THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE.
I. The Divine Institution Of The Sacrament Of Penance.
The whole history of Jesus Christ is marked by mercy and compassion for
suffering humanity. From the moment of His incarnation till the hour of
His death every thought and word and act of His Divine life was directed
toward the alleviation of the ills and miseries of fallen man.
As soon as He enters on His public career He goes about doing good to all
men. He gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, vigor to paralyzed
limbs; He applies the salve of comfort to the bleeding heart and raises
the dead to life.
But, while Jesus occupied Himself in bringing relief to corporal
infirmities, _the principal object of His mission was to release the soul
from the bonds of sin_. The very name of Jesus indicates this important
truth: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus,” says the angel, “for He shall
save His people from their sins.”(435)
For, if Jesus had contented Himself with healing the maladies of our body
without attending to those of our soul, He would deserve, indeed, to be
called our Physician, but would not merit the more endearing titles of
Savior and Redeemer. But as sin was the greatest evil of man, and as Jesus
came to remove from us our greatest evils, He came into the world chiefly
as the great Absolver from sin.
Magdalen seems to have a consciousness of this. She casts herself at His
feet, which she washes with her tears and wipes with her hair, while Jesus
pronounces over her the saving words of absolution. The very demons
recognized Jesus as the enemy of sin, for they dreaded His approach,
knowing that He would drive them out of the bodies of men.
Our Lord makes the healing of the body secondary to that of the soul. When
He delivers the body from its distempers His object is to win the
confidence of the spectators by compelling them to recognize Him as the
soul’s Physician. He says, for instance, to the palsied man, “Thy sins are
forgiven.”(436) The scribes are offended at our Savior for presuming to
forgive sins. He replies, in substance: If you do not believe My words,
believe My acts; and He at once heals the man of his disease. After he had
cured the man that had been languishing for thirty-eight years He
whispered to him this gentle admonition, “Sin no more, lest some worst
thing may happen to thee.”(437)
As much as our spiritual substance excels the flesh that surrounds it, so
much more did our Savior value the resurrection of a soul from the grave
of sin than the resurrection of the body from that of death. Hence St.
Augustine pointedly remarks that, while the Gospel relates only three
resurrections of the body, our Lord, during His mortal life, raised
thousands of souls to the life of grace.
As the Church was established by Jesus Christ to perpetuate the work which
he had begun, it follows that the reconciliation of sinners to God was to
be the principal office of sacred ministers.
But the important question here presents itself: How was man to obtain
forgiveness in the Church after our Lord’s ascension?
Was Jesus Christ to appear in person to every sinful soul and say to each
penitent, as He said to Magdalen, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” or did He
intend to delegate this power of forgiving sins to ministers appointed for
that purpose?
We know well that our Savior never promised to present Himself visibly to
each sinner, nor has He done so.
His plan, therefore, must have been to appoint ministers of reconciliation
to act in His name. It has always, indeed, been the practice of Almighty
God, both in the Old and the New Law, to empower human agents to execute
His merciful designs.
When Jehovah resolved to deliver the children of Israel from the captivity
of Egypt He appointed Moses their deliverer. When God wished them to
escape from the pursuit of Pharaoh across the Red Sea, did He intervene
directly? No; but, by His instructions, Moses raised his hand over the
waters and they were instantly divided.
When the people were dying from thirst in the desert, did God come visibly
to their rescue? No; but Moses struck the rock, from which the water
instantly issued. When Paul, breathing vengeance against the Christians,
was going to Damascus, did our Savior personally restore his sight,
convert and baptize him? No; He sent Paul to His servant Ananias, who
restored his sight and baptized him.
The same Apostle beautifully describes to us in one sentence of his
Epistle to the Corinthians the arrangement of Divine Providence in the
reconciliation of sinners: “God,” he says, “hath reconciled us to Himself
through Christ, _and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation_....
For Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors; God, as it were, exhorting
through us.”(438) That is to say, God sends Christ to reconcile sinners;
Christ sends us. We are His ambassadors, reconciling sinners in His name.
When I think of this tremendous power that we possess I congratulate the
members of the Church, for whose benefit it is conferred; I tremble for
myself and my fellow-ministers, for terrible is our responsibility, while
we have nothing to glory in. Christ is the living Fountain of grace: we
are but the channels through which it is conveyed to your souls. Christ is
the treasure; we are but the pack-horses that carry it. “We bear this
treasure in earthen vessels.” Christ is the shepherd; we are the pipe He
uses to call His sheep. Our words sounding in the confessional are but the
feeble echo of the voice of the Spirit of God that purified the Apostles
in the cenacle of Jerusalem.
But have we Gospel authority to show that our Savior did confer on the
Apostles and their successors the power to forgive sins?
We have the most positive testimony, and our Savior’s words conferring
this power are expressed in the plainest language which admits of no
misconception. In the Gospel of St. Matthew our Savior thus addresses
Peter: “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church.... And I
will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou
shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.”(439)
And to all the Apostles assembled together on another occasion He uses the
same forcible language: “Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound
also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed
also in heaven.”(440) The soul is enchained by sin. I give you power, says
our Lord, to release the penitent soul from its galling fetters, and to
restore it to the liberty of a child of God.
In the Gospel of St. John we have a still more striking declaration of the
absolving power given by our Savior to His Apostles.
Jesus, after His resurrection, thus addresses His disciples: “Peace be to
you. As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you.... Receive ye the Holy
Ghost; whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins
ye shall retain, they are retained.”(441)
That peace which I give to you you will impart to repentant souls as a
pledge of their reconciliation with God. The absolving power I have from
My Father, the same I communicate to you. Receive the Holy Ghost, that you
may impart this Holy Spirit to souls possessed by the spirit of evil. “If
their sins are as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow; and if
they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.”(442) If they are as
numerous as the sands on the seashore, they shall be blotted out, provided
they come to you with contrite hearts. The sentence of mercy which you
shall pronounce on earth I will ratify in heaven.
From these words of St. John I draw three important conclusions:
It follows, first, that the forgiving power was not restricted to the
Apostles, but extended to their successors in the ministry unto all times
and places. The forgiveness of sin was to continue while sin lasted in the
world; and as sin, alas! will always be in the world, so will the remedy
for sin be always in the Church. The medicine will co-exist with the
disease. The power which our Lord gave the Apostles to preach, to baptize,
to confirm, to ordain, etc., was transmitted by them to their successors.
Why not also the power which they had received to forgive sins, since
man’s greatest need is his reconciliation with God by the forgiveness of
his offences?
It follows, secondly that forgiveness of sin was ordinarily to be obtained
only through the ministry of the Apostles and their successors, just as it
was from them that the people were to receive the word of God and the
grace of Baptism. The pardoning power was a great prerogative conferred on
the Apostles. But what kind of prerogative would it be if people could
always obtain forgiveness by confessing to God secretly in their rooms?
How few would have recourse to the Apostles if they could obtain
forgiveness on easier terms! God says to His chosen ministers: I give you
the keys of My kingdom, that you may dispense the treasures of mercy to
repenting sinners. But of what use would it be to give the Apostles the
keys of God’s treasures for the ransom of sinners, if every sinner could
obtain his ransom without applying to the Apostles? If I gave you, dear
reader, the keys of my house, authorizing you to admit whom you please,
that they might partake of the good things contained in it, you would
conclude that I had done you a small favor if you discovered that every
one was possessed of a private key, and could enter when he pleased
without consulting you.
I have said that forgiveness of sins is _ordinarily_ to be obtained
through the ministry of the Apostles and of their successors, because it
may sometimes happen that the services of God’s minister cannot be
obtained. A merciful Lord will not require in this conjuncture more than a
hearty sorrow for sin joined with a desire of having recourse as soon as
practicable, to the tribunal of Penance; for God’s ordinances bind only
such as are able to fulfil them.
It follows, in the third place, that the power of forgiving sins, on the
part of God’s minister, involves the obligation of confessing them on the
part of the sinner. The Priest is not empowered to give absolution to
every one indiscriminately. He must exercise the power with judgment and
discretion. He must reject the impenitent and absolve the penitent. But
how will he judge of the disposition of the sinner unless he knows his
sins, and how will the Priest know his sins unless they are confessed?
Hence, we are not surprised when we read in the Acts that “Many of them
who believed came confessing and declaring their deeds”(443) to the
Apostles. Why did they confess their sins unless they were bound to do so?
Hence, also, we understand why St. John says: “If we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
iniquity.”(444)
The strength of these texts of Scripture will appear to you much more
forcible when you are told that all the Fathers of the Church, from the
first to the last, insist upon the necessity of Sacramental Confession as
a Divine institution. We are not unfrequently told by those who are little
acquainted with the doctrine and history of the Church, that Sacramental
Confession was not introduced into the Church until 1,200 years after the
time of our Savior. In vindication of their bold assertion they even
introduce quotations from SS. Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome and
Chrysostom. These quotations are utterly irrelevant; but, if seen in the
context, they will tend to prove, instead of disproving, the Catholic
doctrine of Confession. For the sake of brevity I shall cite only a few
passages from the Fathers referred to. These citations I take, almost at
random, from the copious writings of these Fathers on Confession. From
these extracts you can judge of the sentiments of all the Fathers on the
subject of Confession. “_Ab uno disce omnes._”
St. Basil writes: “In the confession of sins the same method must be
observed as in laying open the infirmities of the body; for as these are
not rashly communicated to every one, but to those only who understand by
what method they may be cured, so the confession of sins must be made to
such persons as have the power to apply a remedy.”(445) Later on he tells
us who those persons are. “Necessarily, our sins must be confessed to
those to whom has been committed the dispensation of the mysteries of God.
Thus, also, are they found to have acted who did penance of old in regard
of the saints. It is written in the Acts, they confessed to the Apostles,
by whom also they were baptized.”(446) Two conclusions obviously follow
from these passages of St. Basil: First, the necessity of confession.
Second, the obligation of declaring our sins to a Priest to whom in the
New Law is committed “the dispensation of the mysteries of God.”
St. Ambrose, of Milan, writes: “The poison is sin; the remedy, the
accusation of one’s crime: the poison is iniquity; confession is the
remedy of the relapse. And, therefore, it is truly a remedy against
poison, if thou declare thine iniquities, that thou mayest be justified.
Art thou ashamed? This shame will avail thee little at the judgment seat
of God.”(447)
The following passage clearly shows that the great Light of the Church of
Milan is speaking of confession to Priests: “There are some,” continues
St. Ambrose, “who ask for penance that they may at once be restored to
Communion. These do not so much desire to be loosed as to bind the Priest;
for they do not unburden their conscience, but they burden his, who is
commanded not to give holy things unto dogs—that is, not easily to admit
impure souls to the Holy Communion.”(448)
Paulinus, the secretary of St. Ambrose, in his life of that great Bishop
relates that he used to weep over the penitents whose confessions he
heard.
St. Augustine writes: “Our merciful God wills us to confess in this world
that we may not be confounded in the other.”(449) And again: “Let no one
say to himself, I do penance to God in private, I do it before God. Is it
then in vain that Christ hath said, ‘Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven?’ Is it in vain that the keys have been given to
the Church? Do we make void the Gospel, void the words of Christ?”(450)
In this extract how well doth the great Doctor meet the sophistry of those
who, in our times, say that it is sufficient to confess to God!
St. Chrysostom, in his thirtieth Homily, says: “Lo! we have now, at
length, reached the close of Holy Lent; now especially we must press
forward in the career of fasting, ... and exhibit a _full_ and _accurate
confession of our sins_, ... that with these good works, having come to
the day of Easter, we may enjoy the bounty of the Lord.... For, as the
enemy knows that having confessed our sins and _shown_ our wounds to the
_physician_ we attain to an abundant cure, he in an especial manner
opposes us.”
Again he says: “Do not _confess to me_ only of fornication, nor of those
things that are manifest among all men, but bring together also thy secret
calumnies and evil speakings, ... and all such things.”(451)
The great Doctor plainly enjoins here a detailed and specific confession
of our sins not to God, but to His minister, as the whole context
evidently shows.
The same Father, in an eloquent treatise on the power of the sacred
ministry, uses the following words: “To the Priests is given a power which
God would not grant either to angels or archangels; inasmuch that what the
Priests do below God ratifies above, and the Master confirms the sentence
of His servants. For, He says, ‘Whose sins you shall retain, they are
retained.’
“What power, I ask, can be greater than this? The Father hath given all
power to the Son; and I see all this same power delivered to them by God
the Son.
“To cleanse the leprosy of the body, or rather to pronounce it cleansed,
was given to the Jewish Priests alone. But to our Priests is granted the
power not of declaring healed the leprosy of the body, but of absolutely
cleansing the defilements of the soul.”(452)
And again: “If a sinner, as becomes him; would use the aid of his
conscience, and hasten to confess his crimes and disclose his ulcer to his
physician, who may heal and not reproach, and receive remedies from him;
if he would speak to him alone, without the knowledge of any one, and with
care lay all before him, easily would he amend his failings; _for the
confession of sins is the absolution of crimes_.”(453)
St. Jerome writes: “If the serpent, the devil, secretly bite a man and
thus infect him with the poison of sin, and this man shall remain silent,
and do not penance, nor be willing to make known his wound to his brother
and master; the master, who has a tongue that can heal, cannot easily
serve him. For if the ailing man be ashamed to open his case to the
physician no cure can be expected; for medicine does not cure that of
which it knows nothing.”(454)
Elsewhere he says: “With us the Bishop or Priest binds or looses—not them
who are merely innocent or guilty—but _having heard, as his duty requires,
the various qualities of sin_ he understands who should be bound and who
loosed.”(455)
Could the Catholic doctrine regarding the power of the Priests and the
obligation of confession be expressed in stronger language than this?
And yet these are the very Fathers who are represented to be opposed to
Sacramental Confession! With a reckless disregard of the unanimous voice
of antiquity our adversaries have the hardihood to assert that private or
Sacramental Confession was introduced at a period subsequent to the
twelfth century. They do not, however, vouchsafe to inform us by what Pope
or Bishop or Father of the Church, or by what Council, or in what country,
this monstrous innovation was foisted on the Christian Republic. Surely,
an institution which, in their estimation, has been fraught with such dire
calamity to Christendom, ought to have its origin marked with more
precision. It is sometimes prudent, however, not to be too particular in
fixing dates.
I shall now, I trust, show to the satisfaction of the reader: First—That
Sacramental Confession was not introduced. Second—That it could not have
been introduced into the Church since the days of the Apostles, and
consequently that it is Apostolic in its origin.
That Confession was not invented since the days of the Apostles is
manifest as soon as we attempt to fix the period of its first
establishment. Let us go back, step, by step, from the nineteenth to the
first century.
It had not its origin in the present century, as everybody will admit.
Nor did it arise in the sixteenth century, since the General Council of
Trent, held in that age, speaks of it as an established and venerable
institution and Luther says that “auricular Confession, as now in vogue,
is useful, nay, necessary; nor would I,” he adds, “have it abolished,
since it is the remedy of afflicted consciences.”(456) Even Henry VIII.,
before he founded a new sect, wrote a treatise in defence of the
Sacraments, including Penance and Confession.
It was not introduced in the thirteenth century, for the Fourth Council of
Lateran passed a decree in 1215 obliging the faithful to confess their
sins at least once a year. This decree, of course, supposes Confession to
be already an established fact.
Some Protestant writers fall into a common error in interpreting the
decree of the Lateran Council by saying “Sacramental Confession was never
required in the Church of Rome until the thirteenth century.” The Council
simply prescribed a limit beyond which the faithful should not defer their
confession.
These writers seem incapable of distinguishing between a law obliging us
to a certain duty and a statute fixing the time for fulfilling it. They
might as well suppose that the revenue officer creates the law regarding
the payment of taxes when he issues a notice requiring the revenue to be
paid within a given time.
Going back to the ninth century we find that Confession could not have had
its rise then. It was at that period that the Greek schism took its rise,
under the leadership of Photius. The Greek schismatic church has remained
since then a communion separate from the Catholic Church, having no
spiritual relations with us. Now, the Greek church is as tenaciously
attached to private Confession as we are.
For the same reasons Confession could not date its origin from the fifth
or fourth century. The Arians revolted from the Church in the fourth
century, and the Nestorians and Eutychians in the fifth. The two
last-named sects still exist in large numbers in Persia, Abyssinia and
along the coast of Malabar, and retain Confession as one of their most
sacred and cherished practices.
In fine, no human agency could succeed in instituting Confession between
the first and fourth century, for the teachings of our Divine Redeemer and
of His disciples had made too vivid an impression on the Christian
community to be easily effaced; and the worst enemies of the Church admit
that no spot or wrinkle had yet deformed her fair visage in this, the
golden age of her existence.
These remarks suffice to convince us that Sacramental Confession _was not
instituted since the time of the Apostles_. I shall now endeavor to prove
to your satisfaction _that its introduction into the Church, since the
Apostolic age, was absolutely impossible_.
There are two ways in which we may suppose that error might insinuate
itself into the Church, viz.: suddenly, or by slow process. Now, the
introduction of Confession in either of those ways was simply impossible.
First, nothing can be more absurd than to suppose that Confession was
immediately forced upon the Christian world. For experience demonstrates
with what slowness and difficulty men are divested of their religious
impressions, whether true or false. If such is the case with individuals,
how ridiculous would it seem for whole nations to adopt in a single day
some article of belief which they had never admitted before. Hence, we
cannot imagine, without doing violence to our good sense, that all the
good people of Christendom went to rest one night ignorant of the
Sacrament of Penance, and rose next morning firm believers in the Catholic
doctrine of auricular Confession. As well might we suppose that the
citizens of the United States would retire to rest believing they were
living under a Republic, and awake impressed with the conviction that they
were under the rule of Queen Victoria.
Nor is it less absurd to suppose that the practice of Confession was
introduced by degrees. How can we imagine that the Fathers of the
Church—the Clements, the Leos, the Gregories, the Chrysostoms, the
Jeromes, the Basils and Augustines, those intrepid High Priests of the
Lord, who, in every age, at the risk of persecution, exile and death have
stood like faithful sentinels on the watch-towers of Israel, defending
with sleepless eyes the outskirts of the city of God from the slightest
attack—how can we imagine, I say, that they would suffer the enemy of
truth to invade the very sanctuary of God’s temple? If they were so
vigilant in cutting off the least withered branch of error, how would they
tamely submit to see so monstrous an exotic engrafted on the fruitful tree
of the Church?
What gives additional weight to these remarks is the reflection that
Confession is not a speculative doctrine, but a doctrine of the most
practical kind, influencing our daily actions, words and thoughts—a
Sacrament to which thousands of Christians have constant recourse in every
part of the world. It is a doctrine, moreover, hard to flesh and blood,
and which no human power, even if it had the will, could impose on the
human race. It is only a God that, in such a case, could exact the homage
of our assent.
In whatever light, therefore, we view the present question—whether we
consider the circumstances of time, place, manner of its introduction—the
same inevitable conclusion stares us in the face: that Sacramental
confession is not the invention of man, but the institution of Jesus
Christ.
But the doctrine of priestly absolution and the private confession of sins
is not confined to the Roman Catholic and Oriental schismatic churches.
The same doctrine is also taught by a large and influential portion of the
Protestant Episcopal Church of England.
The Rev. C. S. Grueber, a clergyman of the Church of England, has recently
published a catechism in which the absolving power of the minister of God,
and the necessity and advantage of confession, are plainly set forth. I
will quote from the Rev. gentleman’s book his identical words:
_Question._ What do you mean by absolution?
_Answer._ The pardon or forgiveness of sin.
_Q._ By what special ordinance of Christ are sins committed after Baptism
to be pardoned?
_A._ By the sacrament of absolution.
_Q._ Who is the minister of absolution?
_A._ A Priest.
_Q._ Do you mean that a Priest can really absolve?
_A._ Yes.
_Q._ In what place of the Holy Scripture is it recorded that Christ gave
this power to the priesthood?
_A._ In John xx. 23; see also Matt. xviii. 18.
_Q._ What does the prayer-book (or Book of Common Prayer) say?
_A._ In the office for the ordaining of Priests the Bishop is directed to
say, “Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the
Church of God. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven.” In the
office for the visitation of the sick it is said, “Our Lord Jesus Christ
hath left in His Church power to absolve all sinners that truly repent and
believe in Him.” In the order for morning and evening prayer we say again,
“Almighty God hath given power and commandment to his ministers to declare
and pronounce to His people, being penitent, the absolution and remission
of their sins.”
_Q._ For what purpose hath Christ given this power to Priests to pronounce
absolution in His name?
_A._ _For the consolation of the penitent; the quieting of his
conscience._
_Q._ What must precede the absolution of the penitent?
_A._ _Confession...._ Before absolution privately given, confession must
be made to a Priest privately.
_Q._ In what case does the Church of England order her ministers to move
people to private, or, as it is called, to auricular confession?
_A._ When they feel their conscience troubled with any weighty matter.
_Q._ What is weighty matter?
_A._ Mortal sin certainly is weighty; sins of omission or commission of
any kind that press upon the mind are so, too. Anything may be weighty
that causes scruple or doubtfulness.
_Q._ At what times in particular does the Church so order?
_A._ In the time of sickness, _and before coming to the Holy Communion_.
_Q._ Is there any other class of persons to whom confession is profitable?
_A._ Yes; to those _who desire to lead a saintly life. These, indeed, are
the persons who most frequently resort to it._
_Q._ Is there any other object in confession, besides the seeking
absolution for past sin and the quieting of the penitent’s conscience?
_A._ Yes; the practice of confessing each single sin is a great check upon
the commission of sin and a preservative of purity of life.(457)
Here we have the Divine institution of priestly absolution and the
necessity and advantage of Sacramental confession plainly taught, not in a
speculative treatise, but in a practical catechism, by a distinguished
minister of the Church of England; taught by a minister who draws his
salary from the funds of the Protestant Episcopal church; who preaches and
administers in a church edifice recognized as a Protestant Episcopal
church, and who is in strict communion with a Bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church of England.
And these doctrines are upheld, not by one eminent Divine only, but by
hundreds of clergymen, as well as by thousands of the Protestant
Episcopalians of England.
What a strange spectacle to behold the same church teaching diametrically
opposite doctrines! What is orthodox in the diocese of Bath and Wells is
decidedly heterodox in the diocese of North Carolina. An ordinance which
Rev. Mr. Grueber proclaims to be of Divine faith is characterized by Rt.
Rev. Bishop Atkinson(458) as the invention of men. What Dr. Grueber
inculcates as a most salutary practice Dr. Atkinson anathematizes as
pernicious to religion. Confession, which, in the judgment of the former,
is a great “check upon the commission of sin,” is stigmatized by the
latter as an incentive to sin. “Behold how good and pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity.”(459)
Suppose that the venerable Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina,
in passing through England, were invited by the Rev. Mr. Grueber to preach
in his church in the morning, and that the Rt. Rev. Prelate chose for his
subject a sermon on confession; and suppose that the Rev. Mr. Grueber
selected in the evening, as the subject of his discourse, the doctrine
advanced by him in his catechism.
Let us imagine some benighted dissenter attending Mr. Grueber’s church at
the morning and evening service, with the view to being enlightened in the
teachings of the Protestant church. Would not our dissenter be sorely
perplexed, on returning home at night, as to what the Protestant Episcopal
church really _did teach_?
Some Episcopalians are pleased to admit that confession may be resorted to
with spiritual profit in certain abnormal cases—for instance, in time of
sickness. So that, in their judgment, a religious observance which is
salutary to a sick man is pernicious to him in good health. For the life
of me, I cannot see how the circumstances of bodily health can affect the
moral character of a religious act.
That a minister of the Baptist or the Methodist church should deny the
power of priestly absolution I readily understand, since these churches
disclaim, in their confessions of faith, any such prerogative for their
clergy. But I cannot well conceive why a Protestant Episcopalian should
repudiate the pardoning power, which is plainly asserted in his standard
prayer-book.
Whenever an Episcopalian Bishop imposes hands on candidates for the
ministry he employs the following words, which are found in the Book of
Common Prayer: “Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest
in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our
hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins
thou dost retain, they are retained.”(460) If these words do not mean that
the minister receives by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands the power of
forgiving sin, they mean nothing at all. When the Bishop pronounces this
sentence, either he intends to convey this power of absolution, or he does
not. If he intended to confer this power, he could not employ more clear
and precise language to express his idea; if he did not intend to confer
this power, then his language is calculated to mislead.
Just imagine that prelate addressing a candidate for Holy Orders, in the
morning, with the words: “Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven;”
and after Divine service saying to the young minister: “Remember, sir, you
have no power to forgive sins. The words of ordination are a mere figure
of speech.”
When a Catholic Bishop ordains Priests he uses the precise words which I
have quoted, because the Book of Common Prayer borrows them from our
Pontifical. But he means exactly what he says, viz: That the Priest
receives through the ministration of the Bishop the power of forgiving
sins.
To sum up: We have seen that the Sacrament of Penance and absolution by
the Priest is taught in Scripture, proclaimed by the Fathers, upheld not
only by Roman Catholics throughout the world, but also by all the
schismatic Christians of the East. It is inculcated in those old and
genuine editions of the _Book of Common Prayer_, which have not been
enervated by being subjected to the pruning-knife in this country, and the
same practice is encouraged by an influential portion of the Protestant
Episcopal church in England, and I will add, also, in the United States.
Again, some object to priestly absolution on the assumption that the
exercise of such a function would be a usurpation of an incommunicable
prerogative of God, who alone can forgive sins. This was precisely the
language addressed by the Scribes to our Savior. They exclaimed: “He
blasphemeth! who can forgive sins but God only?”(461) My answer,
therefore, will be equally applicable to old and modern objectors. It is
not blasphemy for a Priest to claim the power of forgiving sins, since he
acts as the delegate of the Most High. It would, indeed, be blasphemous if
a Priest pretended to absolve in his own name and by virtue of his own
authority. But when the Priest absolves the penitent sinner he acts in the
name, and by the express authority, of Jesus Christ; for he says: “I
absolve thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost.” Let it be understood once for all that the Priest arrogates to
himself no Divine powers. He is but a feeble voice. It is the Holy Spirit
that operates sanctity in the soul of the penitent.
Not a few Protestant Episcopalians, I believe, still admit that original
sin is washed away in the Sacrament of Baptism. If the minister is not
guilty of blasphemy in being the instrument of God’s mercy, in forgiving
sins by Baptism, how can a Priest blaspheme in being the instrument of
Divine mercy, in absolving sinners in the Sacrament of Penance? The same
Lord who instituted Baptism for the remission of original sin established
Penance for the forgiveness of sins committed after Baptism. Did not the
Apostles exercise Divine power in raising dead bodies to life, and in
raising souls that were dead to the life of grace? And yet no one but
Scribes and Pharisees accused them of usurping God’s powers. Cannot the
Almighty, without derogating from His own glory, give to men in the
nineteenth century privileges which He accorded to them in the first age
of the Church?
Far, then, from dishonoring, we honor God by having recourse to the
earthly physician whom He has appointed for us, and, like the multitude in
the Gospel, we “glorify God, who hath given such power to men.”(462)
Others object thus: Why confess to a Priest, when you may confess to God
in secret. I will retort by asking, why do you build fine temples when you
can worship God in the great temple of nature? Why pray in church when you
can pray in your chamber? Why listen to a minister expounding the Word of
God when you can read the Gospel at your leisure at home. You answer that
the Lord authorizes these things. So does He authorize priestly
absolution. This objection is not new. It is very old.
St. Augustine, who lived fourteen hundred years ago, will answer the
objection for me: “Let no one,” remarks this illustrious Doctor, “say to
himself, I do penance to God in private; I do it before God. Is it, then,
in vain that Christ has said: ‘Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven’? Is it in vain that the keys have been given to the
Church?” The question for us is not what God is able to do, but what _He
has willed to do_. God _might_ have adopted other means for the
justification of the sinner, as He might have created a world different
from the present one. But it is our business to take our Father at His
word, and to have recourse with gratitude to the system He has actually
established for our justification. Now, we are assured by His infallible
word that it is by having recourse to His consecrated ministers that our
sins will be forgiven us.(463)
It is related in the Book of Kings that Naaman, the Syrian, was afflicted
with a grievous leprosy, which baffled the skill of the physicians of his
country. He had in his household a Jewish maid-servant. She spoke to her
master of the great prophet Eliseus, who lived in her native country, to
whom the Lord had given the power of performing miracles. She besought her
master to consult the prophet. Naaman, accordingly, set out for the
country of Israel and begged Eliseus to heal him. The prophet told him to
go and wash seven times in the Jordan; but Naaman, instead of doing as he
was directed, became very angry, and said: “I thought he would have come
out to me, ... and touched with his hand the place of the leprosy, and
healed me. Are not the Abana and the Pharfar rivers of Damascus, better
than all the waters of Israel, that I may wash in them, and be made
clean?”(464) But the servants of Naaman remonstrated with him, and
besought him to comply with the prophet’s injunction, telling him that the
conditions were easy and the Jordan was at hand. Naaman went and washed
and was cleansed. Our opponents, like Naaman, cry out: “Why should you go
to a Priest, a sinner like yourself, when secretly, in your own room, you
can approach God, the pure fountain of grace, to be washed from your
sins?” I answer, because Jesus Christ, a prophet, and more than a prophet,
has commanded you to do so.
The last charge that I will notice is the most serious and the most
offensive. We are told that private confession is lawless; that the
conscience soon becomes “enfeebled and chained and starved” by it, and,
worse and worse, that sins are more readily committed, if followed by an
absolution conveying pardon—in other words, that the more attached
Catholics are to the practice of their holy religion the more depraved and
corrupt they become. Or, if they remain faithful to God, this is not by
reason of, but in spite of, their religious exercises.
Surely, this was not the sentiment of the late Dr. Ives, once Protestant
Bishop of North Carolina, and of many other illustrious converts, who,
from the day of their conversion to the hour of their death never failed
to receive consolation and strength from the sacred tribunal.
Nor is it the sentiment of Rev. Father Lyman, a Catholic Priest, of
Baltimore, and brother of the assistant Protestant Bishop of North
Carolina, nor of the present Archbishops of Baltimore and Philadelphia, of
the Bishops of Wilmington, Cleveland, Columbus and Ogdensburg, and a host
of others, both of the Protestant clergy and laity, who within the last
fifty years have entered the Catholic Church.
If we compare the Protestant and Catholic systems for the forgiveness of
sins, the Catholic system will not suffer by the comparison. According to
the Protestant system, repentance is necessary and sufficient for
justification. The Catholic system also requires repentance on the part of
the sinner as an indispensable prerequisite for the forgiveness of sin.
But it requires much more than this. Before the penitent receives
absolution he must carefully examine his conscience and confess his sins,
according to their number and kind. He is obliged to have a firm purpose
of amendment, to promise restitution, if he has defrauded his neighbor, to
repair any injury done his neighbor’s character, to be reconciled with his
enemies and to avoid the occasions of sin. Do not these obligations afford
a better safeguard against a relapse into sin than a simple internal act
of contrition?
Many most eminent Protestant, and even infidel writers, who were
conversant with the practical workings of the confessional in the
countries in which they lived, bear testimony to the moral reformation
produced by it. The famous German philosopher, Leibnitz, admits that it is
a great benefit conferred on men by God that He left in His Church the
power of forgiving sins.(465)
Voltaire, certainly no friend of Christianity, avows “that there is not
perhaps a more useful institution than confession.”(466)
Rousseau, not less hostile to the Church, exclaims: “How many restitutions
and reparations does not confession cause among Catholics!”(467)
The Protestant authorities of Nuremberg, in Germany, shortly after the
establishment of the reformed doctrines in that city, were so much alarmed
at the laxity of morals which succeeded after the abolition of confession
that they petitioned their Emperor, Charles V., to have it restored.
It is a favorite custom for the adversaries of the Catholic Church to
refer to the alleged loose morals prevailing in France and in other
Catholic countries as a proof of the inferior standard of Catholic
morality. This is a safe, and at the same time not the most honorable,
mode of attack, as the people of those nations are too far off to defend
themselves. For my part, I have spent a considerable time in various
portions of France, and more edifying Christians I have never witnessed
than those I met in that country. For six years I had for my professors
French Priests, whose exemplary lives were a daily sermon to all around
them.
I submit that the cosmopolitan city of Paris (waiving, for the present,
the enormities of which it is accused), is not to be adduced as a fair
criterion of French morality. Let us stay at home and judge of Catholic
morals by the examples furnished under our eyes.
The influence of the confessional has been fairly tested in this country
since the foundation of our Republic. Are practical Catholics enfeebled in
conscience? Is their conscience chained and starved? Has the absolution
they received whetted their appetites for more sin? Are they monsters of
immorality? I think that an enlightened Protestant public will pronounce a
contrary verdict.
I feel that I can say, with truth, that Catholics who frequent the
confessional are generally virtuous in their private lives, just and
honorable in their dealings with others, and that they cultivate charity
and good-will toward their fellow-citizens.
It will not do to reply that it is the system, not the individual, that is
attacked. How can we judge of a system unless by its practical working in
the individual? “By their fruits ye shall know them,” says our Redeemer.
Vices, indeed, we have to deplore among certain classes of our people,
which are often superinduced by their migratory habits and irregular mode
of life. But they are commonly sins of frailty, and these are not the
persons that are accustomed to approach the confessional. If they did
their lives would be very different from what they are.
The best of us, alas! are not what we ought to be, considering the graces
we receive. But if you seek for canting hypocrites, or colossal
defaulters, or perpetrators of well-laid schemes of forgery, or of
systematic licentiousness, or of premeditated violence, you will seek for
such in vain among those who frequent the confessional.
There is another objection which it is difficult to kill. It dies hard
and, like Banquo’s ghost, it will not down. If you drive it from the city,
it will fly to the town. If you expel it from the town, it will take
refuge in the village. If you eject it from the village, it will hide
itself like some noxious animal, in some desert place until it makes its
rounds again.
I allude to the charge that a price has to be paid for remitting sins.
“You have only (say these slanderers) to pay a certain toll at the
confessional gate, and you can pass the biggest load of sin.”
It is hard to treat these objections seriously. I have been hearing
confessions for fifty years, and of all who have come to me, not one has
had the sense of duty to offer me any compensation for absolving them, and
this is true of every Priest with whom I have been acquainted. The truth
is, the Priest who would solicit a fee for absolution knows that he would
be guilty of simony, and would be liable to suspension.
But we are told that confession is an intolerable yoke, that it makes its
votaries the slaves of the Priests.
Before answering this objection, let me call your attention to the
inconsistency of our adversaries, who blow hot and cold in the same
breath. They denounce confession as being too hard a remedy for sin and
condemn it, at the same time, as being a smooth road to heaven. In one
sentence they style it a bed of roses; in the next a bed of thorns.
In a preceding objection it was charged that the votaries of confession
had no moral constraint at all. Now it is said that their conscience is
bound in chains of slavery. Surely, confession cannot be hard and easy at
the same time.
I have already refuted, I trust, the former charge. I shall now answer the
second. I am not aware in what sense our people are less independent than
those of any other class of the community. The only restraint, as far as I
know, imposed on Catholics by their Priests is the yoke of the Gospel, and
to this restraint no Christian ought to object. In my estimation, no body
of Christians enjoys more Apostolic freedom than those of the Catholic
communion, because they are guided in their conduct, not by the
ever-changing _ipse dixit_ of any minister, but by the unchangeable
teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ.
But if to love their Priest, to reverence his sacred character, to obey
his voice as the voice of God; if to be willing to make any sacrifice for
their spiritual father; if, I say, you call this slavery, then our
Catholic people are slaves, indeed, and, what is more, they are content
with their chains.
Even our Manuals of Devotion have not escaped the lash of wanton
criticism. They have excited the pious horror of some modern Pharisees
because they contain a table of sins for the use of those preparing for
confession. The same flower that furnishes honey to the bee supplies
poison to the wasp; and, in like manner, the same book that gives only the
honey of consolation to the devout reader has nothing but moral poison for
those that search its pages for nothing else.
How can anyone object to the table of sins in our prayer-books and
consistently advocate the circulation of the Bible, which contains
incomparably plainer and more palpable allusions to gross crimes than are
found in our books of devotion? Let us not forget the adage, “_Honi soit
qui mal y pense._”
I may be permitted, in concluding this subject, to add the testimony of my
own experience on the beneficent influence of the confessional; for, like
my brethren in the ministry, I am, in the language of Dryden,
“One bred apart from worldly noise,
To study souls, their cures, and their diseases.”
Since the time of my ordination up to the present hour I have been
accustomed to hear confessions almost every day. I have, therefore, had a
fair opportunity of ascertaining the value of the “system.” The
impressions forced upon my mind, far from being peculiar to myself, are
shared by every Catholic Priest throughout the world charged with the care
of souls. The testimony of ten experienced confessors ought, in my
estimation, to have more weight in enabling men to judge of the moral
tendencies of the confessional than the gratuitous assertions of a
thousand individuals who have no personal experience of it, but who draw
on their heated imaginations or on the pages of sensational novels for the
statements they offer.
My experience is that the confessional is the most powerful lever ever
erected by a merciful God for raising men from the mire of sin. It has
more weight in withdrawing people from vice than even the pulpit. In
public sermons we scatter the seed of the Word of God; in the confessional
we reap the harvest. In sermons, to use a military phrase, the fire is at
random, but in confession it is a dead shot. The words of the Priest go
home to the heart of the penitent. In a public discourse the Priest
addresses all in general, and his words of admonition may be applicable to
very few of his hearers. But his words spoken in the confessional are
directed exclusively to the penitent, whose heart is open to receive the
Word of God. The confessor exhorts the penitent according to his spiritual
wants. He cautions him against the frequentation of dangerous company and
other occasions of sin, or he recommends special practices of piety suited
to the penitent’s wants.
Hence missionaries are accustomed to estimate the fruit of a mission more
by the number of penitents who have approached the sacred tribunal than by
the number of persons who have listened to their sermons.
Of all the labors that our sacred ministry imposes on us, there is none
more arduous or more irksome than that of hearing confessions. If I may
make a revelation of my own life, I deferred receiving Holy Orders for two
years, from a sense of the dread responsibility connected with the
confessional. It is no trifling task to sit for six or eight consecutive
hours on a hot summer day, listening to stories of sin and sorrow and
misery. It is only the consciousness of the immense good he is doing that
sustains the confessor in the sacred tribunal. He is one “who can have
compassion on the ignorant and erring, because he himself is also
encompassed with infirmity.”(468)
I have seen the man whose conscience was weighed down by the accumulated
sins of twenty winters. Upon his face were branded guilt and shame,
remorse and confusion. There he stood by the confessional, with downcast
countenance, ashamed, like the Publican, to look up to heaven. He glided
into the little mercy-seat. No human ear will ever learn what there
transpired. The revelations of the confessional are a sealed book.
But during the brief time spent in the confessional a resurrection
occurred more miraculous than the raising of Lazarus from the tomb—it was
the resurrection from the grave of sin of a soul that had long lain
worm-eaten. During those precious moments a ray from heaven dispelled the
darkness and gloom from that self-accuser’s mind. The genial warmth of the
Holy Spirit melted his frozen heart, and the purifying influence of the
same Spirit that came on the Apostles, “like a mighty wind from heaven,”
scattered the poisonous atmosphere in which he lived and filled his soul
with Divine grace. When he came out there was quickness in his step, joy
on his countenance, a new light in his eye. Had you asked him why, he
would have answered: “Because I was lost, and am found. Having been dead,
I am come to life again.”(469)
II. On The Relative Morality Of Catholic And Protestant Countries.
It has been gravely asserted that the confession of sin and the doctrine
of absolution tend to the spread of crime and immorality. Statistics are
produced to show that murder and illegitimate births are largely in excess
in countries under Catholic influence, and that this prevalence of
wickedness is the _result of confession and easy absolution_.
If our system of absolving those only who both repent and _confess_ leads
to laxity of morals, how much more must the Protestant system, which omits
that which is most humiliating and admits the sinner to reconciliation on
condition of mere interior dispositions? As all our catechisms teach, and
as every Catholic knows, there is no pardon of sin without sorrow of heart
and purpose of amendment. It is a great mistake to suppose that the most
ignorant Catholic believes he can procure the pardon of his sins by simply
confessing them without being truly sorry for them. The estimate which so
many Protestants set on the virtue of even the lower classes of Roman
Catholics is clearly enough evinced in the preference which they
constantly manifest in their employment of Catholics—practical
Catholics—Catholics who go to confession. I maintain, therefore, that
confession, far from being an incentive to sin, as our adversaries have
the hardihood to affirm, is a most powerful check on the depravity of men
and a most effectual preventive of their criminal excesses.
But is it true that crimes, especially murder and illegitimacy, are more
prevalent in Catholic than in Protestant countries? I utterly deny the
assertion, and also appeal to statistics in support of the denial. Whence
do our opponents derive their information? Forsooth, from Rev. M. Hobart
Seymour’s “Nights Among Romanists” and similar absolutely unreliable
compilations, the false statements of which have been again and again
refuted.
Rev. Mr. Seymour gives the following list of the number of murders in
England, France and Ireland:
Ireland: 19 homicides to the million of inhabitants
France: 31
England: 4
The reader of the above might well draw back in astonishment and exclaim,
“Truly moral atmosphere of England!” But how do these statements compare
with the official records which I submit to the unprejudiced reader?
Recent returns from the “Hand-Book” for France, and “Thom’s Official
Directory for England and Ireland, 1869,” are as follows:
Convictions (and Executions.
sentences to
death).
1864.--France 9 5
1867.--England and 27 10
Wales
Ireland 3 0
These figures, which are from authenticated sources, do not bear out our
accusers in their assertion that murders are more prevalent in Catholic
than in Protestant countries. The statistics of this crime are limited, or
they are not in very general circulation. But we have more extensive
information in reference to the other great crime which, it is charged,
prevails to a much more alarming extent in countries under Catholic
influence, viz., illegitimacy. Here again we shall meet statistics with
counter-statistics to refute unjust declarations. We do not wish to be
understood as advocating the immaculateness of Catholic communities. We
frankly admit and heartily deplore the disorders which Catholics commit,
but we deny that they are worse than their Protestant neighbors; and still
more emphatically do we deny that the Church is responsible for their
disorders.
The Journal of the Statistical Society of London, of the years 1860, ’62,
’65, ’67, gives the number of illegitimate births in England and Wales as
6-1/2 in every hundred, whilst in the Catholic kingdom of Sardinia the
number is slightly over two in the hundred, and in Ireland three in every
hundred. If the test of illegitimacy is a correct index of the morality of
a country, how refreshing to pass from Protestant England across to
Catholic Ireland or to the Continent and visit Sardinia! The moral
atmosphere of these countries, compared with England, must be as a
healthful breeze to a pestilential marsh.
That we may see at a glance the real condition of European countries in
reference to this species of crime, I will here insert as correct a table
as can be made from the latest reports. (Vid. _Catholic World_, Vol. XI.,
p. 112.)
Percentage Of Illegitimacy In Protestant And Catholic Countries Of Europe.
Protestant. Per cent.
Holland 4.0
Switzerland 5.5
Prussia (Protestant) 10.0
England and Wales 6.5
Sweden and Norway 9.6
Scotland 10.1
Denmark 11.0
German States 14.8
Wurtemburg 16.4
Catholic.
Italy 5.1
Spain 5.5
France 7.2
Prussia (Catholic) 6.5
Belgium 7.2
Austria 11.1
Ireland 3.0
We have divided Prussia into Protestant and Catholic because statistics
are kept according to the religious creed of the people; and we discover
that, whilst among the Catholic portion of the empire there is but a
percentage of six and a half of illegitimate births, among the Protestants
it runs up to ten per cent. And the same remark is applicable to Ireland.
The _Scotman_, whose statements are based on the report of the British
Registrar-General, publishes the following statistics:
“The proportion of illegitimate births to the total number of births is in
Ireland 3.8 per cent.; in England the proportion is 6.4; in Scotland 9.9;
in other words, England is nearly twice, and Scotland nearly thrice worse,
than Ireland. Something worse has to be added, from which no consolation
can be derived. The proportion of illegitimacy is very unequally
distributed over Ireland, and the inequality rather humbling to us as
Protestants, and still more as Presbyterians and Scotchmen. Taking Ireland
according to the registration divisions, the proportion of illegitimate
births varies from 6.2 to 1.3. The division showing this lowest figure is
the western, being substantially the Province of Connaught, where about
nineteen-twentieths of the population are Celtic and Roman Catholic. The
division showing the highest proportion of illegitimacy is the
north-eastern, which comprises, or almost consists of, the Province of
Ulster, where the population is almost equally divided between Protestants
and Roman Catholics, and where the great majority of Protestants are of
Scotch blood and of the Presbyterian church. The sum of the whole matter
is, that semi-Presbyterian and semi-Scotch Ulster is fully three times
more immoral than wholly Popish and wholly Irish Connaught—which
corresponds with wonderful accuracy to the more general fact that
Scotland, as a whole, is three times more immoral than Ireland as a
whole.”
It is worthy, too, of notice, that in the tabular statement above
presented the percentage of illegitimacy in Holland and Switzerland, where
there are large Catholic minorities, is lower than in any other Protestant
country.
We have at hand evidences, furnished by Protestant writers, of the hideous
immoralities of certain European nations that are more thoroughly
Protestantized than England itself. Thus, Mr. Laing writes: “Of the 2,714
children born in Stockholm, 1,577 were legitimate, 1,137 illegitimate;
making only a balance of 440 chaste mothers out of 2,714; and the
proportion of illegitimate to legitimate children not as one to two and
three-tenths, but as one to one and a half.”—_A Tour in Sweden in_ 1838.
But we are not disposed to parade these monstrous vices, no matter by whom
committed. We allude to them with feelings of shame, not of pleasure; and
give them a passing notice merely in self-defence against the gratuitous
assertions of our adversaries. We certainly do not wish to excuse or
palliate the evil deeds of Catholics, who, with all the blessed aids which
their religion affords, ought to be much better than they are. Yet we will
add, quoting the words of the _Catholic World_: “If we are not very much
better than our neighbors, we are not any worse; and are not to be hounded
down with the cry of vice and immorality by a set of Pharisees who are
constantly lauding their own superiority and thanking God they are so much
better than we poor Catholics.”