CONTRITION. - It is the principal act of the virtue of penance, by which the sinner, under the influence of God's grace, disposes himself for the remission of sin.
I. NOTION
According to the definition of the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, chap. 4), contrition consists in a sorrow of the soul and a detestation of the sin committed, joined to the purpose of not sinning again in the future. Contrition therefore implies three elements: the detestation, which is the act of the will by which one hates the sin already committed, and therefore wishes never to have done it and seeks to destroy its consequences; the sorrow, which adds to the detestation a sadness of the soul arising from the fact that the sinful act, in its effects, is apprehended as a present evil; the purpose, which indicates the firm will not to sin again in the future.
This notion of contrition faithfully reports the teaching of Sacred Scripture; the Council of Trent itself points this out, citing certain passages of the Old Testament (Ezek. 18:31; Ps. 50:6; 6:7; Isa. 38:15). It is also the constant doctrine of the Fathers, summarized in the very well-known saying of St. Gregory the Great: « Paenitentia est perpetrata mala plangere, et plangenda non perpetrare » (Hom. in Evang., II, 34, 15; PL 76, 1256), which justifies the Catholic notion of contrition. Moreover, it is in the very nature of things that any act of penance should import, together with the will of renewal for the future, the efficacious retraction of the offense already committed.
II. NECESSITY
"This movement of contrition has been necessary at all times in order to obtain the forgiveness of sins." With these words the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, chap. 4) teaches the necessity of c. for attaining salvation. And already before, with regard to the virtue of penance, of which c. is the formal act, it had written: "for all men who had stained themselves with any grave sin, penance was always necessary to obtain grace and justification" (ibid., chap. 1).
This doctrine is nothing but the particular application of the universal principle, established by the same Council of Trent (sess. VI, chap. 5), concerning the necessity on man's part of preparing himself, under the influence of Grace, for justification. And in fact, in describing the manner in which this preparation is effected (ibid., chap. 6), among the other dispositions, the Council lists hatred and detestation of the sin committed, together with the resolve to begin a new life and to observe the law of God.
This doctrine is founded both in Sacred Scripture (Joel, 2, 12 ff.; Lk. 13, 3-5; Acts 3, 19; cf. Ezek. 18, 21 ff.; Jer. 18, 8; Eccl. 2, 22), in which God's forgiveness is conditioned upon the detestation of one's own faults and the will to bring forth fruits of penance; and in the constant teaching of the Fathers, who, gathering up the warning of Sacred Scripture, inculcated for any remission, whether baptismal or post-baptismal, the necessity of turning to God in hatred of sin and in the resolve of a new life, and dedicated special booklets or treatises to this purpose (cf. Tertullian, De paenitentia; Cyprian, De lapsis; Ambrose, De paenitentia; Pacian, Epist. contra tractatus Novatianorum and Paraenesis ad paenitentiam; Chrysostom, De paenitentia). C. therefore is to be considered absolutely necessary for attaining justification.
III. DIVISION
A first division of contrition is into formal and virtual. There is formal contrition when the sin is detested explicitly; on the other hand there is virtual contrition when the sin is not explicitly and formally detested, because at present there is no recollection of it; nevertheless the disposition of the will is such that, were it to surface in the mind, it would detest it without hesitation: it is the contrition contained in the act of perfect charity which is elicited without any memory in the subject of the sins committed. This division concerns the matter of the sacrament of Penance (v.), insofar as it is debated whether the contrition required in the Sacrament must be formal or whether virtual suffices.
Another division, much more important historically and theologically, is into imperfect contrition or attrition (v.), and perfect contrition or simply contrition. This division seems to occur for the first time in the Regulae de sacra theologia (reg. 85: PL 210, 665) of Alan of Lille (d. 1202). It is used, though not frequently, by the scholastics and by St. Thomas; it later became common among theologians, especially after the Council of Trent.
It is founded on the different efficacy that is attributed to attrition and to perfect contrition with regard to the remission of sin. Since indeed contrition is destined to remove sin, that contrition is called perfect which of itself, by reason of disposition, obtains this effect, and therefore attains justification even before receiving the Sacrament, albeit with the vow of it; on the other hand that contrition is called imperfect which of itself is not sufficient to attain this effect. It is precisely with reference to this different efficacy that the Council of Trent recalls the said distinction (sess. XIV, cap. 4); and the same order of ideas can be detected in the doctrine of St. Thomas, as also in the preceding scholastic tradition (cf. P. De Vooght, La justification dans le sacrement de Pénitence d'après S. Thomas d'Aquin, in Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses, 5 [1928], p. 232).
However, since — as for every act of virtue — the different efficacy is ultimately a function of the different formal object, theologians ask with which different formal object the distinction between attrition and perfect contrition is to be connected.
On this point the Tridentine teaching (loc. cit.) which seems to be in line with the thought of the Angelic Doctor (cf. P. De Vooght, articolo cit., p. 249) is sufficiently clear and precise: it is to it that the common doctrine of theologians is linked. The Council, that is, while assigning as a whole to attrition all the motives that are not perfect charity toward God and that commonly take concrete form either in the consideration of the baseness of sin, or in the fear of hell, or in the fear of punishments, reserves to perfect contrition the single motive of love toward God. There is therefore perfect contrition when sin is detested by reason of perfect charity, of love toward God; that is, as L. Billot explains, when sin is detested « quia est offensivum Dei propter se et super omnia appreciative dilecti » (De Ecclesiae Sacramentis, II, Rome 1918, p. 133); whereas in all other cases there is attrition.
There have not been lacking, however, theologians, mentioned by G. De Lugo (De Paenitentia, disp. 5, sect. 1), who have sought to extend to other motives, beyond perfect charity, the possibility of giving rise to perfect contrition. That is, it would also occur if the detestation of sin were determined by the virtues of obedience, religion, gratitude toward God. Among the moderns, Palmieri, Ballerini, Schifini, Hurter have accepted this possibility, at least as regards the love of God as our good and our happiness. As De Lugo noted, at the bottom of this opinion there is a concern of a practical order, which was later clothed in doctrinal arguments or arguments from authority: « that is, there is the fear that the detestation determined by pure love of God may prove too difficult for the sinner, and that he may therefore remain deprived of the salutary effects of contrition precisely when he has the greatest need of them.
It does not seem, however, that this opinion can be accepted: both because of the already noted manner of proceeding of the Council of Trent (loc. cit.), which, while it has assigned perfect charity as the sole motive of contrition, has on the other hand attributed to attrition all the other motives distinct from it; and because only with contrition determined by perfect charity is there that disposition of detestation of sin as the supreme evil and of conversion to God as the supreme good, which grounds the fittingness of God's granting of forgiveness.
IV. EFFICACY
Of any contrition, insofar as it is placed under the influence of Grace, the proper efficacy is to dispose one to justification. In fact, as has already been seen, contrition in its threefold element of sorrow, detestation and purpose is numbered by the Council of Trent among the acts by which the sinner prepares himself for justification. From this it follows that contrition must be supernatural, supreme and universal.
The efficacy of perfect contrition, moreover, consists in reconciling the sinner with God immediately, even before the sacrament is received. This efficacy is clearly taught by the Council of Trent (sess. XIV, cap. 4), and was later confirmed by the condemnation of certain propositions of Baius (31, 32, 33, and 70) in which the coexistence of the act of perfect charity or of perfect contrition with mortal sin in the soul was affirmed. It is further demonstrated by those texts of Sacred Scripture, both of the Old and of the New Testament (Prov. 8:17; Lk. 10:27-28; Jn. 14:21-23; 1 Pt. 4:8; 1 Jn. 4:7) in which it is said that to the love of God, from which precisely contrition proceeds, is joined the friendship of the Lord, the remission of sins with all the other goods that follow.
It is finally illustrated by the constant patristic tradition: both insofar as it teaches the efficacy of the Baptism of desire, which is to say the efficacy of the act of charity in which the desire of Baptism is implicit (cf. Ambrose, De obitu Valentiniani, 51-53: PL 16, 1374-75; Augustine, De Baptism., IV, 21, 78: PL 43, 172-74); and insofar as it explicitly attributes to the act of charity such virtue and perfection as to cancel sin and re-establish the friendship between the sinner and God (cf. Chrysostom, In S. Romanum mart., hom. I, 1: PG 50, 607; Augustine, In I Ioan., Tract. V, 10: PL 35, 2017; Chrysologus, Serm., 94: PL 52, 465-66; Gregory the Great, Hom. in Evang., II, 33, 4: PL 76, 1241).
For their part, theologians, accepting as certain this efficacy of perfect contrition, have rather sought to investigate its intimate nature and the specific causality it exercises with regard to justification. Although some uncertainty and some hesitation have not been lacking, nevertheless it is now agreed that perfect contrition contributes to justification, first of all as a material dispositive cause, insofar as, removing as an efficient cause the impediment of the offense against God, it becomes the last and immediate disposition for the infusion of Grace. It contributes further as a meritorious cause "de congruo infallibili" insofar as, given the will on God's part to remit sin whenever man does with the help of Grace what is in his power, to perfect contrition, which fulfills this condition, grace and the remission of sin are infallibly joined.
However, as the Council of Trent teaches, in order for contrition to avail for reconciliation with God, it must contain the vow, at least objectively implicit, to receive the Sacrament. This, moreover, is evident. One could not in fact love God truthfully if at the same time one were not disposed to fulfill what he has established concerning the confession of sins. Precisely after the institution of the sacrament of Penance, it is the positive will of God that all sins committed after Baptism be submitted to the priest. And it is to satisfy this will that the vow is ordered, and certainly not to obtain through future Confession the remission of sins that has already been received in the act of contrition.
Theologians nevertheless ask whether such a vow exercises a positive influence in the remission, or whether instead it is to be regarded as a simple condition for contrition to exercise its own proper efficacy (cf. F. Suárez, De paen., disp. 17, sect. 3; D. Palmieri, Tractatus de paen., Rome 1879, pp. 106-109). Opinions do not agree, although it seems certain that St. Thomas holds the first hypothesis (cf. J. Perinelle, L'attribution d'après le Concile de Trente et d'après et Thomas d'Aquin, Le Saulchoir 1927, p. 101; P. De Vooght, articolo cit., p. 238). All are agreed, on the other hand, in asserting that the vow contained in contrition has as its object not to confess one's sin as soon as possible: this is prescribed only for the priest if "necessitate urgente" he has celebrated without prior confession, having only emitted an act of perfect contrition (cf. Council of Trent, sess. XIII, cap. 7); but rather to confess it when, the obligation of Confession urging for other reasons, one must accuse one's sins to the priest. As is well known, this obligation, besides in danger of death, urges once a year for all the faithful, by force of the precept of the Church; it urges further and only by reason of the positive law of the Church (cf. Council of Trent, sess. XIII, cap. 7) when one must receive the sacrament of the Eucharist.
The described efficacy of perfect contrition has been limited by some authors, such as Baius and his followers, to certain exceptional circumstances. That is, perfect contrition justifies only when it is emitted in case of death, of martyrdom, or, in general, of necessity. Something similar, although in a more mitigated form, was also maintained by Estius (In IV Sent., d. 17, § 2). The Baian opinion, however, was deservedly condemned by Pius V (prop. 71): indeed no indication is found, either in Sacred Scripture or in tradition, for restricting the efficacy of contrition to certain extraordinary cases; whereas on the contrary the teaching of Trent is clear, that every time one emits an act of perfect contrition, reconciliation with God is always obtained (sess. XIV, cap. 4). It is nevertheless evident, and it is superfluous to note it, that such an act of contrition is not conceived in the one who, as St. Augustine had already pointed out (De Bapt., IV, 22, 29), does not approach the Sacrament either out of contempt or through culpable negligence.
Other theologians have attributed the said efficacy only to the act of contrition that bears the character of particular intensity, either because of the vehemence with which the will detests sin, or because of the participation of the sensitive appetite in such detestation. These are the so-called "contrititionist" theologians (v. ATTRIZIONE): who, from the premise that for the remission of sins in the sacrament of Penance perfect contrition is required, even if only initial and remitted, conclude that only when such contrition is intense can it justify outside the Sacrament. However, given the very extensive range of the degrees of contrition, it would remain to be determined what degree is required for the act of contrition to attain the effect of justification. On this point, however, these theologians do not agree among themselves (cf. H. Merkelbach, Quaestiones de partibus paenitentiae, Liège 1937, p. 30). And already such discord is to the discredit of this opinion. Moreover, it does not have the teaching of the Church in its favor: both insofar as in the Council of Trent it is simply said, without any distinction of degree of intensity, that with perfect contrition reconciliation with God is joined; and insofar as, in condemning the propositions of Baius according to which the remission of sin is not always joined to perfect charity (propp. 31, 32, 33 and 70), the Church has implicitly affirmed that contrition, provided it proceeds from perfect charity, always entails justification.