community; it must therefore essenti­ ally depend upon the degree of union with Christ and the community, that is, on faith and charity. Thus indulgences whose practice has developed in the context of the history of ecclesiastical penance only acquire meaning and value in union with the sacrament of penance which hallows the whole of Christian fife in its penitential aspect. They cannot function apart from an integral Christian fife, integral in its sacramentality and its effective service of others in neigh­ bourly love. Hence it is that if the practice of indulgences is to be a genuinely Christian pursuit it must involve an essential relationship with the Eucharist. Regular partaking

180

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

of the sacrament of love is one of its essential conditions, and one usually insisted on by the Church in the case of plenary indulgences. Like the sacrament of penance itself, indulgences presuppose union with Christ’s Passion and lead to increas­ ing participation in his life for the building up of his Body, the development of the community of charity.

FO O TN O T E S TO A P P E N D IX 1Cf. B. Poschm ann: D er A blass im L ich t der Bussgeschichte, B onn, 1948; D ie Busse (H andbuch der D ogm engeschichte, IV, 3), Freiburgim -Br., 1951, pp. 112-23. 2A s we noted above, the expression “ tem poral punishm ent” has tw o different meanings. These should be kept distinct and yet the close relationship between the realities expressed m ust n ot be forgotten. On the one hand it is the penance prescribed by the Church for the purpose o f com pletely eradicating sins. On the other, it is consequences o f sin that still as a rule remain even after a thorough conversion, after the sin and its eternal punishm ent have been remitted. A ccording to the traditional doctrine o f the Church, even after sacram ental con fession “ all the penalties o f sin are n ot remitted, all traces o f the sin are n ot destroyed” . {Cone. Trid., Sess. VI, cap. 14, 2D .B ., 807; Sess. X IV , cap. 8, D .B ., 904, can. 12 and 15, D .B ., 922 and 925). It is therefore w ith the intention that these traces m ay be com pletely rem oved that the Church prescribes a penance or indicates som e pious or charitable work. W hat has to be determined is the precise sense in w hich a rem ission o f tem ­ poral sins in the juridical sphere o f the Church obtains and signifies a rem ission o f temporal punishm ent in the sight o f G od. See supra, pp. 137-8. 3Cf. K . Rahner: “ Bem erkungen zur T heologie des A b lasses” , in Schriften zu r Theologie. Einsiedeln, 1955, vol. II, pp. 185-210; “ Ü ber den A blass” , in Stim m en der Z e it, 1955, pp. 343-55. i Conc. Trid., Sess. X V , (D .B ., 989): C um potestas conferendi indulgentias a Christo Ecclesiae concessa sit, atque huiusm odi potestate divinitus sibi tradita (M att. 16, 19; 18, 18) antiquissim is etiam tem ­ poribus illa usa fuerit; sacrosancta Synodus indulgentiarum usum , christiano popu lo m axim e salutarem et sacrorum C onciliorum auctoritate probatum, in Ecclesia retinendum esse d ocet et praecipit, eosque

THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF INDULGENCES

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anathem ate dam nai, qui aut inutiles esse asseverunt, vel eas concedendi in Ecclesia potestatem esse negant. 5Cf. St T hom as: Sum . Theol., Suppl, qu. 25, art. 1; Clem ens VI: Bulla Iubilaei “ Unigenitus D ei Filius” , 25 January 1343 (D .B ., 550-2). «C.I.C., C an on 911.

i

A N A L Y T IC A L IN D E X

ANALYTICAL INDEX A B S O L U T I O N : m e a n in g o f sa c r a m e n ta l a b s o lu tio n : 7 9 - 8 0 ,1 2 2 , 13 2 , 15 3 , 1 5 8 -9 , 168; g e n e r a l a b s o lu tio n s : 6 7 , 171; r e fu sa l o f a b s o lu tio n : 131; rite o f sa c r a m e n ta l p e n a n c e : 6 6 -7 , 8 5 -6 , 125, 1 3 1 -3 , 1 6 9 -7 0 ; s e e in d u lg e n c e , r e c o n c ilia tio n , rites A C T I O P O E N I T E N T I A E , d e n o tin g e c c le sia stic a l p e n a n c e as a w h o le : 5 3 , 7 7 , 7 9 -8 0 , 85, 105, 116, 133, 1 4 7 -8 , 167 A S C E T I C I S M : 1 3 8 -4 0 ; s e e v irtu e o f p e n a n c e A T T R I T I O N , o r im p e r fe c t c o n tr itio n : a n d th e sa c r a m e n t o f p e n a n c e : 1 5 1 ,1 5 4 -9 ; e t y m o lo g y a c c o r d in g to S t. T h o m a s: 94-5; m o tiv e : 1 0 9 -1 0 , 151; p r e p a r a tio n fo r ju stific a tio n : 9 3 , 9 4 -5 , 9 9 -1 0 0 , 10 4 , 107, 149, 151, 157; sin c ere b y in c o m p le te r e p e n ­ ta n c e : 9 4 -5 , 9 9 -1 0 0 , 107, 155 B A P T I S M : a n d th e m y ste r y o f C h rist: 18, 2 1 , 4 1 , 7 4 -5 , 7 7 , 139; a n d p e n a n c e : 4 8 -9 , 5 2 -4 , 5 7 -8 , 1 3 9 -4 0 , 152, 1 6 0 -1 , ju s tific a tio n o f a c h ild b y b a p tism : 111 f o o t n o t e 4

162;

B A P T I S M U S L A B O R I O S U S : e c c le s ia s tic a l p e n a n c e te r m e d a “ p a in fu l b a p tis m ” : 81, 145 B A P T I S M U S S E C U N D U S : e c c le s ia s tic a l p e n a n c e te rm e d a s e c o n d b a p tism : 7 5 , 135-6, 145 B E N E D I C T I O P O E N I T E N T I A E : litu r g ic a l rite o f p e n a n c e : 58 B I S H O P : h o ld e r o f th e p o w e r o f th e k e y s, se e p o w e r o f th e k ey s; m in iste r o f th e sa c r a m e n t o f p e n a n c e , s e e m in iste r C H U R C H : m y ste r y o f th e C h u rch as c o m m u n ity a n d in s titu tio n o f s a lv a tio n : 1 7 -1 8 ,3 9 -4 0 , 5 2 - 3 , 7 5 ,7 9 , 1 2 6 - 7 ,1 3 6 ,1 4 6 - 9 ,1 6 7 - 8 , 174-6

ANALYTICAL INDEX

186

C O N F E S S I O N : a d m issio n o f sin b e fo r e G o d : 17, 4 9 , 51, 52; c a n o n ic a l p r e sc r ip tio n s: 6 6 , 117; c o n fe s s io n a s e x p ia tio n , an im p o r ta n t p a rt o f e c c le s ia s tic a l p e n a n c e : 4 9 , 6 5 -6 , 7 9 , 80, 92, 116, 1 2 3 -4 , 133, 154; in s titu tio n b y C h rist: 115, s e e p e n a n c e ; n e c e ssity fo r c o n fe ssio n : 72 fo o t n o t e , 2 4 , 9 2 , 1 1 5 -1 9 , 122, 1 5 4 ­ 5; n o n -sa c r a m e n ta l, 58; q u a litie s req u ired : 123-4; s a c r a m e n ta l c o n fe s s io n t o a m in iste r o f th e C h u rch : 5 1 -2 , 6 5 -6 a n d f o o t ­ n o te , 80, 115-16 C O N F E S S O R : m in ister o f th e sa c r a m e n t o f p e n a n c e , s e e c o n ­ fe s s io n C O M M U T A T I O , c h a n g in g o f p e n a n c e : 62, 168-9, 172 C O N T R I T I O N : 8 8 -1 1 4 a n d 149-59; e t y m o lo g y a c c o r d in g to St. T h o m a s , 9 4 -5 ; d e te sta tio n o f sin , sp ir itu a l grief: 9 1 , 9 5 -7 , 102; d is tin c t fr o m fe e lin g o f so rr o w : 9 6 , 101-2; im p e r fe c t, se e a ttr itio n ; in v o lv e s th e fu tu re (p u r p o se o f a m e n d m e n t): 9 5 , 97, 107, 158; p a rt o f th e sa cr a m en t: 82, 84, 90, 152; p e r fe c tio n a n d c o m p le tio n o f c o n tr itio n in a n d th r o u g h e c c le s ia s tic a l p e n ­ a n ce: 1 0 3 -4, 106, 145, 150-9; w ill to e x p ia te sin c o m m itte d (in te n tio n o f c o n fe s sin g it): 8 2 , 9 0 , 9 2 , 103-4, 107, 117, 150, 151-2; s e e c o n tr itio n , p erfect C O N T R I T I O N , P E R F E C T : a c tu a l m o m e n t o f p e r fe c t c o n tr itio n c a n n o t b e g ra sp ed c o n s c io u s ly : 9 8 , 103, 1 4 9 -5 0 , 153, 156; e ffic a c io u s re p e n ta n c e, in sp ir e d b y g ra c e a n d lo v e : 9 2 -4 , 9 9 ­ 100, 101, 104, 106-8, 109, 149, 1 51 -2, 154; in te n sity : 9 8 -1 0 3 , 149, 1 5 1 -2 , 166-8; m o tiv e s fo r: 9 8 -1 0 1 , 108-9, 149 C O N V E R S I O , a sp e c ia l fo r m o f p e n a n c e : 58-9 C O N V E R S I O N : as p a in fu l e x p ia tio n : 3 3 , 4 1 -2 , 5 4 -5 , 6 5 , 9 6 -7 , 115, 160; n e c e ssity fo r : 3 2 -3 , 4 0 , 5 4 -5 , 6 2 , 9 0 -1 , 9 5 -6 , 105-6; th e s u m m o n s to : 14, 17, 2 2 , 4 0 -1 , 9 3 -4 ; s e e c o n tr itio n , p e n a n c e C U L P A B I L I T Y , a n d g r a v ity o f sin : 3 8 -4 0 , 117-19 DEATH A N D

R E S U R R E C T I O N O F C H R I S T (P a s s io n o f

C h rist): a n d b a p tism , 18, 2 0 , 4 1 -2 , 7 4 -5 , 7 7 , 1 3 9 -4 0 ; a n d e c c le s ia s tic a l p e n a n c e , 4 1 -2 , 7 4 -7 , 7 9 , 8 1 -2 , 1 3 5 -6 , 145, 148-9, 1 5 0-1, 154, 160, 161, 175, 176, 177; a n d r e d e m p tio n : 1 7-18, 2 0 -2 2 , 2 8 -2 9 , 175

ANALYTICAL INDEX

187

D I S P O S I T I O N S ( o f r e p e n ta n t sin n er): a n d effects o f sa c r a m e n t o f p e n a n c e : 1 5 0 -9 , se e p e n a n c e ; a n d in d u lg e n c e s: 175-9; a n d ju s tific a tio n , s e e ju s tific a tio n E U C H A R I S T : a n d p en a n c e : 4 9 -5 0 , 5 2 , 59, 117, 140, 179-80; a n d r e c o n c ilia tio n : 52-3, 58, 6 3 , 6 4 , 1 1 6 -1 7 , 153, 1 5 8 -9 , 162 E X C O M M U N I C A T I O N : d isc ip lin a r y , 5 9 -6 0 ; a n d e c c le sia stic a l p e n a n c e : 4 9 -5 1 , 5 0 -2 , 133; litu r g ic a l: 4 9 -5 0 , 5 1 -2 , 5 9-60 F A I T H : a n d .c o n tr itio n : 9 1 -2 ; a n d r e d e m p tio n : 17-18, 1 9 -2 0 , 4 1 - 2 ,1 6 2 ; a n d sa c r a m e n t o f p e n a n c e : 121-2, 1 5 9 -6 0 ; a n d sen se o f sin : 1 2 -1 3 , 16, 19, 25-6 F E A R : a s o p p o s e d t o lo v e , 2 5 -6 ; r e p e n ta n c e , 100, 101; se e c o n tr itio n F E E L I N G ( o f g u ilt): 96 F O R M A (fo r m a l e le m e n t o f sa cr a m en t o f p e n a n c e ): 8 2-6; se e a b s o lu tio n , s a c r a m e n ta l rites o f p e n a n c e F O R M S ( o f p e n a n c e ): 3 2 , 4 8 , 51, 52, 57-9 H E A R T : th e r o o t w h e n c e sin o r ig in a te s: 16, 17, 1 8 -1 9 , 2 9 , 36; w h e n c e c o n v e r s io n o rig in a te s: 17, 3 1 , 4 0 -1 , 9 4 , 97 H I E R A R C H Y ; s e e C h u rch , p e n a n c e , p o w e r s I M P O S I T I O N O F H A N D S : 5 2 , 70 f o o t n o t e 14, 6 7 , 8 5 , 132 I N D U L G E N C E : 6 7, 8 0 ,1 3 6 - 7 ; m e a n in g , 174-80; o rig in s: 1 6 6-72 I N T E R C E S S I O N ( o f th e C h u rch ): 167, 173, 1 78-9; in d u lg e n c e s in fa v o u r o f th e d ea d g ra n te d p e r m o d u m su jfra g ii: 172-3, 178-9 J U S T I F I C A T I O N : c o n v e r s io n o f sin n er: 8 8 -9 2 ; h u m a n p a r tic i­ p a tio n in d is p e n sa b le : 9 1 , 1 4 9 -5 0 ; in sta n ta n e o u s: 9 7 -1 0 4 , 1 4 9 ­ 5 0 ; r o le o f th e C h u rch , se e p e n a n c e ; tw o w a y s o f ju s tific a tio n (S c o tis t d o c tr in e ): 8 9 , 108-9 M A T T E R ( o f th e sa cr a m en t o f p e n a n c e ): 82-5 M I N I S T E R ( o f th e sa cr a m en t o f p e n a n c e ): 5 0 -1 , 5 3 , 6 2 -4 , 65, 1 2 4 -3 3 ; 168: r o le o f th e p riest as m in ister: 128-33 “ M O R A L I T Y W I T H O U T S I N ” : 12 M ORTAL

S IN :

d e fin itio n :

3 1 -9 ;

n e c e ssity fo r

sa c r a m e n ta l

p e n a n c e : 4 8 -5 1 , 5 2 -3 , 64, 105, 1 1 6 -1 8 , 1 2 3 -4 , 154; n ece ssa ry su b ject o f c o n fe s sio n : 1 1 8 -1 9 ; u s e fu l su b ject o f c o n fe s s io n i f a lrea d y c o n fe s se d : 119, 120-1 M Y S T I Q U E O F S IN : 13

188

ANALYTICAL I NDEX

ORDINES CONFESSIONE: 65 ORDINES (liturgical books): 64 ORDO POENITENTIUM: 50, 51-2, 56, 59, 61; see penance, canonical PASSION OF CHRIST, see Death and resurrection of Christ PEACE (and the Holy Spirit): 41, 55, 77, 122; see reconciliation PENANCE, canonical: primitive form of ecclesiastical penance: 47-61, 65-6, 134, 146-7, 166-8 PENANCE, “private” : 59-60 PENANCE, public: 48-9, 50-1, 62-3; public character of sacra­ mental penance: 49, 50-2, 58-60, 122, 146-7; see penance, canonical, penance, sacramental PENANCE, sacramental: efficacy: 52-3, 145-65; eschatological aspect: 50, 81-2, 161-2; intervention of the Church, role of the community: 51-3, 54-5, 66-7, 124, 146-7, 160-1, 166-8, 169-71, 172, 177-8; role of the hierarchy: 46, 50-3, 54-5, 59, 62, 64-5, 66-7, 75-6, 79-86,105-6, 115-17,124-33, 134-5, 136, 146-7, 153, 158-9, 166-79; see Church: intervention of minister of the sacrament: 54, 75, 83-5, 105, 149-59; necessity for personal action (conversion-contrition): 40-2, 53-4, 64, 80-5, 105, 149­ 59 PENANCE, sacramental rites of: composition and structure: 84-6; evolution: 51-3, 58-9, 61-2, 66-9, 85-6, 125, 146-7, 168­ 70; see absolution, reconciliation / PENITENT, a special category in the primitive Church: 48-9, 49-50, 52, 166-7; state of penitent, a primary effect of the sacrament: 161 PENITENTI ALS: 63-4 POWER (of jurisdiction), canonical prescriptions: 127-8 POWER OF THE KEYS: 41, 51, 52, 76-7, 79, 115-16, 125-8, 147-8 POWERS OF THE HIERARCHY: and ecclesiastical penance: 49, 52-3, 66, 76, 115-16, 124-5, 146-8, 168, 170, 175-7 POWERS OF ORDER AND JURISDICTION (in the sacra­ ment of penance): 76-7, 79, 124-9, 176, 178 PRIEST: see minister

ANALYTICAL I NDEX

189

P S Y C H O - A N A L Y S I S (a n d c o n fe s sio n s ): 123 P U N I S H M E N T O F S IN : 2 8 -3 2 , 1 3 3 -7 , 153, 160, 1 6 9 -7 2 , 177-8 P U R P O S E O F A M E N D M E N T : s e e c o n tr itio n R E C O N C I L I A T I O N : d ifferen t k in d s: 5 8 ,’ 6 0 -1 , 6 7 , se e a b s o lu ­ tio n ; m o m e n t o f sa c r a m e n ta l r e c o n c ilia tio n : 52, 62, 66-7,·*1345 ,H 5 9 - 6 1 ; p u b lic r e c o n c ilia tio n : 5 1 , 53-4; w ith th e C h u rch a n d w ith G o d : 4 1 -2 , 4 9 -5 3 , 5 4 -5 , 6 1 -2 , 6 7 -9 , 7 4 -5 , 77, 7 9 , 8 1 -2 , 8 3 , 1 3 2 -4 , 1 4 5 -9 , 151-3, 1 5 8 -9 , 1 6 0 -2 , 1 6 6 -8 , 1 6 9 -7 0 R E D E M P T I O (r e d e m p tio n o f p e n a n c e ): 6 2 , 168-9, 170-1 R E L I Q U I A E P E C C A T O R U M : 2 9 -3 0 , 102-3, 133-5, 1 3 6 -7 , 153, 1 5 9 -6 1 , 1 7 0 -3 , 1 75-9 R E M O R S E : s e e c o n tr itio n R E P E N T A N C E : s e e c o n tr itio n , c o n v e r s io n , p e n a n c e R E S S A C R A M E N T I (effica cy o f g ra ce o f th e sa c r a m e n t o f p e n a n c e ): 1 6 0 -1 , 162, s e e p e n a n c e R E S T I T U T I O M E R I T O R U M , 161 R I T E S ( o f p e n a n c e ): s e e p e n a n c e : sa c r a m e n ta l rites S A C R A M E N T A L G R A C E ( o f p e n a n c e ): 145-6, 1 4 8 -9 , 150-61 S A C R A M E N T U M E T R E S : r e c o n c ilia tio n w ith th e C h u rch th e p rim a ry e ffec t o f sa c r a m e n ta l p e n a n c e : 1 6 1 -2 SACRAM ENTUM

TANTUM :

sa c r a m e n ta l

sig n :

83-4:

se e

p e n a n c e : s a c r a m e n ta l rites S A N C T I F Y I N G G R A C E : s e e c o n tr itio n , ju stific a tio n , sin S A T I S F A C T I O N (a n d C h ristia n p e n a n c e ): 52, 53, 6 7 -8 , 80; c o m p le m e n ta r y s a tisfa c tio n : 7 9 -8 0 , 134-5, 168-9 S I G N A C O N T R I T I O N I S : se e sig n s o f c o n tr itio n S I G N S O F C O N T R I T I O N : 9 8 , 1 0 3 -4 , 1 3 0 -1 , 153-4, 156-7 S I N : I. r e v e la tio n o f th e m y s te r y o f sin : se n se o f sin a n d fa ith in G o d : 1 1 -1 3 , 2 5 -6 ; m y ste r y o f sin in O ld T e sta m e n t: 13-17; in N e w T e s ta m e n t: 17-21; re ig n o f sin : 18, 2 0 ; sin o f th e w o r ld : 18, 2 0 -1 ; u n fo r g iv a b le sin : 32. II. N a tu r e a n d d e fin itio n : e ty m o lo g y , 2 2 -3 ; th e o lo g ic a l d efin i­ tio n : 2 2 -9 ; c o m p a r e d to a m a la d y : 13, 16, 3 1 , 32-7; d is o b e d i­ en ce : 1 5 ,1 8 -1 9 , 2 4 -6 , 27; d iso r d e r : 2 2 -4 , 2 7 , 2 9 , 3 6 -7 ; re fu sa l o f lo v e : 2 6 -3 0 , 36, 3 8 -9 ; s o c ia l d im e n s io n s o f sin : 1 4-16, 2 3 -4 , 2 7 -3 1 , 3 8 -4 0 , 4 8 -9 , 50, 148

190

ANALYTICAL INDEX

III. E ffe c ts o f sin : 2 9 -4 0 , 118, 119 -2 0 ; g ra v ity : 3 3 -4 0 , 1 1 8-19 S e e m o r ta l sin , v e n ia l sin S P I R I T U A L D I R E C T I O N : 6 0 -1 , 129 S U F F R A G I U M E C C L E S I A E : see in te r c e ssio n V E N I A L S I N : d e fin itio n : 3 1 -9 ; a n d d a ily p e n a n c e : 4 8 , 64; u se fu l su b ject o f c o n fe ssio n : 1 1 9 -2 0 , 123 V I R T U E ( o f p en a n c e): C h ristia n p e n a n c e : 4 8 , 135 -6 ; d e fin itio n : 1 3 5 -6 , 1 3 6-40; v irtu e o f th e sa c r a m e n t o f p e n a n c e : 8 3 -4 , 137-9, 145, 1 5 5-6, 176-7; se e c o n tr itio n , c o n v e r s io n , p e n a n c e VOTUM

S A C R A M E N T I:

sin c ere c o n tr itio n

n e c e ssa r ily in ­

c lu d e s th e p u r p o se o f s u b m is s io n to e c c le s ia s tic a l p e n a n c e : 8 2 -3 , 151, 152