IMPENITENT. — From the ecclesiastical Latin *impoenitens*, it is said of the sinner who, directly or indirectly, through culpable ignorance or negligence, refuses to repent of his sins when the precept of penance so requires of him.
Impenitence usually arises from vicious habits that blind the intellect and pervert the will, whence ease and insatiability in sinning, obstinacy, and presumption. The remedy, besides prayer, is the consideration of the malice and consequences of this state, so as to excite fear, confidence, love of God, and sorrow for sins.
Impenitence, when formal in grave matter—as is here discussed—is guilty of a most grievous sin against the Holy Spirit, for the refusal to repent not only deprives one of grace but increases the strength of vices, weakens the will, and exposes one to the danger of final impenitence. He always retains the possibility of conversion, since God does not deny grace to him who, at any moment of life, turns to Him; yet repentance becomes ever more difficult, and the penance to which the sinner is reduced only at life’s end leaves mostly many doubts regarding its nature and efficacy.
As regards the Sacraments, the impenitent must be treated as a sinner according to the Rituale, lib. IV, cap. 1, §§ 8-9; Extreme Unction is to be denied him if he persists in manifest mortal sin, and if this is doubtful, it is to be administered conditionally (CIC, can. 942). He who dies impenitent in the cases indicated by can. 1240 is deprived of ecclesiastical burial.