Note 183 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
Although it may seem an insult to most of my readers, there are some who are so ignorant of Catholic matters, that it may be safer to explain that in saying Father Greenway must have refused absolution, I mean absolution for past sins. Absolution cannot be given for future sins, as some Protestants have supposed, and a “dispensation to commit a sin”is an impossibility. Certain Protestant writers have implied that both were given by the Jesuits to Catesby and his fellow-conspirators.