Penance

PENANCE. - Sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ, by which personal p. (paenitentia virtus) is linked with an ecclesiastical judgment to which Christ has granted the power to remit sins.

I. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.

I. TERMINOLOGY

The New Testament uses μετάνοια, which in classical literature expresses the change of judgment (νοῦς) about a past fact, while the other term μεταμέλεια designates rather the change of the soul, of the heart. According to the Stoic conception the philosopher is superior to μετάνοια: «Non mutat sapiens consilium... ideo numquam illum paenitentia subit» (Seneca, De beneficiis, IV 34, 4; cf. Ep. 115, 18: «hoc tibi philosophia praestabit, quo equidem nihil maius existimo: numquam te paenitebit tui»).

Besides «metanoia» the word ἐξομολόγησις, originally confession, was very soon used for the whole process of public p. (cf. 2 Clem. 8, 3: ἐξομολογήσασθαι ἡ μετανοεῖν). The Latin Church too accepted the Greek term: thus Tertullian says of ecclesiastical p.: «Is actus, qui magis graeco vocabulo exprimitur..., ἐξομολόγησις est» (De paen. 9, 2). The Latin Fathers also used the words Pax, reconciliatio, receptio, communionis restitutio, baptismus laboriosus, secunda post naufragium miseris tabula (cf. St. Jerome, Ep. 130, 9: PL 22, 1115 and St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 84, a. 6) which express the effect of the Sacrament, of restoring the sinner to the peace of the Church and therefore of giving him back the state of Grace received once in Baptism (in the «p. prima»). After the decline of public p., not only the accusation before the priest, but the whole Sacrament of p. was called confessio (from the 8th century onward).

II. THE VIRTUE OF PENANCE

The Old Testament does not know a special technical term for "penance" and "to do penance," but the thing itself is very well known. It appears in two forms: in cultic-ritual penance, and in the prophetic postulate of "conversion" or "return to Yahweh."

In the legislative texts, cultic-legal expiations prevail (ablutions, fasts, confession of sins, mourning garments, in sackcloth and ashes; recall the great day of atonement "per sanguinem hircorum et vitulorum" Heb. 9:12). In such rites the soul, the penance of the heart, could be missing; hence the criticism of the Prophets who (like the Psalms) exalt the importance of internal penance, of the living awareness that sin is an act against God. The Prophets too have no particular term, but they use with predilection the verb shūbh, very much in use in profane language ("to turn back toward...", "to return," "to be converted"). The object of the return (either explicitly or according to the sense) is always Yahweh (only in Neh. 9:29 the Tōrah). The personalistic conception of penance was alive in the Prophets, which is a return to Yahweh and must be determined solely by Yahweh and by his will. This fundamental structure is revealed in the following characteristic elements: a) the conversion of one's whole existence to Yahweh is required, of which obedience to his will will be the proof (cf. Hos. 6:1-6); b) this conversion requires an unlimited trust in Yahweh. The people must lay aside every false trust in human aid

(force of arms, political alliances) and in the "gods of foreigners" (idols; cf. Hos. 14:3 ff.; Jer. 3:22 ff.); c) conversion to Yahweh includes aversion to every evil, to every action contrary to God. This negative aspect, implicitly stated by the more ancient Prophets, is found strongly accentuated in Jeremiah (26:3; 35:15; 36:3) and Ezekiel.

In the New Testament the "metanoia" is a fundamental concept of Christ's preaching: "paenitentiam agite, appropinquavit regnum caelorum" (Mt. 4:17; cf. Mk. 1:15).

Such "metanoia" is not only a preparation for the Kingdom, but brings one into the Kingdom itself (Lagrange, in the commentary on Mk. 1:15). The idea of the Kingdom and that of "metanoia" constitute a unity and illustrate each other. Thus the demands of the Sermon on the Mount are developments of the requirement of "total conversion."

In the metanoia of the Greek text there is also included the "satisfactio" for the sins of one's past life (against Luther), but it is principally the full mutation of the "mind," of one's entire way of thinking, acting, living; it is the total conversion of man.

This conversion preached by Jesus asks man to recognize God as God and Lord, which is equivalent to a true overturning of human life. Hence the note of the utmost rigor in the conversion required by Jesus. The words at times so severe (cf. Lk. 9:59 ff.) inculcate that in conversion to God the principle holds: all or nothing (cf. ibid. 9:62), because Christ not only preaches "metanoia," but represents it in himself (in the "forma servi" accepted for us) and in his entire life of unconditional obedience toward the Father, in which he bore and expiated the sins of the world. The Lord's final command ("... praedicari in nomine eius paenitentiam in remissionem peccatorum": ibid. 24:47) was faithfully carried out in the apostolic preaching (cf. Acts 2:38; 3:19; 8:22; 17:30). If in the Pauline epistles faith is proposed as the way of life, the death of St. Paul includes "metanoia," of which St. Paul himself is a shining example.

The doctrine of the Fathers particularly illustrates the necessity of penance (both for the pagan who wishes to convert to Christ, and for the Christian who has sinned after Baptism), its nature (insistence is placed on the mutation of the will, as also on penitential works) and its motives (above all the fear of God). Characteristic in patristic doctrine is the frequent recourse to the Old Testament. If the Fathers also energetically inculcate penitential works, one cannot for this reason speak of a "fatal relapse" into Jewish legalism (Behm, in G. Kittel [v. bibl.], p. 1003), because in the evangelical preaching too the "fructus paenitentiae" are required, and, on the other hand, the Fathers too always preach the necessity of internal penance (cf. St. Augustine, Serm., 351, 5, 12: PL 39, 1549).

Scholastic theology dealt with penance by preference insofar as it is a Sacrament, but it also gave to the virtue of penance its place in the theological system, applying to it the Aristotelian concept of virtue (cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 85). Penance is defined as "virtus supernaturalis eaque moralis, inclinans hominem ad detestandum peccatum a se commissum, quatenus est offensa Dei et ad firmum emendationis et satisfactionis propositum." The material object of penance is therefore every personal sin, its formal object the divine right violated by sin, reparable by detestation and satisfaction; consequently penance is considered by St. Thomas a special virtue (not general) and classified as a part of justice (that is, iustitiae pars potentialis) since penance does not verify the perfect nature of justice inasmuch as it cannot aim at a reparation secundum aequalitatem, impossible for a created person in regard to God.

The traditional concept of penance was rejected by Luther. He eliminated satisfaction as not founded in Scripture, as injurious to the mediation of Christ and to justification ex sola fide, and above all because of his doctrine on original sin, which would have created in man a radical impotence such as to make it impossible for him, even aided by Grace, to react to sin. There remain, according to Luther, only two elements of penance: passive contrition, that is, an immense fear in the recognition of sin, and faith-trust in the merits of Christ (Confessio Augustana, art. 12, de poenitentia; cf. Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, Göttingen 1930, p. 65).

This doctrine, rejected by Leo X (Denz-U, 746 ff.), was condemned in the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, cann. 5 and 6: Denz-U, 914 ff.) which instead reaffirmed the traditional concept of penance: "Contritio, quae primum locum inter dictos poenitentis actus habet, animi dolor ac detestatio est de peccato commisso, cum proposito non peccandi de cetero" (ibid., cap. 4: Denz-U, 897; cf. also the texts in sess. VI, capp. 6 and 14: Denz-U, 798, 807). Similarly the Council defines the necessity of penance for all men of every time who, after committing a sin, wish to acquire Grace and justification (sess. VI, capp. 6 and 7 and can. 9: Denz-U, 798 ff., 819; sess. XIV, capp. 1 and 4 and can. 4: Denz-U, 894, 897, 914). Penance is certainly necessary necessitate et praecepti et medii; the first is necessitas praecepti affirmativi, the other necessitas medii absoluta, so that even a blameless omission makes the remission of sin impossible (v. ATTRITION; CONTRITION).

III. THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

1. The power of the Keys conferred by Christ on the Church

a) Pact. - On the very evening of the day of the Resurrection, the customary formula of the Jewish greeting Pax vobis, repeated twice by Christ (Jn. 20:20-23), acquires a particular resonance at the moment when he gives the Apostles the power by which sinners are reconciled with God, when he institutes the Sacrament, which was later often called Pax, Pax Ecclesiae.

The words of Christ: α) extend his own mission to the Apostles: Sicut misit me Pater, et ego mitto vos. Christ's mission was liberation from sin and the communication of life (cf. Mt. 9:6; Jn. 3:17; 10:10); the mission of the Apostles therefore includes the task of liberating from sin; β) they therefore assure the Apostles of a particular spiritual power: Haec cum dixisset, insufflavit et dixit eis: Accipite Spiritum Sanctum. The insufflation upon the disciples (ἐνεφύσασεν) is read only here in the New Testament and certainly alludes to the spiraculum vitae (Gen. 2:7; cf. Ez. 37:9). Πνεύμα ἅγιον seems here to have to be interpreted as a particular gift of the Holy Spirit, that is, not so much a disposition of the mind or heart, but rather a spiritual power, as is immediately further clarified; γ) they give this power so that the Apostles may forgive sins as Christ himself did: «quorum remisseritis peccata remissa sunt eis (thus according to the Greek text: ἀφέωνται is the Doric form of ἀφείνται); et quorum retinueritis, retenta sunt». Since the Apostles must continue the same mission of Christ, the «forgiving of sins» must be interpreted in the sense in which he forgives sin (Jn. 1:29; Mt. 1:21; 9:3; Lk. 7:47-49). This power, called by Westcott the «magna charta» of the Church of Christ, is conferred not on all the faithful indiscriminately, but on the Apostles alone; thus demands the whole tenor of the narrative in John, where the passages in which the Lord compares the mission of the disciples to his own refer solely to the Apostles. This, moreover, was already the interpretation of the ancient Church: «In solos apostolos insufflavit Christus dicens: Accipite Spiritum Sanctum... Potestas ergo peccatorum remittendorum Apostolis data est, et Ecclesia, quae illi a Christo missi constituerunt, et episcopis, qui eis ordinatione vicaria successerunt» (Firmilian, Ep. 75, 16 in the Cyprianic collection: ed. G. Hartel, CSEL, 3, 2, p. 821, 1-6). This interpretation is confirmed by the passages in Matthew where the conferral of the power to «forgive and retain» is foretold: Mt. 16:19; 18:18. The two metaphors of the «keys» and of «loosing» are distinct, but very closely related and complete each other: he who has the keys administers the house in the master's place (οἰκόνισμος), which here is the Kingdom of heaven, with the very authority of the owner. This power (relatively supreme) includes, beyond the doctrinal field, also the power to forgive sins, which is more explicitly expressed in the other metaphor. Ligare and solvere render the Aramaic terms «asar» and «sérà», which in rabbinic usage express not merely doctrinal declarations about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of an action, but also true decisions taken by virtue of a properly judicial and coercive power, and which is manifested particularly in inflicting excommunication or in revoking it (cf. H. L. Strack-P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum N. T. aus Talmud u. Midrasch, I, Munich 1922, p. 738 ff.). That this is the sense in Mt. 16:19 results from the parallel passage (Mt. 18:18) where the excommunication against the impenitent sinner («sit tibi sicut ethnicus et publicanus»: 18:17) is confirmed by the power to «bind» (18:18); as also from the practice of the early Church (I Cor. 5:3-5; 16:22; I Tim. 1:20) and from the interpretation of the ancient Syrian Fathers, who were particularly familiar with Jewish culture, and who understood solvere and ligare in the sense of a judicial power toward determinate persons and sins. From the whole context solvere et ligare receives the meaning of «forgiving and retaining sins»; it is true that this sense in Matthew is not as manifest as in Jn. 20:23, but it is contained there as implicit in the principal idea of the Kingdom of heaven. The two formulas are therefore closely related, not strictly identical. Solvere et ligare in Matthew has a broader meaning, comprising not only the power to forgive or retain sins, but the whole complex of things or persons that in any way belong to the Kingdom. On the other hand the otherworldly effect of this solvere et ligare of the Church is expressed more explicitly in Matthew than in Jn. 20; namely that the Church's remission is ratified before God (super terram - et in caelo). The decision of the Church has value also for the heavenly forum; reconciliation with the Church has as its consequence reconciliation with God (cf. B. Poschmann, [see bibl.], p. 11 ff. and B. Xiberta [see bibl.]). The decisive word on the value of this exegesis was spoken by the Council of Trent: appealing to the «universorum Patrum consensus» (sess. XIV, cap. 1: Denz-U, 894).

b) Judicial character of the power of the keys. - The Council (ibid., cann. 2 and 3: Denz-U, 912 ff.) moreover rejected certain subterfuges of Protestant exegesis, which had sought to interpret the mandate of Jesus Christ either as the power to baptize or as the preaching of the Gospel of remission (cf. Lk. 24:47 and II Cor. 5:18-20); attempts that have no substance also because they do not take into account the «bifarious» nature proper to the power granted by Jesus: namely that it is given as a true judicial power, to be exercised in a twofold act, either of condemnation or of absolution (in which the institution of Confession [v.] is implicitly contained). Trent solemnly proclaimed this judicial character of the power of the keys, which therefore cannot be conceived as a «nudum ministerium pronuntiandi et declarandi remissa esse peccata confitenti» (sess. XIV, cap. 5 and can. 9: Denz-U, 899, 919). With this, the profound differences between profane judgment and the sacramental judgment of penance are not denied. In the former one seeks to establish whether the accused is guilty or innocent; the praesumptio and the favor legis stand on the side of innocence (nemo malus nisi probetur); the sentence therefore condemns the accused in the case of proven guilt, while it declares him innocent if he proves to be such or if, at least, the guilt could not be proven. In the sacramental judgment of penance the guilt is presupposed; one inquires how great it is and, a thing entirely new, whether there is at present a truly contrite (repentant) soul; the sentence then absolves or retains, it never declares someone innocent. Human judgment serves primarily the vindictive reparation of the violated order; the sacramental judgment of penance aims above all at the salvation of the one who is liable to judgment, that is, that his guilt (and penalty) be pardoned.

The particular sense of the penitential judgment is further clarified by its connection with the other judgments of God: it can in fact be considered as an efficacious application of the judgment that was accomplished on the Cross upon sin, therefore as a judgment of Grace in opposition to a first judgment issued by God at the very moment of sin («Huiusmodi quippe est peccatum: protinus ut perpetratum est, sententiam fert iudex», St. John Chrysostom, In II Cor. hom. 22, 3: PG 61, 522). It is finally revealed as a (merciful) anticipation of the final Judgment: «Claves regni caelorum habentes quodammodo ante diem Iudicii iudicant» (St. Jerome, Ep., 14, 8). There appears therefore in the penitential judgment the characteristic note of the sacramental sign, which is a commemorative sign of the Passion of Christ, a demonstrative sign of present Grace, a prefigurative sign of future glory.

c) Extension of the power of the keys. - The power conferred by Christ extends to all sins (committed after Baptism), so that none is irremissible through any defect of that power itself. This follows from the very words with which the power of the keys is conferred: no limitation regarding the subjects who will benefit from forgiveness (ἄν τινων ἀφῆτε, John 20:23), none regarding sins, τὰς ἁμαρτίας, without exception (cf. ὅσα ἐὰν δῶσῃς, Mt. 18:18). Christ then sends the Apostles "sicut ipse missus est," that is, so that they may remit every sin, as follows from Christ's doctrine (cf. the parables of the lost sheep, of the lost drachma, of the prodigal son) and from his practice (toward the paralytic, the sinful woman in Simon's house, the adulterous woman, the thief on the cross). The Apostles in fact forgave even those guilty of the gravest sins. The Church's conviction that she is the heir of an unlimited power is manifested in the first known synods, held in the 2nd century in Asia Minor against the Montanists, as well as in the Roman Synod of Pope Cornelius in 251, against the Novatians, and in the various synods against the Donatists. The universality of ecclesiastical forgiveness was solemnly asserted by Pope Gelasius I (a. 495; Denz-U, 167; cf. Fourth Lateran Council: Denz-U, 430; Council of Trent, sess. XIV, can. 1: Denz-U, 911).

Mention must nevertheless be made of the scriptural difficulties: α) the sin "against the Holy Spirit" (Mt. 12:28-32; Mk. 3:28-30; Lk. 12:10) is proclaimed by Christ as irremissible, not through any defect of the power of the keys, but because, as a conscious resistance to the work of the Spirit intended to facilitate faith and conversion, it (morally) excludes such remission; β) the sin "ad mortem" (1 John 5:16 ff.), according to the context of the whole letter, is the deliberate and total defection from faith in Christ, committed by those who not only de facto transgress the commandments, but reject them ex principio, claiming to attain union with God without the mediation of the historical Christ and without observance of the commandment of charity; for such a sin the word of 1 John 3:9 holds ("omnis qui natus est ex Deo, peccatum non facit... et non potest peccare," cf. ibid. 5:18); it presupposes a disposition with which impenitence is connaturally united, hence a sin not "simply" mortal (in our sense), but one that leads (πρὸς indicates the final term) to eternal damnation (θάνατος = the second death). The sin coincides practically with the sin against the Holy Spirit; thus here too the moral impossibility of receiving life is affirmed. Moreover, St. John, in the passage in question, does not speak of the Church's power, but of the certainty that prayers are heard; γ) apostasy from the Faith (Heb. 6:4-8); the impossibility of "renewing to p." those "qui semel... illuminati... prolapsi sunt" must not be explained, with the Greek Fathers, as the unrepeatability of their Baptism, but either in the sense of the impossibility of procuring their conversion by means of the same elementary doctrines already preached to them, or in the sense that, by rejecting the one valid victim, Christ, "iam non relinquatur pro peccatis hostia" (ibid. 10:26).

d) The sacramental character in the power of the keys. — The exercise of the power to remit sins constitutes a true and proper Sacrament of the New Testament, distinct from Baptism. The words of institution (John 20:20-23) can be interpreted sacramentally, since the exercise of the power of the keys involves a "sensible sign" (the judicial character of the power requires on the part of the sinner a sensible confession, on the part of the Church the external proclamation of the sentence); a sign undoubtedly instituted by Christ for all times, efficacious of Grace (ecclesiastical remission coincides with divine remission, given through sanctifying Grace). That this is really the genuine sense of the biblical passage was solemnly defined by the Council of Trent against the denial of the Protestants (sess. XIV, cap. 1 and can. 3: Denz-U, 894, 913; definition repeated against the Modernists: Denz-U, 2047).

The Council appeals to the constant interpretation of tradition, whose principal lines are traced below. In this regard one must note the supreme importance that, in the penitential process, the Fathers attributed to the Church, to which belongs not only its pedagogical and pastoral direction, but which is itself the indispensable means of salvation. It cannot be denied that this intervention of the Church appears more readily in its sacramental value if, according to the interpretation proposed by B. Xiberta, M. De La Taille, B. Poschmann, K. Rahner, the pax cum Ecclesia is considered the res et Sacramentum of penance (cf. also L. Lercher, Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae, 3rd ed., IV, 2, Innsbruck 1949, pp. 67 ff., 123).

2. The Sacrament of Penance in the ancient Church

The penitential practice and doctrine of the ancient Church have formed one of the most delicate subjects in the history of dogma. The principal problems are the question whether, as has been asserted, the Church in the first three centuries excluded the most grievous sins from its forgiveness, and then the exact evaluation of the penitential institution as it was in force especially from the 4th to the 6th century in public or canonical penance.

a) The historical-dogmatic development in the first three centuries. — Almost all non-Catholics see the penitential doctrine and practice of this period as determined by the conception of the «Church of the Saints», which consists, that is, only of members without sin (Sündlosigkeitsheorie) and by the corresponding evaluation of Baptism as the only penance (Tauftheorie). The primitive Church would therefore have definitively excluded from its bosom those guilty of the most grievous offenses (particularly the triad of capital sins: adultery, apostasy, homicide); and this not only by a de facto refusal, but because it was convinced that it had neither the right nor the power to grant forgiveness for such sins. The later, milder practice, introduced when the painful experience of excessively frequent sins no longer permitted the sustaining of such rigorism, would therefore amount to a disciplinary and doctrinal innovation, while the original ideal would be represented by the positions of Montanus and Novatian (thus Rolffs, Harnack, Windisch; cf. J. F. Laun, Busswesen, II, in Religion in Geschichte u. Gegenwart, I, 2nd ed., Göttingen 1927, col. 1394). The overcoming of primitive rigorism, according to this conception, would have occurred gradually, first as regards adulterers (in the so-called edictum peremptorium, which was attributed to Callistus, ca. 220), then by reconciling apostates as well (in the time of St. Cyprian), and finally by forgiving homicides (Council of Ancyra, a. 314). Similar opinions were advocated by the modernists (Denz-U, 2046).

Some Catholics too admitted that the Church, before the 4th century, denied de facto peace to the three capital sins; however, such a refusal was dictated by the supposed pastoral expediency of such rigorism, and the later mitigation would have to be considered a merely disciplinary, not doctrinal, innovation (thus D. Petavius, De vetere in Ecclesia poenitentiae ratione diatriba, in Dogmata theologica, ed. J. B. Fournals, VIII, Paris 1867, p. 182, followed by F. X. Funk, P. Batiffol, E. Vacandard, G. Rauschen). Other Catholics have denied not only the fact, but also the possibility of such a disciplinary change (cf. J. Stuffer, Die Bussdisziplin der abendländischen Kirche bis Kallistus, in Zeitschrift für kathol. Theol., 31 [1907], pp. 433-73).

a) The nascent Church and the Apostolic Fathers. - In it there undeniably prevailed a high concept of the holiness required of its members (I Cor. 6, 11; St. Ignatius, Eph. 4, 2; 8, 2; Ps. Barnabas, 4, 1; 11, 11; II Clem. 6, 9; 7, 6) and the obligation to keep the seal of Baptism unblemished was considered most grave. Yet it too knew within its own bosom even the most grievous falls (I Cor. 5, 1 ff.; 6, 8; II Cor. 12, 20 ff.; I Io. 1, 8; Apos. 2, 15; 2, 21; 3, 2; St. Ignatius, Eph., 10, 3; Philad., 7, 2; 8, 1; Trall., 8, 2). For all these sins the possibility of penance and salvation is affirmed (I Clem. 7, 4; 8, 1-5; St. Ignatius, Philad., 3, 2; 8, 1; Smyrn., 9, 1). Hence the most urgent admonitions to penance in this life, where alone it is fruitful (II Clem. 8, 2); from the fact that the Apocalypse calls to penance even the Church reproached for fornication and idolatry, Tertullian, still Catholic, will deduce the existence of a «second penance» for all sins (De poen., 8, 1-2). Even the testimony of the most ancient Symbol «Credo... remissionem peccatorum» (Denz-U, 2), although it refers principally to Baptism, at least secondarily also suggests the other, more laborious mode of remission (cf. K. Prüm, Der christliche Glaube u. die altheidnische Welt, II, Leipzig 1935, pp. 260 and 464, note 122, against K. Holl). The ecclesiastical-sacramental character of penance appears above all in the excommunication of the guilty party of a very grave sin, attested already by St. Paul, in the case of the incestuous man of Corinth (I Cor. 5, 2 f.), where the judicial, authoritative character of the apostolic decision (ελεξικία) is strongly expressed; the excommunication is there expressed with the «tradere Satanae», since the devil can exercise his power more freely toward one who is excluded from the communion of the Church. It is therefore not a matter of abandonment to a true satanic possession, as some Fathers held, nor of bodily death, nor of punishments that are solely spiritual, but also bodily «in interitum carnis». This excommunication has a vindictive but also a medicinal character: «ut spiritus salvus sit in die Domini» (cf. I Tim. 1, 20 where Hymenaeus and Alexander were excommunicated «ut discant non blasphemare»). The «penance of excommunication» for the gravest sins is likewise attested by the Didache (10, 6; 15, 3), by St. Ignatius (Smyrn., 4, 1; 7, 2; Eph., 7, 1), by St. Polycarp in the case of the presbyter

Valens (Phil., 11, 2), by the ps. Barnabas (19, 4) and by the second letter of Clement (17, 3-5).

The act of ecclesiastical forgiveness coincides with the readmission to the common life of the Church. Forgiving, like punishing, is the task of the presbyters («sint ad commiserationem proni», St. Polycarp, Phil., 6, 1). That ecclesiastical reconciliation, as reunion with the community of salvation, is also considered a pledge of forgiveness on the part of God, can legitimately be supposed in the Pauline conception of the Church, even if it is not always expressed as clearly as in St. Ignatius: «Quotquot enim Dei et Jesu Christi sunt, hi sunt cum episcopo; et quotquot paenitentia ducti redierint ad unitatem Ecclesiae, et hi Dei erunt» (Philad., 3, 2; F.X. Funk, Patres apost., 2nd ed., Tübingen 1901, p. 267).

Particular mention deserves the only writing of the period that ex profeso deals with p., the Shepherd of Hermas (v.). The value to be given to its announcement of a post-baptismal p. has been much discussed. Many (Harnack, Loofs, Seeberg, Windisch, M. Dibelius, H. Koch, and among Catholics F. X. Funk, P. Batiffol, K. Bihlmeyer) maintained that Hermas was the first to break the severe "theory of Baptism" and, appealing to an alleged celestial revelation, introduced an unheard-of novelty by announcing to sinful Christians a single and extraordinary occasion of p. in the form of a jubilee. D'Ales and Poschmann have demonstrated that this interpretation is due to a great misunderstanding. What Hermas preaches (Vis. II) as a new revelation is not the possibility of a post-baptismal p., which already in Vis. I (1, 9; 3, 2) is presupposed as evident, but the setting of a term to p., that it should be valid only for sins committed up to that time. Hermas therefore announces not the first, but the last possibility of p. Convinced of the imminent end of the world, he hopes thus to shake sinful Christendom to a mass conversion (Vis., II, 2, 4-9). A subject of controversy is then Mand., IV, 3, 1-7, where some wish to find an opposition between the original ideal of holiness and the new penitential practice. In fact the Shepherd seems there to approve both the existence of a second p. for the baptized and the doctrine of "certain teachers" that there is no other p. than that of Baptism. The apparent difficulty is resolved by considering the situation proper to catechumens and neophytes (newly baptized). The teaching on the possibility of another p. is kept silent for them since it could become a stimulus to sin (Mand., IV, 3, 3). They do not have p. (μετάνοια) because they have what is more: the total and gratuitous remission of all their sins (ἀφασις) - this opposition between μετάνοια (post-baptismal p., laborious) and ἀφασις (total pardon in Baptism) became classic in the ancient Church (cf. Clement of Alexandria, Strom., II, § 55, 6) and must be kept in mind when in some text the possibility of remission (ἀφασις) is denied for grave sins committed after Baptism. The efficacy of p. is unlimited, not excluding the most grave crimes such as apostasy and adultery (Vis., II, 2, 2-4; Mand., IV, 1, 8). No trace is found of capital sins held to be irremissible for their objective gravity; only insofar as certain sins demonstrate of themselves a disposition of soul directly contrary to p., may it be that they are irremissible (Sim., VIII, 6, 4; IX, 19, 1; VIII 8, 2).

Of great importance, on the other hand, became another restriction that is found for the first time in Hermas; p. after Baptism is unique: «οὐς γὰρ δούλους τοῦ Θεοῦ μετάνοια ἔστι μία (Mand., IV, 1, 8, cf. ibid., 3, 6); if someone sins after Baptism μίαν μετάνοιαν ἔχει. But from the context it also appears clear that this principle of the μία μετάνοια in Hermas is not the expression of a dogmatic impossibility, as if God denied the recidivist his mercy, but is inspired by pastoral reasons: the recidivist, as his sinning repeatedly demonstrates, does not have the true penitential disposition, for which reason p. is useless. Given the great authority that the Shepherd of Hermas enjoyed at that time, the principle of the single p. was commonly adopted, at least in the Western Church; it should be noted that already in Tertullian this limitation, originally disciplinary, acquires a more dogmatic and categorical flavor

(« sed iam semel, quia iam secundo; sed amplius numquam, quia proxime frustra »: De paen., 7, 10; cf. 9, 1).

The practice inaugurated by Hermas of the single post-baptismal p. cannot be considered without further ado as the most ancient custom. The Syrian Church of the first half of the 3rd century (cf. Didascalia and Constitutiones Apostolicae) seems not to know the limitation expressed by Hermas and adopted by Tertullian as by the Alexandrians (cf. K. Rahner, Busslehre u. Busspraxis der Didascalia Apostolorum, in Zeitschr. f. kath. Theologie, 72 [1950], pp. 257-81).

The ecclesiastical character of p. appears, in Hermas, in the excommunication of those guilty of grave offenses such as adultery or idolatry (Mand., IV, 1, 8-9); thus the Church is also the goal of p.: the insertion into the tower, which is a symbol of the (holy) Church, guarantees the remission of sins and salvation. If for Hermas p. were not terminated with reconciliation, the wrath of the Montanist Tertullian against the « Pastor moechorum » who would have precisely opened the Church to adulterers would be poorly understood (De pud., 10, 12; 20, 2).

β) The penitential controversies of the 3rd century. - The end of the 2nd century and the first part of the 3rd are determined by the Montanist crisis (v. MONTANISM). The necessity of defending the traditional penitential practice against the rigorism of the new prophecy contributed not a little to ensuring that the exercise of the power of the keys, traced in its outlines in the preceding era, appears clearly affirmed at the beginning of the 3rd century. It seems, however, that the Montanist movement induced here and there some bishop to a greater severity; note for Africa the affirmation of Cyprian that some among his predecessors, in the province of Africa, had not admitted adulterers to reconciliation (« in totum paenitentiae locum contra adulteria cluserunt »: Ep., 55, 21: ed. G. Hartel, CSEL, 3, 2, p. 638, 23-25). Cyprian, however, also gives to understand that these saw in it a purely disciplinary question « Non tamen a coepiscoporum collegio recesserunt aut catholicae Ecclesiae unitatem ruperunt »: ibid., p. 639, nn. 1-3). Thus is explained, in part, the categorical assertion of the Montanist Tertullian: « Hinc est, quod neque idolatriae neque sanguini pax ab Ecclesiis redditur » (De pud., 12, 11): this, affirmed in general, is false. It is sufficient to recall the letter that Dionysius of Corinth, a contemporary of Pope Soter (165-74), addressed to the Church of Amastris in Bithynia, requesting the reconciliation (δεξιώδης) of all those who from error and "heresy return to the Church" (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IV, 23, 6) and the case of the confessor Natalis, who after his passage to the heresy of Theodotus, the Argentine miraculously induced to p., was reconciled by Pope Zephyrinus (198-217; cf. Eusebius, ibid., V, 28, 8-12).

It is discussed whether the affirmations of St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., I, 13, 5; 7) concerning certain Christian women, seduced by the Gnostics, contain, besides the fact of their p., also the attestation of their reconciliation (so affirms P. Galtier, Aux origines du Sacrement de la Pénitence, Rome 1951, pp. 149-52, against B. Poschmann, Paenitentia secunda, Bonn 1940, p. 222 ff.; a similar divergence manifests itself on the value to be given to the exomologesis repetita of the Gnostic Cerdo: cf. Irenaeus, op. cit., III, 4, 3 and B. Poschmann, op. cit., p. 220 ff.). Undoubted, on the contrary, is the testimony of Tertullian himself who, still

Catholic, in the libellus De paenitentia (ca. 203) defends the second p., unique as in Hermas (7, 10), open to all sinners (8, 2-6), consisting in a laborious probatio that requires not only internal repentance, but also an external act, the ἐξοὐλόγντας (9, 1-2); this comprises various acts of humiliation and mortification such as the publicatio sui, the imploring of the intercession of priests and confessors (9, 4; 10, 6), usco et cinere incubare, ieiunii preces alere (9, 4). The p. made at first outside the church (in vestibulo 7, 10), later in the same house of God (De pud., 13, 7), ends with the reconciliation which, like excommunication, belongs to the bishop.

Quite different is the doctrine of Tertullian in the De pudicitia, written after the after his passage to the Phrygian heresy (v. MONTANISM, III). Here he distinguishes sins (2, 12-15) into peccata remissibilia (modica, 1, 19; mediocria, 7, 20; leviora, 18, 18) and irremissibilia (capitalia, 9, 20; 21, 14; mortalia, 3, 3; 19, 28; maiora, 18, 18; exitiosa, quae veniam non capiunt, 19, 25). The latter exclude forgiveness on the part of the Church, not on the part of God (de venia Deo reservamus, 19, 6). This distinction is entirely new, unknown to Tertullian himself in his Catholic period; just as new is the triad of capital sins, which he artificially deduced from the Decalogue and from the decree of the Apostolic Council (De pud. 5 and 12).

Recent criticism has taken no account of Tertullian's polemical art, nor of the numerous contradictions into which he falls because of some arbitrary assertion; he therefore errs who, from the particular argument of the De pud., concludes to the existence of three capital sins to which, according to Tertullian, the ancient Church would have denied forgiveness: idolatry, homicide and adultery occupy the first place among the capital sins, but they are not the only ones (De pud., 19, 25; Adv. Marc., 4, 9). Given, however, the great authority of Tertullian, still in the 4th and 5th centuries that triad was considered in some Churches as the sole object of ecclesiastical p. ("Nonnulli putant tria tantum crimina esse mortifera", St. Augustine, Specul. de script sacr.: De libro Actum Apost.: PL 34, 994). Also untenable is the opinion that the bishop ("pontifex maximus, quod est episcopus episcoporum") who protects with a "peremptory edict" the reconciliation of adulterers (the proximate occasion of the opuscule De pud.) is Pope Callistus (217-22); the accusations of Hippolytus (Philosophamena, 9, 2) against the "lax" practice of Callistus refer to a different subject. That edict, moreover, by no means constitutes the beginning of the controversy, nor did it inaugurate a new penitential practice, nor a new concept of the Church, destroying, as has been asserted, the "baptismal rigorism" in force until then. The edict rather authoritatively confirms the practice in force until then (which Tertullian implicitly admits, since his polemic presupposes that forgiveness to adulterers is already a constant practice of the "psychics", indeed he admits that he himself once shared their view (1, 10). The word "edict" is probably the fruit of the same irony that coined the title of pontifex maximus and episcopus episcoporum. The so-called Penitential Edict of Callistus thus reduces to an energetic affirmation, with which an African bishop (probably Agrippinus, primate of the African Church, 218-22; cf. St. Cyprian, Ep., 71, 4) protects the traditional doctrine of ecclesiastical forgiveness against the irruption of Montanist rigorism.

Tertullian, who denies the power of forgiving grave sins to the hierarchical Church, attributing it either to Peter personally or to the spiritual Church through the spiritalis homo (De pud., 21), indirectly attests how much the struggle against Montanism contributed to promoting in bishops an ever clearer awareness of the power granted by Christ, and its defense through recourse to the Petrine power of "loosing and binding" transmitted to the heads of the hierarchical Church through apostolic succession.

The second penitential controversy, fought at Carthage and at Rome, arose during the persecution of Decius (249-51) over the question of the "lapsi" (v.). Along with Pope Cornelius it was above all St. Cyprian who defended the traditional penitential practice: against the presumption of certain confessors he claims the power of reconciliation for the bishop and for the presbyters authorized by him (Ep., 61, 3); against rigoristic tendencies he admits all the lapsi to p.; against the laxists he inculcates that reconciliation will not be granted "ante expiata delicta, ante exomologesim factam criminis" (De lapsis, 16). The theory according to which the supposed rigorism of the primitive Church would have been broken a second time (after Callistus) by Cyprian is groundless. The one who innovated was Novatian (v.) when he excluded apostates from all ecclesiastical forgiveness. In penitential practice St. Cyprian attests, first in the Latin Church, the imposition of hands by the bishop and the clergy in the rite of reconciliation (Ep., 16, 2: ed. G. Hartel, CSEL, 3, 2, p. 518 = Ep., 9: PL 4, 258). From the dogmatic aspect the great bishop shows the characteristic difficulties and imperfections of ancient penitential theology. Very strong in him is the principle that God alone forgives sin (De lapsis, 17); God therefore must be appeased through the personal p. of the guilty one: "Dominus nostra satisfacione placandus est" (ibid.); p., in opposition to Baptism, must laboriously merit divine remission (Ep., 55, 22). But with the same force Cyprian exalts the necessity of the intervention of the Church, of ecclesiastical communion; characteristic is how he justifies the peace given to the dying (Ep., 57, 1: ed. G. Hartel, CSEL, 3, 2, p. 651). The perfect synthesis of the two cardinal affirmations, lacking in Cyprian, had to wait until the time of the great scholastics.

γ) P. in the Eastern Church. - Clement of Alexandria and Origen are the direct witnesses of the tradition of the Eastern Church independently of the Tertullianic controversy. Clement agrees with the Shepherd of Hermas in the affirmation of the second, single p. (Strom., II, 13, 56 ff.), for all sins (Quis dives salvetur, 38, 4; 39, 3; 42, 15; Strom., II, 23, 147, 2 ff.; VII, 16, 102, 2) and in the distinction between the efficacy of Baptism (ἄφεσις, by pure Grace) and of p., which instead requires a painful purifying care (Strom., II, 12, 55, 6; 15, 70, 3; IV, 24, 154, 3; Quis dives salvetur, 40, 1). The remission of sin is conceived as a slow process of healing (ibid., 40, 3-6), in which it is necessary to entrust oneself to an expert "director of souls", who supports p. with correction and with prayer: such are the members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but also all perfect Christians, the "friends of God" who represent the ideal of the "gnostic". The psychological-medicinal conception of p., proper to Clement, strongly influenced penitential doctrine in the Eastern Church. Origen should never have been classified among the radical rigorists (as Harnack did). The incriminated text (De orat., 28, 10) in fact contains nothing about a supposed irremissibility of capital sins, but denies them the ἄφεσις, because there can no longer be any question of their extinction through the baptismal rite; they cannot even be remitted by the immediate action of the prayer and sacrifice of the Church (like the "lesser" sins); they must rather be expiated by means of the "punishment" (κάλασις) that is their due. This third point is the logical consequence of the second, and derives from the essence of mortal sin, insofar as it is a death and separates the sinner from the interior community of Grace.

The first salutary act of the Church toward the sinner is excommunication: in Origen there is no fixed technical term (he speaks of expellere de Ecclesia, foras mittere, a corpore Christi separare, ligare); there is no doubt, however, about the theological meaning of this excommunication: it makes visible what had already been brought about in the eyes of God, it has the value of a perdition in the eyes of God: separated from the homeland, from the heavenly Jerusalem, from the body of Christ, from unity, the sinner is abandoned to darkness. The one who has the power to inflict excommunication is the bishop ("per episcopi sententiam", In Leo. 14, 2); from this the penitential practice at the time of Origen clearly appears: the bishops not only exercised this power, but had also formulated the theory of their right to this exercise: "Per eos qui Ecclesiae praesident et potestatem habent non solum solvendi, sed et ligandi" (In Iud. 2, 5). Thus Origen placed on the same level the remission of sin to be granted by God and the remission into the Church: "Quo modo audere possum accedere ad Dominum? Quomodo ad Ecclesiam redire?" (In Ps. 36 hom. 4, 2: PG 12, 1353).

The image given by Origen is confirmed by the Didascalia Apostolorum, which presents a perfect picture of the penitential institution in the Eastern Church during the first half of the 3rd century. It inculcates the remissibility of all sins before God and the Church, and often polemicizes against those who deny ecclesiastical reconciliation: the conception that God can grant forgiveness to repentant sinners, while the Church must deny them ecclesiastical peace, is totally unknown to the Didascalia. The two pardons condition and postulate each other (cf. the study by K. Rahner).

b) Public or canonical p. - From the 4th century the Church's power to remit all sins, even the most serious, is attested by ever more frequent testimonies and sanctioned by the solemn magisterium (cf. can. 13 of the Council of Nicaea "cuilibet in exitu posito et poscenti sibi Eucharistiae participationem episcopus tribuat", Denz-U, 57). There remains the exact evaluation of the concrete form in which the Sacrament of P. presents itself up to the 7th century, public p., also called canonical p., because it was governed by the canons of the first councils (such as the Synods of Ancyra [314], Neocaesarea [between the year 314 and 325], Nicaea [325], Antioch [341], Gangra in the East and by the African, Spanish and Frankish synods in the Western Church), by papal decrees (Siricius, Innocent I, Leo I, Felix II, Hormisdas, Gregory I) as well as by the penitential epistles (in time they acquired canonical authority), which were composed by Gregory the Wonderworker (d. ca. 270), Peter of Alexandria (d. 311), St. Basil (Epist., 188, 199, 217), St. Gregory of Nyssa.

a) Description of public p. - Public p. essentially required a twofold act of the ecclesiastical hierarchy: excommunication from the Church and reconciliation with it. If public p. is defined as that which was done "in ordine paenitentium" (P. Galtier), it must be borne in mind that this aggregation could have different degrees. For one to be able to speak of public p. it is not necessary that the sinner de facto (for a determined time and in a determined manner) have been part of the class of penitents; exclusion from the Eucharist itself was already considered an insertion into the order of penitents (St. Cyprian, Origen). The manner of practicing it could vary considerably, but everywhere the penitents had a place (ordo) separate from those who could receive the Eucharist, and received particular impositions of hands. Subject to public p. were not only the so-called three "capital sins", but generally the peccata gravia et mortifera (St. Augustine, Serm., 278, 12: PL 38, 1273), while the other sins (levia et minuta) were wiped away by means of "daily p." (prayers, fasts, alms). Spontaneously, however, public p. could be accepted for such lesser faults. The concept of grave sin still lacks precision. It did not matter whether the sins were public or hidden. Admission to p. was a favor that had to be requested; originally it was open also to clerics (cf. St. Cyprian, Ep., 64, 1 = Ep., 59: PL 3, 1014), but from the 4th century universal usage excluded higher clerics from public p. (note the reason given by St. Augustine, Contra ep. Parm., 2, 13: PL 43, 70) and punished them with deposition and degradation (considered equivalent to public p.), afterward admitting them to lay Communion. Something similar held for lay "converts", who in place of p. chose the religious life, withdrawing into monasteries or even remaining in the world. The dying sinner was also admitted to p., but in an early period the practice prevailed (not universal, it seems) of denying peace or Communion to one who had requested p. only in danger of death (St. Cyprian, Ep., 55, 23; ed. G. Hartel, CSEL, 3, 2, p. 641 f. = Ep., 52: PL 3, 789 f. and cann. 64 and 70 of the Council of Elvira, Mansi, II, 16 f.); after Nicaea (can. 13, Denz-U, 57) a milder practice was followed, which granted p. and Communion (cf. the Epistolae Innocentii I ad Exuperium, Denz-U, 95 and of Celestine I to the bishops of Gaul, Denz-U, 111). Public p. consisted of three parts: the imposition of p., after the confession (in itself secret; cf. St. Leo the Great, Ep., 168, 2, Denz-U, 145) of the guilty party and after the correptio on the part of the bishop; the actio paenitentiae, whose principal act was the exomologesis, which in St. Cyprian sometimes means the whole of public p., but which more strictly entailed a confession expressed in the very acts of the penitent ("prosternendi et humilificandi hominis disciplina", Tertullian, De poenit., 9, 3), which often had to be repeated. Thus is explained the case of the Gnostic Cerdo who, admitted to public p., at times performed the exomologesis, at times neglected it. Moreover the exomologesis comprised the whole discipline of the penitential life (fasts, works of expiation, etc.); the absolutio paenitentiae given by the bishop and the clergy by means of the imposition of hands (St. Cyprian, Ep., 16, 2), united to the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, with an efficacious influence on eternal salvation since it restored peace with the Church, the community of salvation.

What greatly differentiates public p. [penance] from present-day practice is its unrepeatability (cf. Pastor Hermae, Mand., IV, 3, 6; Tertullian, De poenit., 7, 10; Origen, In Lev. hom., 15, 2; St. Augustine, Ep., 153, 7). Those who claim to receive p. more often "luxuriantur in Christo," "quia sicut unum Baptisma, ita una paenitentia" (St. Ambrose, De poenit., II, 10: PL 16, 520). Recidivists are not admitted to ecclesiastical p., but are admonished to commend themselves to divine mercy through penitential works (St. Augustine, Ep., 153, 3, 7). Moreover, whoever had once performed public p. remained, even after reconciliation, subject to a not light post-penitential discipline: from the 4th century such a person was excluded from the clerical state, from military service, from public offices, from the use of marriage (cf. St. Siricius I, Ep. ad Himerium, in Mansi, III, 657).

β) There has been much discussion as to whether, alongside public p., there also existed in the early Church a "private" sacramental p. The affirmative answer, already given by Morinus and Petavius, has recently been defended by A. D'Alès, S. Harent, P. Galtier. They find such private p. in the public reconciliation of heretics and of those who, for various disciplinary reasons, had been excommunicated without the obligation of undergoing canonical p.; as well as in the Communion given to the dying and in the remission of "medium" sins (grave, but not capital). According to P. Batiffol and J. Tixeront the transition from public to private p. began to take shape from about the year 400; K. Adam at first had sought to demonstrate that the introduction of the private form was due precisely to St. Augustine; later he maintained that an ecclesiastical p. without excommunication (innerkirchliche Busse) had always existed.

The existence of private p. was instead denied by Fr. X. Funk, E. Vacandard, E. Göller, E. Amann and, with particularly accurate research, by B. Poschmann, whose argumentation finds ever more numerous adherents. According to this last author private p. was not introduced before the 7th century. Its first sure trace is found in can. II of the Third Council of Toledo (year 589), which condemned this form of p. as excerabilis praesumptio (Mansi, IX, 995). The Fathers expressly attest that for the baptized there are only two kinds of p.: the daily private one (prayers, alms, etc.) for lesser sins and the canonical one for peccata mortifera (cf. St. Augustine, De symb. ad cat., 7, 15: 8, 16; Serm., 35 1,2-4; 352, 2; Ep., 265, 7). The correptiorum medicamenta of which St. Augustine speaks (De fide et operibus, 26, 48) are nothing other than exhortations to p.; it is not proved by any argument that they must be understood as a private absolution (cf. B. Poschmann, S. Aurelii Augustini textus selecti de paenitentia, in Florilegium patrioticum, fasc. xxxVIII, Bonn 1938, p. 75 and note 2). As was brought to light by the recent research of K. Rahner, also according to Origen and the Didascalia Apostolorum, only in public p. with excommunication can a true particular Sacrament be recognized. Outside of it there are acts of the ecclesiastical hierarchy directed toward the remission of sins, but which cannot be called sacramental in the present sense of the word. To be able to affirm the existence of a private sacramental p., one would instead have to demonstrate that, in the early Church, there existed an ordinary means of remission of grave sins (at least occult ones), in an exclusively internal process (in foro conscientiae) and repeatable, as in fact exists from the 7th century. Moreover it would be necessary to demonstrate that such a process, if it existed, had sacramental value; it is not possible to see a true absolution (and consequently private p.) in any priestly prayer that implores the remission of sins, nor in any correptio of sins.

The practice of private p. thus seems to have been introduced in the 7th century, beginning from certain provinces of Spain and Gaul. It may be said to have been prepared by the p. of the "conversi" who had propagated the custom of performing a secret p., accepted out of devotion. A change of form then became imperative because of the manifold difficulties of canonical p. (postponement of p. until the point of death, for fear of juridical consequences; sacrilegious Communions; the painful situation of recidivists; the tendency to substitute for p. the monastic life or conversio, considered as a second Baptism). The proximate cause of the change seems to be sought in the activity of the Irish-Scottish missionaries, who under the guidance of St. Columbanus propagated also on the continent the customs of the Celtic Church.

γ) Dogmatic evaluation of public p. - 1) The early Church knew and exercised p. as a sacramental means of remission of sins for the baptized. As regards the external manner of administration, although the penitential practice of the early Church differs greatly from present-day usage, the same essential elements are nonetheless found in it. Also in the early Church, in order to obtain the remission of sins in the Sacrament of P., there concurred, on the part of the sinner, contrition, satisfaction and confession; on the part of the Church exercising the power of the keys, absolution. Contrition, in the sense of true conversion, was indispensable for being admitted to receive p. The confession of sins was held to be absolutely necessary; the declaration of the Council of Trent also appears confirmed, which affirms that secret confession before the priest alone was in force in the Church from the beginning: since the confession that initiates every p. was even then of itself secret. Satisfaction in the whole penitential practice had such primacy that the whole of p. seemed almost to consist in it. Sacramental absolution was imparted in the form of reconciliation. It is true that in the early Church it was not clearly seen what relationship existed between the effect of reconciliation and of subjective p. The testimonies on the penitential practice of the early Church moreover show how ecclesiastical (sacramental) p. was required for all "crimina," although in individual Churches and in different periods there was no constant criterion as to which crimes should be considered crimina. In all these respects the penitential practice in force in the early Church thus corresponds to what the Council of Trent requires for constituting the essence of the Sacrament of P.; it is therefore not necessary to suppose in the early Church some private sacramental p. whose existence, for the first six centuries, is not supported by the testimony of the sources.

2) In penitential practice and doctrine there are not a few difficulties and imperfections; these, however, cannot be rightly assessed except by considering the whole state of the theological explanation that then prevailed. In the history of penitential doctrine it is clearly seen how the concept of Sacrament was not yet circumscribed. Hence the excessive valuation of personal works, which must "merit forgiveness," is no cause for wonder. This exaltation of the opus operantis is not without connection to the tendencies of asceticism and monasticism (cf. the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian controversy. St. Augustine, as an anti-Pelagian polemicist, all the more strongly asserted also the moment of ecclesiastical reconciliation). Although the distinction between the guilt of fault and the guilt of penalty was not then entirely ignored (cf. St. Cyprian, Ep., 55, 29), it was nevertheless not applied to penitential theology; therefore it was easily held that "forgiveness" was obtained from God only when every penalty too had been remitted; with this is also explained how the value of the reconciliation given by the Church was considered in some way "hypothetical." Thus justification too was conceived not so much as an instantaneous act (by which the guilt of fault is immediately and totally removed) but almost as a successive forgiveness. The Fathers too held that Grace makes man a friend of God, and that it is, as a gift, something permanent. But they did not pay so much attention to the fact that Grace is a positive quality inherent in the soul, by which the state of sin is immediately and necessarily removed. The remission of sins was for them a kind of process of healing, not only in the psychological sense of the destruction of sinful tendencies, but also in the sense of the remission of guilt before God.

Finally, since reconciliation, as the name itself says, was in itself understood as readmission into the community of the Church, its efficacy is recognized all the more clearly the deeper is the doctrine of the Church, of the Body of Christ, in which charity is given, and the Spirit, and through the Spirit the remission of sin on the part of God (St. Paul, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine). In the administration of the Sacrament of Penance there also appears a certain greater participation of the whole community, which by its intercession aids the penitential work of the sinner; little by little, however, it was seen more explicitly who were the proper subjects of the power of the keys.

Zeitschr. für kath. Theol., 54 (1930), pp. 214-52; id., recensioni dei libri di Jungmann e di Galtier, in Theol. ren., 32 (1933), coll. 259-72; E. Göller, Analekten zur Bussgesch. des 4. Jahrh., in Röm. Quartalschr., 36 (1928), p. 235 f.; J. Mac Neill, Celtic penitentials and their influence, Paris 1929; J. A. Jungmann, Die lateinisch. Busserien in ihrer geschichtl. Entwicklung, Innsbruck 1932; Th. P. Oakley, English penitential discipline, New York 1932; Y. Zeiger, De statu disputationis in hist. paenitentiae, in Gregorianum, 14 (1933), pp. 432-41; R. C. Mortimer, The origins of private penance in the western Church, Oxford 1939; P. Galtier, De paenitentia, 2nd ed., Rome 1950, pp. 221-61.

3. The progress of penitential doctrine in scholastic theology

Its factors are to be sought in the powerful awakening of interest in theological speculation as well as in the practical necessity of defending ecclesiastical doctrine on the power of the keys against heresies that shook its very foundations (v. CATHARI; WALDENSIANS). The use of dialectic in theology, the application of Aristotelian concepts, most useful for the great work of clarification and systematization undertaken by the scholastics, nevertheless created for penitential doctrine also a quantity of new problems and produced a veritable tangle of theories (cf. the application of the doctrine of "habitus" to penance and v. the extensive researches of Anciaux).

Two questions especially occupied the scholastic theologians: a) the internal connection between the different factors of penance. - This principal problem, not resolved by the Fathers, nor by the theologians of the Carolingian era, was then placed in a somewhat new light, since, in the personal element, the accent was no longer placed on penitential works (satisfactio), but on contrition; a change caused by the altered penitential practice: from the time when reconciliation was granted immediately after confession, the satisfactio, which still remained to be performed, could not be considered the cause of the remission of sins. As cause of this, only the internal penitential disposition or contrition (v.) could be taken into consideration, which from then on stood at the center of penitential doctrine. For the same reason the concept of remission was further precisified: if satisfaction was still to be rendered, contrition and absolution could not produce a "remission" in the sense of a pardon of all penalties (as the ancient Church had conceived remission), but by distinguishing eternal penalty and temporal penalty, the effect of satisfaction was seen in the forgiveness of temporal penalties for sin, while prior contrition and confession give the remission, in the sense that they remove the merited eternal penalty, or that they change it into a temporal penalty, as the pseudo-Augustinian treatise De vera et falsa paenitentia affirms (PL 40, 1113-50; composed toward the middle of the 11th century).

Noteworthy is the conception, otherwise quite imperfect, of Abelard, condemned in the Synod of Sens (a. 1140), since it practically denied the power of the keys, attributing the remission of sin exclusively to the subjective work, to contrition; his theory on the merely declaratory value of absolution strongly influenced the canonists (cf. the decree of Gratian) and Peter Lombard (IV Sent., d. 18, c. 4 and 5); the priest cannot remit sins, but only show that they are forgiven, analogously to the task of the priests of the Old Testament regarding the healing of lepers; already St. Anselm of Canterbury had written: "Qui iam coram Deo sunt mundati, sacerdotum iudicio etiam hominibus ostenduntur mundi" (Hom., 13). Hugh of St. Victor, seeking to safeguard the efficacy of the keys, attributed to contrition the liberation from the "inner bond" (impietas vel obduratio cordis), and to absolution the destruction of the "outer bond" (debitum futurae damnationis; cf. De Sacramentis, II, 14, 8); thus the fundamental distinction between the guilt of fault and the guilt of penalty had been introduced into the penitential problem, though in an unfortunate way, since Peter Lombard easily succeeded in demonstrating that the remission of the eternal penalty could not be separated from the forgiveness of the fault. Given the universal conviction that the remission of sin was indissolubly connected with contrition, an efficacious intervention of sacerdotal absolution in the remissio peccati seemed possible only if absolution could produce contrition (that is, make a contritus out of an attritus). An attempt was made to resolve the problem by means of the formula in which Peter of Poitiers (v.) had distinguished four elements in the process of justification (the infusion of Grace, the movement of free will, contrition, the remission of sins).

b) The systematization of all the traditional material within the concept of the Sacrament. - This was the particular work of St. Thomas, already completed in the Commentary on the Sentences. The personal factor, penance as virtue (consisting of three parts: contrition, confession, satisfaction), is the matter; absolution is the form of the Sacrament of Penance. Matter and form do not operate separately, but together, as a single cause, so that the personal acts of the penitent and the exercise of the power of the keys are the (instrumental) cause of the remission of sins (IV Sent., d. 22, q. 2 a. 1, sol. 1; Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 86, a. 6). They differ in that the efficacy comes principally from the form, that is, from absolution; the signification, on the other hand, is principally ex parte materiae. By positing, with the preceding tradition, the res et Sacramentum in the paenitentia interior (which coincides with contrition), St. Thomas also claimed for absolution an influence on the movements of free will (IV Sent., d. 22, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 2; Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 84, a. 1, ad. 3). There also appears, however, the characteristic difficulty of the Thomistic doctrine in this twofold function of contrition, which is an indispensable disposition for Grace and, on the other hand, already presupposes this same Grace; a difficulty that the Aquinate sought to eliminate by appealing to the different forms of reciprocal causality (v. CONTRIZIONE; GIUSTIFICAZIONE).

In opposition to St. Thomas, who had inserted contrition as an essential element in the Sacrament itself, Duns Scotus taught two distinct ways of justification, the one independent of the other; the extrasacramental way (in which attritio merits de congruo justification) and the sacramental way, which justifies ex opere operato, and which is easier, because it does not require a contrition operating as a "meritum de congruo" (Ox., IV Sent., d. 14, q. 4, n. 6 ff.). Scotus consequently also abandoned the Thomistic conception of personal penance as matter and of absolution as form, positing the essence of the Sacrament in absolution alone: "Paenitentia est absolutio, id est, quaedam sententia definitiva absolvens reum" (ibid., 3). Contrition, confession, satisfaction are necessary as dispositions to the Sacrament, but they are not its parts. Consequently Scotus and his followers insisted even more strongly than St. Thomas on the efficacy of the opus operatum.

4. The innovators and the Council of Trent

The thesis, fairly widespread in the 11th and 12th centuries, that God alone could forgive sin, leaving to the minister of the Sacrament only the task of declaring the forgiveness of the guilt already granted or of remitting the penalty (total or partial), which seems in full contrast with the doctrine of the Church, as it was later defined at Trent, admits a benign interpretation, given also the oscillating use of the word remixto, understood at times not in the sense of the term of the process of justification, but of the penitent's first active disposition toward it (cf. Z. Alszeghy, art. cit., p. 282 ff.). Wyclef (v.), on the other hand, in his denial of every external ecclesiastical order, rejected absolution as an abuse, and confession as useless (Denz-U, 587).

Huss was also accused of similar opinions (ibid., 670 ff.), and Sixtus IV condemned in 1478 certain theses of Peter of Osma (ibid., 724-33). The innovators of the 16th century were led by the internal logic of their own system (doctrine on the corruption of human nature and on justification by faith alone, rejection of every priestly power) to deny penance both as a virtue (personal element) and as a Sacrament (ecclesiastical factor). Since, therefore, it was no longer a matter of school opinions, but the very substance of the penitential doctrine was called into question, the Council of Trent dealt thoroughly with penance, in sess. XIV (Oct.-Nov. 1551), issuing 9 chapters and 15 canons (Denz-U, 894-906; 911-25). Above all, the dignity of a true Sacrament, distinct from Baptism, was claimed for penance (on contrition chap. 4, on confession chap. 5, on the minister chaps. 6 and 7, and on satisfaction chaps. 8 and 9: v. respective entries). It remains to be noted that the Council, treating in chap. 3 of the structure of penance, avoided pronouncing on the question disputed among Catholic theologians as to whether the acts of the penitent are merely the integral parts of the Sacrament (Scotists) or whether they must be considered the materia ex qua (Thomistic position, today very common). The principal effect of the Sacrament is the remission of grave sins quoad reatum culpae, through the infusion of sanctifying Grace; consequently the total remission of eternal punishment (sess. VI, chap. 14; Denz-U, 807) and the partial remission of temporal punishment (sess. VI, can. 30; Denz-U, 840; sess. XIV, chap. 8 and can. 12; Denz-U, 904, 922). The remission of guilt and punishment in the Sacrament of Penance is irrevocable; one can speak of their return through a subsequent sin only improperly (insofar as the privation of Grace returns and insofar as the guilt of the new sin becomes more grave because of the forgiveness already granted before). The "less principal" effects of the Sacrament are the revival of merits (v.), the conferral of the "right" to actual Graces, with which the penitent can expiate the temporal punishments still remaining and can avoid sin in the future; finally the peace and serenity of conscience, an accidental effect and not always obtained (sess. XIV, chap. 3; Denz-U, 896). It is defined that even venial sins can be accused in the Sacrament of penance (sess. XIV, chap. 5 and can. 7; Denz-U, 899, 917) and it is theologically certain that venial sins can be remitted "vi ipsius Sacramenti" (ibid., 899).

GENERAL

Agostino Mayer

II. MORAL THEOLOGY AND CANON LAW.

I. NECESSITY

The Sacrament of Penance is "necessary by necessity of means," that is, as a means indispensable in itself for one who after Baptism has sinned mortally (Council of Trent, sess. XIV, De Poenitentia, cap. 2; Sum. Theol., 3, q. 84, a. 5). Sometimes, however, one can obtain the forgiveness of sins through perfect contrition alone joined with the vow or intention of confessing; that is, when it is not possible to receive sacramental absolution (Council of Trent, loc. cit., cap. 4).

II. MATTER OF PENANCE

1. Remote matter

The remote matter, or rather that which is to be removed, is the sins committed after Baptism. It is distinguished into necessary and non-necessary.

a) Necessary matter is the mortal sins committed after Baptism and not yet directly remitted through sacramental absolution. b) Non-necessary (but sufficient) matter is: a) the venial sins committed after Baptism, even though already remitted by sacramental absolution; β) the mortal sins committed after Baptism and already directly remitted by sacramental absolution (can. 902; Conc. Trid., loc. cit., chap. 5). Voluntary imperfections cannot be matter of penance except when they are accompanied by circumstances of contempt, or scandal, or sloth, etc. (cf. A. Lehmkuhl, Theologia moralis, II, 11th ed., Innsbruck 1910, n. 360). A wholly generic accusation of sins (such as, for example: I accuse myself of the sins committed) is sufficient when there is urgent necessity (imminent danger of death) and there is no time to manifest the sins distinctly (cf. I. D'Annibale, op. cit., III, n. 302).

2. Proximate matter

It has been seen in the respective entries that all admit the necessity of contrition, confession and satisfaction in one who receives the Sacrament of Penance, even if in different degrees. For the qualities required for the individual acts and especially as regards integrity, v. CONFESSION; CONTRITION; SATISFACTION and also PURPOSE.

III. FORM OF PENANCE

1. Rubrical form

The rubrical form of the Sacrament of Penance is as follows: Misereatur, etc.; Indulgentiam, etc. Dominus noster Iesus Christus te absolvat: et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis, suspensionis (this word is omitted with laypeople) et interdicti, in quantum possum, et tu indiges. Deinde ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Passio Domini nostri Iesu Christi, merita beatae Mariae Virginis et omnium sanctorum, quidquid boni feceris, et mali sustinueris, sint tibi in remissionem peccatorum, augmentum Gratiae, et praemium vitae aeternae. Amen.

In case of imminent danger of death this brief formula is sufficient: Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris, et peccatis, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. The Rubrics that prescribe keeping the right hand raised from the Indulgentiam to the absolution of sins and making the sign of the Cross in imparting sacramental absolution are purely directive. It is not fitting, however, to omit them. The prayers that precede and follow the absolution cannot be omitted without just cause (cf. can. 885). There is a just cause for omitting them especially when there is a notable crowd of penitents.

2. Essential form

The essential form of sacramental absolution is: Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. This formula must be pronounced in its entirety, even though strictly essential are only the two words: te absolvo, which have a complete sense.

3. How the absolution must be pronounced

The absolution must be pronounced: a) orally: given in writing, by signs, or in another way, it is commonly held to be invalid; b) over a person present. Indeed, the following proposition was condemned: « Licet per literas seu internuncium confessario absenti peccata sacramentaliter confiteri, et ab eodem absente absolutionem obtinere » (Denz-U, 1088).

For the validity of the absolution, moral presence is sufficient; that is, the presence of persons who can converse with one another in a natural voice (the validity of absolution by telephone or by radio is not established thus far), even though loud. Nevertheless, it is lawful to absolve under condition one who is seen from afar to be in imminent danger of death (for example, shipwreck) and there is no time to approach him.

IV. CONDITIONAL ABSOLUTION

Absolution given under a present or past condition is valid if the condition exists; it is not valid if the condition does not exist. Given under a condition of a necessary future, it is valid in itself; given under a condition of a contingent future, it is not valid.

Absolution given under a future condition is unlawful; given under a present or past condition it is lawful, if there is a just reason for imposing such a condition. A just reason exists if the confessor prudently doubts whether he has already absolved or whether the penitent is disposed, and cannot conveniently defer absolution for him.

V. EFFECTS OF THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

1. Remission of sins

The first and most important effect of the Sacrament of Penance is the remission of sins through the infusion of sanctifying grace. With regard to this remission it must be observed that: a) the remission of one mortal sin is not possible without the remission of the other mortal sins (cf. Sum. Theol., 3, q. 86, a. 3); b) mortal sins can be remitted without the remission of venial sins; c) no venial sin can be remitted without the remission of all mortal sins (cf. ibid., 3, q. 87, a. 4); d) he who is in the grace of God can be absolved from some venial sins without the remission of the other venial sins; e) sins erased in the Sacrament of Penance do not revive because of a subsequent sin (cf. Is. 1:18; 43:25; Ez. 33:12-16; Council of Trent, sess. VI, De iustificatione, can. 17).

2. Remission of eternal punishment and of the temporal punishment due to sins

With the Sacrament of Penance, together with mortal sin, all the eternal punishment due to it is remitted. This is a certain doctrine and close to the faith. But with the Sacrament of Penance not all the temporal punishment due to sins is remitted. This is of faith (Council of Trent, sess. VI, De iustificatione, can. 30; sess. XIV, De Poenit., can. 12). The remnants or traces of sin (propensities to sin of the will and of the sensitive appetite) are erased, but not immediately (cf. Sum. Theol., 3, q. 86, a. 5, ad 1st).

3. Reviviscence of merits and sacramental grace

With the Sacrament of Penance the merits of those acts that were once salutary, but that because of mortal sin had been put to death, revive (cf. Sum. Theol., 3, q. 89, a. 5). In the Sacrament of Penance, together with sanctifying grace, the right to particular helps is also granted, by which man can make satisfaction for his sins and avoid future relapses.

VI. OBLIGATION TO RECEIVE THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

1. By divine precept, confession, at least in desire, is necessary by necessity of means for all those who after Baptism have sinned mortally. This is of faith (cf. Council of Trent, sess. XIV, De Poenit., can. 6).

The divine precept obliges directly in danger of death and, according to some, also at times during life. Indirectly it obliges whenever: a) one must consecrate or receive the Eucharist (cann. 807, 856); b) one must perform some act that requires the state of grace and one is persuaded that one cannot recover it by the act of perfect contrition alone; c) a grave temptation presses that cannot be overcome without sacramental confession.

2. By ecclesiastical precept, sacramental confession is obligatory once a year for anyone who knows himself to be in mortal sin (can. 906). This obligation begins from when, having reached the use of reason, one is conscious of having committed mortal sin. The use of reason is presumed to be reached at the seventh year of age (cf. S. Congr. of the Sacraments, 8 Aug. 1910). To the precept of annual confession, one who has committed only venial sins is not bound in himself, as likewise, probably, is not bound one who after having confessed, e.g., at Easter, only venial sins, has in the same year fallen into mortal sin. The useful time for annual confession may be reckoned from January to January, or from one confession to another, or from Easter to Easter.

The usefulness of confession, which at one time it pleased people to describe as a slaughterhouse of consciences, is today contested by no man who has experience of life. The imitations, often exaggerated (psychoanalysis, narcoanalysis), that have been made for curative purposes, demonstrate that the Divine Founder knew our poor human nature thoroughly. Setting aside the supernatural effects, it suffices to consider the social value of the Sacrament of Penance, which explores, treats, and prevents a field of real and possible crimes, which no legislator or judge could reach.

VII. MINISTER OF THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

The minister is only the priest to whom, besides the power of Order, the power of jurisdiction has been conferred (cann. 871, 872).

1. Power of jurisdiction and its exercise

a) By virtue of ordinary jurisdiction the following may receive sacramental confession: α) the Pope throughout the whole Church; β) cardinals, likewise throughout the whole Church (can. 873 § 1; cf. also can. 239 § 1, n. 1); γ) local Ordinaries within their own territory (can. 873 § 1); δ) the canon penitentiary of the cathedral church and of the collegiate church throughout the whole territory of the diocese (can. 873 § 2; cf. can. 401 § 2); ε) the pastor in his parish and whoever takes the place of the pastor (can. 873 § 1), that is, the quasi-pastor (can. 451 § 2, n. 1; cf. can. 216 § 3), the actual vicar (can. 471 § 4), the assistant vicar (can. 475), the substitute vicar (can. 474), the vicar economus or whoever, before the appointment of the latter, administers the vacant parish in the interim (can. 472); ζ) the superiors of an exempt clerical religious order for their respective subjects, in accordance with the constitutions (can. 873 § 2); η) military bishops and military pastors, to whom such faculty over military personnel was granted by rescript of the Holy See (can. 451 § 3). - b) By virtue of delegated jurisdiction, those who received it from those possessing ordinary jurisdiction may hear sacramental confessions. Besides the Pope, only local Ordinaries and the superiors of exempt clerical religious orders, in accordance with the constitutions, may delegate their ordinary jurisdiction (cann. 874, 875). - c) Jurisdiction can be delegated ab homine or a iure. In either case it can be delegated directly or indirectly. Delegated ab homine is that which is granted to a simple priest by one who possesses ordinary jurisdiction. And it is granted directly when the faculty to receive confessions is given to the priest orally or in writing or by another sign. It is delegated indirectly when, by privilege of the Pope or of the Ordinary, someone is given the faculty of choosing any priest as his own confessor. Delegated a iure is the jurisdiction granted by law in determined cases. And it is granted directly in the case of danger of death, to any priest (can. 882); likewise to a priest making a sea voyage (can. 883); or an air voyage (motu proprio Animarum studio compulsi, 16 Dec. 1947: AAS, 40 [1948], p. 17). Indirectly it is granted to the priest whom a cardinal or a bishop, even merely titular, chooses as confessor for himself and his household (cann. 239 § 1, n. 2; 349 § 1, n. 1). - d) To receive confessions validly, jurisdiction given expressly in writing or orally is required (can. 879). Presumed jurisdiction is null. But tacit jurisdiction is probably valid. - e) Jurisdiction can be exercised only over one's own subjects (can. 201 § 1). But by subjects are meant not only those who have domicile or quasi-domicile in the territory, but also travelers and pilgrims who are at the moment in the territory (can. 881 § 1). - f) One who has ordinary jurisdiction can absolve his own subjects (such, however, only by reason of domicile or quasi-domicile) even outside the territory. One who has only delegated jurisdiction cannot absolve outside the territory for which it was granted to him (cf. can. 881 § 2). - g) The local Ordinary can grant, for his own territory, the faculty to hear confessions to any secular or religious priest, even an exempt one (cann. 874, 877, 878). - h) One who has received delegated jurisdiction from the local Ordinary can hear, in the territory of the delegator, the confessions of all the faithful, both secular and religious (can. 874 § 1). Excepted are religious women and their novices, for whose confessions a special jurisdiction is required (can. 876). - i) Religious superiors cannot receive the confessions of their subjects unless they are asked spontaneously and freely. Indeed, even when asked, they cannot receive them habitually without grave cause (can. 518 §§ 2, 3). - l) The jurisdiction to receive the confessions of those who dwell day and night in an exempt clerical religious house is conferred not only by the local Ordinary, but also by religious superiors, in accordance with the constitutions, upon any priest, even a secular one or one of another religion (can. 875 § 1). - m) In an exempt lay religious order the superior proposes the priest for the confessions of his subjects, but the latter must obtain jurisdiction from the Ordinary of the place in which the religious house is located (can. 875 § 2).

2. Jurisdiction granted by the Church: a) In danger of death

In danger of death any priest, even one not approved for confessions, validly absolves any penitent from any sin or censure, even one reserved in a most special manner to the Pope (can. 882; cf. also cann. 884, 2252). However, the absolution of one's own accomplice in a shameful sin is unlawful if another priest, even one not approved for confessions, can and wishes to receive the confession of the dying person without grave danger of infamy and scandal, and the latter wishes to confess to him (can. 884; and cf. also can. 2367). One who in danger of death was absolved by a priest lacking special faculty from a censure ab homine or from a censure reserved in a most special manner to the Holy See is bound, after recovery, under penalty of reincidence, to have recourse to the one who imposed the censure, if it is a censure ab homine, or to the Sacred Penitentiary or to the bishop or to another provided with the faculty, if it is a censure a iure, and to abide by their prescriptions (can. 2252; cf. also can. 2254).

b) During a sea voyage. - Priests making a sea voyage, provided they have received the faculty to hear confessions from their own Ordinary (under which name major superiors of an exempt clerical religious order are not included; Comm. Pontif., 30 July 1934: AAS, 26 [1934], p. 494) or from the Ordinary of the port at which they embark or of another port touched by the ship, throughout the whole voyage (and probably also in the place from which the ship departs or at which the voyage ends; as well as during the time in which the ship, having left the sea, begins and continues a river voyage) can receive the confessions of all who travel with them, even if during the voyage the ship passes through or stops for some time in various places subject to the jurisdiction of other Ordinaries. Whenever the ship stops during the voyage, these same priests can receive the confessions both of the faithful who for any reason come aboard the ship, and of those who wish to confess to them, having also gone ashore for a short time, and can absolve them validly and lawfully even from cases reserved to the local Ordinary (can. 883; cf. Holy Office, 9 Apr. 1900; 23 Aug. 1905; 13 Dec. 1906). If the ship must stop in some port for several weeks, the priest can avail himself of his jurisdiction, but not beyond three days, if it is possible to have recourse to the local Ordinary (Comm. Pontif., 13 Dec. 1923: AAS, 16 [1924], p. 114). What can. 883 establishes for a sea voyage is also applicable to an air voyage (motu proprio of Pius XII, 16 Dec. 1947: AAS, 40 [1948], p. 17). It is disputed whether it can be applied to a voyage on a long railway, e.g., the Trans-Siberian (cf. F. M. Cappello, De Sacramentis, II, Turin-Rome 1944, n. 300).

3. Jurisdiction supplied by the Church: a) In common error

There is common error when in a community all or almost all, or even many, positively judge that the priest is endowed with jurisdiction. This is common error of fact, distinct from common error of law, which occurs when a priest places himself in such circumstances that he must be believed to be endowed with jurisdiction, even though the positive judgment about the existence of jurisdiction is possibly formulated by only one or two, and all the others, even those present, pay no attention to it. In common error, whether of law or of fact, the Church supplies, so that the faithful may not suffer harm from it. And this not only when the error is joined with a title, even a merely putative one, but also when there is no title at all, of which indeed the Code makes no mention (can. 209). One who is aware of the defect of jurisdiction, according to the more accepted opinion, is validly absolved by the priest who through common error is believed to be endowed with it. b) In probable jurisdiction. — In negative doubt about the existence of jurisdiction, it is not lawful in itself to absolve unless at the same time there is common error and necessity of absolving; because in negative doubt the Church does not supply (can. 209). In positive doubt, whether of law or of fact, it is probable and lawful, even without grave reason, to absolve from sins; the Church supplies.

4. Jurisdiction over religious

Included here are not only religious of solemn or simple vows, but also those who without vows live in the manner of religious (can. 675); indeed, as regards the validity of absolution, what is said of religious holds also for novices and for all those who live day and night in the religious house by reason of service, or education, or hospitality, or health (can. 514, § 1).

They exercise ordinary jurisdiction (delegable): a) over the religious of an exempt clerical religion, both the superiors of each religion, in accordance with the Constitutions, and the local Ordinary; b) over the religious of an exempt lay religion and of any other non-exempt religion, the local Ordinary (cans. 873 §§ 1, 2; 874, 875).

Over all religious, ordinary jurisdiction (non-delegable) is also held by cardinals for the whole Church, by the canonical penitentiary of the cathedral or collegiate church throughout the diocese; and, in the case of non-exempt religious, also by the pastor in whose territory the religious house not withdrawn from his care is located (can. 873 § 1; and cf. also can. 464 § 2).

5. Jurisdiction over women religious

Included here are only women religious of solemn or simple vows and their novices.

To receive validly and lawfully the confessions of women religious and their novices, a special jurisdiction is required, conferred only by the local Ordinary of the place where the religious house is located (can. 876). However, cardinals may receive the confessions of religious of both sexes anywhere (can. 239, 1, n. § 1; and cf. also can. 876, § 1). Furthermore, women religious and novices may confess to the so-called occasional confessor. The confessors of women religious, for whom special jurisdiction is required, are ordinary, or extraordinary, or designated, or special. To these must be added the so-called occasional ones.

a) The ordinary confessor is the one who is deputed to receive habitually the sacramental confessions of the whole community (can. 520 § 1). He remains in office for three years: he can be re-elected for a second and third three-year term; he cannot be appointed extraordinary immediately after his office has expired (can. 524 § 2). — b) The extraordinary confessor is the one to whom, by deputation of the local Ordinary, all the women religious must present themselves four times a year to receive at least the blessing (can. 521 § 1). He is not bound by the law of the three-year term and can be made ordinary immediately after his office has expired (can. 524 § 2). — c) Designated confessors are those whom the local Ordinary deputes to receive the confession of women religious who in particular cases require their service (can. 521 § 2). — d) The special confessor is the one who is deputed by the local Ordinary to receive the confessions of a woman religious who has obtained him as her confessor or spiritual director (can. 520 § 2). — e) The occasional confessor is any priest who, approved even only for the confessions of women, validly and lawfully absolves women religious who request his ministry. Accordingly: a) If a woman religious, for the tranquility of her conscience, goes to a confessor approved by the local Ordinary for the confessions of women, or requests him, the confession made in any church or oratory, even only semi-public (existing in the territory of the delegating authority), is valid and lawful, nor can the superior prohibit this or make inquiry into it even only indirectly, and the women religious are not bound to render an account of their action to the superior (can. 522). Indeed, the confession is valid and lawful even if made outside the aforementioned sacred places, in a confessional legally designated for the confessions of women (Comm. Pontif., 24 Nov. 1920: AAS, 12 [1920], p. 575) or of women religious (cf. Comm. Pontif., 28 Dec. 1927: AAS, 20 [1928], p. 62); or even only designated for modum actus or chosen in accordance with can. 910 (Comm. Pontif., 12 Feb. 1935: AAS, 27 [1935], p. 92). — f) Women religious gravely ill with an illness even not dangerous may request any priest approved for the confessions of women, even though not deputed for women religious, and during the grave illness confess to him as many times as they wish; nor can the superior oppose this, whether directly or indirectly (can. 523). As regards the qualities required and the obligations of the minister, v. CONFESSOR. As regards the specific obligation of the confessional secret, v. SACRAMENTAL SEAL. As regards the attire to be used by the minister in the sacramental act, v. again CONFESSOR. For the crime with which he may stain himself and the false accusation that may strike him in the matter of solicitation, v. SOLICITATION.

6. Limitation of jurisdiction

V. CENSORSHIP; ACCOMPLICE IN A SHAMEFUL SIN; RESERVATION.

7. Place and time

For the place, v. CONFESSIONAL. As regards time, the Sacrament of P. may be administered on any day and at any hour (Decr. auth. 3383). One must nevertheless avoid hearing the confessions of women at rather late hours and before dawn (Collettanea S. Congr. de Prop. Fide, 12 Jan. 1869, n. 1339), except in case of necessity. In this matter one is guided rather by customs or possible diocesan prescriptions.

8. Various categories of penitents

V. HABITUAL SINNERS; OCCASION OF SIN; RECIDIVISM.

Andrea Gennaro

VIII. ORIENTAL RITES

Among the Catholic Orientals, because of the frequency of confessions, the ritual part of the Sacrament is so abbreviated that it is no longer very different from the rite in use among the Latins; almost always, however, the formula of absolution, which is not everywhere nor exclusively indicative, is proper to each rite, although sometimes inspired by the Latin formula.

The usages of the dissidents are extremely varied; some Byzantine priest, vested in the epitrachelion, stands on feast days at the door of the church as the faithful enter to celebrate the holy liturgy; whoever wishes to communicate approaches him saying: "I have sinned," and he gives absolution; other priests, on the other hand, rejecting this abusive practice, observe the prescribed ritual, require a detailed confession of sins, impose the penance before or after giving absolution; the good faithful, accustomed to confessing once or four times a year, prepare themselves with fasts, prayers and examinations to receive the Sacrament; these spiritual exercises are called goenie by the Russians.

If one examines the formularies, one notices in them many vestiges of past times: a) a considerable development of the euchological part, sometimes an entire Office; b) a questionnaire according to which the priest interrogates the penitent, or a general formula of accusation containing the list of every kind of sin to be recited by the penitent; c) one, and more often several, formulas of absolution of a euchological character (whether deprecative, indicative or optative) or of a declaratory character; d) a penance generally very severe and the obligation to return to the priest after having completed it.

In the most ancient Greek euchologia (8th-9th centuries) there is no true penitential rite, but only two prayers preserved to this day: Εὐχή ἐπὶ μετανοῦντων ὁ Θεὸς ὁ Σωτὴρ ἡμῶν, ὁ διὰ τοῦ προφήτου σου Νάθαν... Εὐχή ἐπὶ ἐξομολογουμένων, Κύριε ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν ὁ τῷ Πέτρῳ κατ' τῇ πόρνῃ... About their use one can only make conjectures. But the Office or Acoluthia must be sought in the Nomocanon; it is a book written for the confessor, which gives the list of the canons, that is, of the epitimies or penances to be imposed for every kind of sin; at the same time it gives explanations on the nature of the various penances and on the manner of treating penitents, and provides the ritual to be used. Chronologically one can distinguish, among the Greeks, three ritual types: the first, of the 10th century, rather concise, is found in a Didascalia Patrum, in the Rules of the monk Basil (ed. by N. Suvorov, Vierojatnii sostav drevnijeilago ispoviednago i pokojannago ustava v vostočnoi tserhvi, in Vizantishii Vremenih, 8 (1901), pp. 357-434: the most probable form of the most ancient regulation of confession and of penance, taken up again in two euchologia of the 15th century (Bibl. Moscow 455 and Athos, monast. Pantel. 153); the second, of the 13th century, preserving the same arrangement as the first, increases the exhortations, the interrogations, the prayers of absolution; it is the famous Nomocanon falsely attributed to the patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster (end of the 6th century), published in various recensions by G. Morinus and by Migne (PG 85, 1889-1932); the third, with the euchological part still much more developed, was published first by J. Goar (Euchologion, Paris 1647, p. 679), from where it passed into the official euchologion: the first time in that of Venice 1629. The euchologion of Benedict XIV also accepted this rite (Rome 1743, pp. 452-454) but added to it a new formula of absolution, so-called synoptic, in fact indicative. In recent times the Ecomologetarian of Nicodemus the Hagiorite (end of the 18th century) had great influence; he obliges the penitent to return to the confessor after having fulfilled the imposed penance in order to receive the absolution given with this formula.

Among the Slavs the ritual development of the Nomocanon followed paths different from those followed among the Greeks; noteworthy is the Trebnik of P. Moghila, metropolitan of Kiev (1646), which translates the indicative formula of absolution of the Polish ritual of Piotrków; the Ruthenian one of Suprasl (1736), which latinizes everything; then in Great Russia that of Nikon (1658), which chooses a rite much shorter than those found in the earlier Trebnik, and that of Moscow 1671, which introduces into the rite the formula of absolution of Moghila, still in use today among the Russians.

The Armenian manuscripts from the 10th to the 17th century, and the Constantinople edition of the Masztots (1807), present a "rite for making a penitent" and a "rite of reconciliation" for Holy Thursday; here the comparison with the "rite of reconciliation of penitents," preserved, although unused, in the Roman Pontifical, imposes itself. According to the present rite of the Armenians, the penitent first recites a long accusation; then the priest imposes the penance and pronounces an indicative formula of absolution; he finds in his book a series of prayers to be recited according to the cases: blasphemy, perjury, etc. Moreover, among the dissidents there exists the practice of having the faithful recite the general accusation at the beginning of the Sunday Mass, after which the priest imparts absolution to all.

The Penitential of the Syrians, attributed to Dionysius bar Šalibi (12th century), is the rite of reconciliation of an apostate, extended to all sinners. At the door of the church the penitent confesses his sins and the priest says to him: "I absolve you here and God in heaven," then one enters and a long Office begins with chants, lessons and prayers; once this is finished, the priest imposes the penance, and when the penitent has fulfilled it the priest breathes three times on his face, pronouncing a threefold formula of absolution; this second rite ends with chants. The Syrians too have a series of prayers to be recited according to the case.

The penitential rite of the Nestorians, attributed to 'Išō'-jahl III (7th century), presupposes that the penitent has confessed his sins and fulfilled the imposed penance. They go to church and recite an Office of reconciliation, composed primarily for an apostate, later extended to all sinners: at the end the priest makes a sign of the cross with or without oil on the forehead of the penitent while reciting the formula: "Signatur, sanctificatur et innovatur N. in nomine Patris...".

According to the books of the dissident Copts, one euchological part precedes and another follows the confession of sins; then the priest imposes the penance; once this is finished, the penitent returns to the priest, who recites over him the long formula of absolution which is also said during the Mass. On the obligation of confession, long called into doubt by the Copts, v. J. Graf. Ein Reformversuch innerhalb der hoptischen Kirche im zwölften Jahrhundert, Paderborn 1923, pp. 38-71.

Among the dissident Ethiopians there is in use, alongside the formula of absolution of the Copts, this optative one, very brief: "Absolvat te Deus".

Alfonso Raes

IX. PENAL REMEDY

It is a burden or charge imposed by the competent Superior in the external forum, on the offender, who must accept it spontaneously if he wishes to escape the penalty that he would otherwise have deserved. Imposition in the external forum distinguishes the p. as penal remedy from the sacramental p. which the confessor customarily imposes.

The execution of the burden or charge imposed may be public or secret; hence the distinction of p. into public and secret; for the most part a public p. is imposed when there is a scandal to be repaired. The CIC prescribes that a public p. should not be imposed when the offense committed is secret, and this for the purpose of not needlessly harming the offender's reputation (can. 2312 § 2). The burden, moreover, that is imposed is not necessarily to be equated with the quantity and gravity of the offense committed, but rather with the good dispositions of repentance that the offender shows, unless other motives concur to impel the Superior to impose a sufficiently heavy burden (can. 2312 § 3). It appears clear that the specific purpose of the p. is to induce repentance.

Can. 2313 of the CIC lists the principal p. that can be imposed by the Superior: the recitation of specified prayers, such as, for example, the penitential psalms, the litany of the saints, etc.; the performance of a specified work of piety that is rather burdensome, such as a pilgrimage; a particular fast; alms; making a spiritual retreat for some days in some religious house. The CIC leaves it to the Superior's discretion to add to the p., if he sees fit, also some penal remedy such as admonition and correction.

Michele Federici