Wednesday 30 August 2017

The Confessional. Part 104.

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


V. A moral impossibility exists, as before remarked, when great harm ensuing to the penitent or to the confessor or to some third person is to be feared from the completeness of the confession ; the harm to be feared must preponderate over the material integrity of the confession.

Therefore exception is made to the demand of integrity (completeness) in confession: —

1. When there is risk of infamy (periculum infamice), if the penitent is exposed to lose the esteem he is held in not only by the confessor but also by others. This may happen in various ways, particularly if the penitent is so placed that a perfect confession would be overheard by others, or if the time required for a complete confession were so long that it would give rise to unfavorable suspicions. Such a case is most likely to happen when others know that the penitent has been in the habit of confessing, and the latter, on account of those confessions being invalid, is obliged to repeat them, while the time for a communion which he cannot postpone without exciting comment, is quite close.

A sick man, for instance, has confessed and is about to receive the viaticum; he reveals to the priest that he has made several sacrilegious confessions. To repeat these in full would excite suspicions on the part of the bystanders who thought that he was prepared to receive holy communion.

Or, to use another illustration, on the occasion of some solemn and public communion in common one of the communicants goes to the priest a short time before communion and reveals that he has made a sacrilegious confession; since there is no time to repeat it, it is enough if he makes an act of sorrow, mentions the sacrilegious confession and perhaps one or two of his other sins; he must then be absolved and later, of course, make a full confession.

Or, a priest is already at the altar, about to offer the holy sacrifice, but remembers that he has mortal sins on his soul not yet confessed; he makes a short act of contrition and confesses his sins to an assisting priest who is standing close by him; the latter will then give absolution secretly. Outside the case of necessity where a priest must celebrate Mass or a person is to receive communion, the penitent is in nowise excused from making a full confession on the ground that others, noticing the length of time spent in the confessional, should suspect him of being guilty of many grave sins.

2. When there is danger of breach of the seal of confession (periculum Icesionis sigilli), as when, which is a very rare case, it should be foreseen that the confessor would break the seal, or in the case where a confessor could not reveal his own sins without at the same time revealing the sins of his penitent and so breaking the seal.

The first case, i.e. where the confessor breaks the seal — without, of course, intending to do so — might happen when the priest speaks so loud that he can be overheard by those in the neighbourhood, and in spite of representations still fails to subdue his voice, either because he is deaf, or because his zeal runs away with him, or because he is afflicted with some defect of voice which prevents him talking in a lower tone. This would be only an indirect breach of the seal, certainly not to be sanctioned but rather to be severely blamed as wrong and sinful. If, then, the confessor speaks too loud, and continues to do so even after the penitent has reminded him of the fault, the latter is justified in keeping back part of his confession so that the confessor may not in the course of his questions reveal to the bystanders the sins confessed.

If, however, the penitent has an exaggerated dread that his confessor may break the seal by making revelations outside the confessional, he is not justified in withholding his confession in full, for he imagines a sin so horrible that the suspicion of it could only be entertained in the case of heretics. This holds true at least as far as a direct breach of the seal is concerned. A penitent could hardly ever be dispensed from a full confession on account of such a fear, and if he were to reveal to another confessor that such a motive had prompted him to keep back some of his sins, the confessor could not receive this as an excuse without further inquiry.

On the other hand, the danger of a breach of the seal on the part of a priest who confesses the sins he has incurred in hearing confessions is not beyond the bounds of possibility; in this case he must pass over in silence those sins which would involve such a risk."