ABSOLVING PENITENTS WITHOUT ADMONITION
Question. A certain confessor
enjoys quite a
reputation for expediting matters in the
confessional. As a
rule, he pays no attention to the
different classes of penitents
who approach his confessional. He rarely
asks a question; He allows the
penitent to tell his sins without
interruption, and then if he thinks him
at all disposed, he absolves him immediately, without any word of instruction or admonition. On the vigils of great feasts, when the
number of penitents
is very great, he does not permit his penitents
to make a full confession, but when they have told one or the
other sin, he admonishes them to tell the
rest of their sins in their next
confession, and then absolves and dismisses them. He maintains that he is justified
in acting thus, because otherwise he would never be able to hear all the
people who come to him. To instruct or
to admonish penitents in the
confessional is not an essential part of
the Sacrament of Penance,
he says, nor is the confessor strictly bound to interrogate the
penitent, provided the
penitent confesses “materiam suficientem.” What must be
thought of his method of action?
Answer.
—The practise of this confessor is certainly
blameworthy, because he is neglecting certain strict obligations that are binding on the confessor's conscience.
First, as regards the practice of dismissing all penitents indiscriminately, without admonition or instruction.
Benedict XIV, in his encyclical letter, Apostolica Constitutio, of July
26, 1749, issued for the jubilee of the following year,
admonishes all confessors that they do not discharge the obligations of their
office, but, on the contrary, that they are
guilty of mortal sin, if, while sitting in the sacred tribunal of Penance, they show no
solicitude for their penitents,
but, without
admonition or
instruction, absolve them immediately they have finished the recital of their sins. The words of the Encyclical are as follows:
Ut
meminerint suscepti muneris partes non implere, imo vera gravioris criminis reos esse eos omnes, qui cum in sacro Pœnitentiæ tribunali
resident, pœnitentes audiunt, non monent, non interrogant, sed expleta criminum
enumerations, absolutionis formam illico proferunt.
Every priest who exercises the ministry of the Sacrament of Penance
is, according to the uniform teaching of the theologians, a teacher, a physician and a judge. As a teacher he is bound to
instruct the penitent concerning the things that are, hic
et nunc, required for the
worthy
reception of the Sacrament, as well as
in the things he ought to
know, in order to be able to lead a Christian life. As a physician of souls, he is required to investigate the causes of the spiritual illness of
his penitents, that is to say, the nature and causes of
their sins, in order to apply suitable spiritual remedies in each and every
case. And, finally, as every judge is obliged to hear and to study the whole case of the culprit before him, to
consider its various phases and to weigh justly all extenuating or aggravating
circumstances before he renders a final judgment; so likewise does the office of the confessor require of him, as a judge in the court of conscience,
that he study the state of the penitent’s conscience,
and consider his dispositions and judge of his firm purpose of amendment, and
then only to give or deny him absolution.
Now it is evident that the confessor mentioned in this case
does not and cannot fulfil this threefold duty of teacher, physician and judge.
His purpose is not to instruct and to heal and to judge; his purpose is to hear
and to absolve as many penitents
as
possible. It stands to reason, of course, that where the number of those
desiring to confess
is very great, and they are for the most part pious souls, who are accustomed to approach the sacred tribunal of Penance frequently
and have at the most only venial sins to confess, and
the confessor knows that they are sufficiently
instructed concerning the Sacrament of Penance, and rightly disposed, it stands to
reason, I say, that the
confessor may
dispatch his work expeditiously, because such penitents do not need the spiritual care and help of the confessor in order to receive the Sacrament of Penance worthily and
with profit.
But to proceed in the same manner with all penitents indiscriminately, whether they be known or unknown
to the confessor, even with the ignorant and the poorly instructed, whether they
confess mortal sins or venial sins, is certainly not to administer the Sacrament of Penance as we are bound
by grave obligations to administer it. For experience proves that there are
those who approach this holy tribunal unprepared, who have not sufficiently
examined their conscience, who through false shame hesitate to confess certain sins, who are lacking in true
contrition, though believing themselves contrite, because they have repeated
orally the act of contrition. Now the prudent and careful confessor, whose earnest desire is to fulfil
this holy ministry validly and licitly, with fruit and with profit, as the Church ordains that it shall be
fulfilled, will endeavor to discover and correct the faults and defects and shortcomings
of his penitents,
by prudently
questioning and instructing and disposing them, lest their confession be fruitless
or even sacrilegious.
If the penitent confess mortal sins, he ought to be admonished of
their heinousness, in order that he may be moved to realize his spiritual
condition and abhor his sins and take the necessary means of shunning them in the future. If such penitents be absolved and dismissed
incontinently from the
sacred tribunal without a word of admonition or advice, they will very likely
consider their sins of little consequence and never come to a realization of the necessity of correcting them, and
thus will they speedily fall into them again.
Every
confessor who has had experience
of souls in the tribunal of Penance
appreciates the gravity of this danger.
For this very reason the Roman Ritual admonishes
confessors to be careful to instruct their penitents regarding the condition of their souls, endeavoring to make
them realize the number and gravity of
their sins and to dispose them to contrition and a firm purpose of amendment.
“Demum, audita confessione, perpendens
peccatorum, quae ille
admisit, magnitudinem et multitudinem, pro eorum gravitate, ac penitentis
conditione, opportune correptiones ac monitiones, prout opus esse viderit,
paterna charitate adhibebit et ad dolorem et contritionem efdcacibus verbis
adducere conabitur, atque ad vitam emendandam ac melius instituendam inducet,
remediaque peccatorum tradet.”
The great number of penitents waiting to be heard does not excuse the confessor from the obligation of
admonishing, correcting and disposing them, so that the reception of the Sacrament of Penance
may be of benefit to them. St. Francis Xavier was accustomed to say that it was
better to hear a few confessions, and to
hear them well, than to hear a great many and to only half hear them. And St. Alfonsus
says that it matters little whether there be others waiting to confess or
whether some will be obliged to depart without being heard; for on the day of judgment the confessor will have to render an
account of those he actually heard, and not of the others.
“Parum refert, quod alii expectant aut
inconfessi discedant; confessarius enim de hoc tantum, qui sibi nunc
confitetur, non vero de aliis, in die judicii rationem reddere debet” (Praxis
confess. n.7).
Again
it is quite blameworthy that the confessor, on the eves of great festivals, when the number of confessions
is very great, should permit the penitent to confess only one or two sins and
then absolve him, with the
admonition to
confess his other sins in his next confession. It is expressly stated in all
moral theologies that the number of penitents desiring to be heard in
confession can never be a
valid
or just reason for making only a partial confession, even though many must depart unheard
and unshriven.
Under all such circumstances, a full and integral confession
of all mortal sins is required of the penitent, sub gravi. The practice of absolving penitents without permitting them to
confess all their mortal sins, because otherwise many must depart without absolution, is
expressly condemned by Pope Innocent XI, in the 59th proscribed proposition.
“Licet sacramentaliter absolvere,
dimidiate tantum confessos, ratione magni concursus penitentium, qualis v. g.
potest contingere in die magnae alicujus festivitatis vel indulgentiæ.”
The reason why this proposition was condemned, says
Billuart, is that the harm done by sending
some penitents away unheard is not so
great, as to justify a partial confession, especially
when there is danger of absolving
the unworthy,
by reason of the precipitation with
which the confessions are heard
and the omission of a part of one’s sins.
~The
Casuist, Volume II, 1908.
