Thursday 22 February 2018

The Confessional. Part 112.

Theory and practice of the confessional by Caspar Erich Schieler, Richard Frederick Clarke


Invalid Confessions.

Confessions may be either invalid or merely defective. If only defective but not invalid, the defect should be supplied, but there is no need to repeat the confession; if, however, they are invalid, they must be repeated. This repetition need not always be made in the same manner.

A confession may be invalid through the fault of the penitent or through that of the confessor.

A confession may be invalid through the penitent's fault: —

1. By a gravely sinful defect in the examination of conscience.

2. By culpable and deliberate concealment of anything which ought to be confessed, or by a gravely sinful lie in confession.

3. By the want of contrition and purpose of amendment; and this defect is to be found among recidivi as well as those who refuse restitution or reconciliation with their enemies.

4. By want of good will to carry out the penance imposed, and to undertake other duties which bind under pain of grievous sin, if the good will is wanting at the time of receiving absolution.

5. By ignorance of those truths which must be known necessitate medii in order to gain salvation.

6. By receiving absolution while still under a sentence of excommunication. Among the principal effects of such a sentence must be counted privatio sacramentorum, so that any one receiving the Sacraments in this condition incurs a mortal sin by breaking the law of the Church. One may be saved, however, from grievous sin in this matter by inculpable ignorance, fear of death or mutilation, great disgrace or serious loss of fortune, etc., as well as by the necessity of obeying the law of yearly confession and communion when there is no priest with faculties for absolving from censures, for the law of the Church is not so severe as to bind its subjects to suffer grievous damage.

It is illicit and even sacrilegious for an excommunicated person to receive the Sacraments, though the reception is valid except in the case of the Sacrament of Penance. But when the excommunicated person is in good faith and thinks he may receive absolution, such absolution is valid, it being presumed of course that he goes to confession with the necessary dispositions. Such a case might occur when, through invincible ignorance or forgetfulness, he omits to mention the censure of excommunication, or when the priest does not know of it or forgets for the moment that such a censure is attached to certain sins, or, again, even where the priest knowingly absolves the penitent, though unprovided with faculties for the case, because the penitent is in one of the cases of necessity mentioned above and the priest feels it his duty to give absolution, or even if ex malitia he absolves a penitent who believes him to have faculties.

On the part of the confessor the confession may be made invalid if he has not the necessary jurisdiction or intention, or if he omits something essential in the formula of absolution, or if through deafness or inattention or the indistinctness of the penitent's utterance he has not understood any sin. If, however, through no fault of the penitent the priest missed some sins, even mortal sins, the confession would, according to the probable opinion, be valid if he heard part of the accusation ; those sins, however, which had not been understood ought to be repeated. If in the course of confession the penitent observes that the confessor does not understand because he is asleep or distracted, the penitent must repeat what the priest has failed to hear; if, in spite of this, the penitent were to continue the confession (mala fide), it would be sinful and invalid and ought to be repeated. If at the end of the confession the penitent sees that the confessor has been sleepy or distracted and so has missed some of the sins, though he does not know which have been missed, he must begin again unless the accusation has been a long one, in which case it is enough if the penitent repeat what he thinks the confessor may have missed, for it may be presumed that Christ never intended to prescribe perfect confession when attended with such inconvenience.