Note 87 — Part I PENANCE AS A VIRTUE AND AS A SACRAMENT

With regard to this matter Clement VIII in Const. data d. 20 Jun. 1602 condemned the following proposition: It is permitted to confess one’s sins to an absent confessor by means of a letter or a messenger, and to receive absolution from the same confessor though still absent. Moreover, he forbade under pain of excommunication any one to teach this doctrine or to make use of it as a probable opinion. The condemnation of this proposition by the Pope involves evidently an absolute command, and the conclusion is fairly drawn that the confession made to an absentee, as well as the absolution given to an absentee, are both illicit and invalid; otherwise one might in a case of extreme necessity allow the practice. The Clementine decree is to be taken not only collectively, that is, as legislating for the case where both confession and absolution are conveyed by absentees, but also disjunctively, that is, as legislating for the case where confession has been made to an absentee, the absolution being given when the penitent presents himself, and vice versa. This was decreed by Paul V, July 14, 1605. More information may be found in Palmieri, Tract. de Pœnit. pp. 141-143 (Rom. 1879). Cf. Reuter, Neoconfessar. P. l. n. 31; Müller, l. c. L. III. T. II. § 132; Ballerini, Op. Theol. Mor. l. c. cp. I. n. 32 s. Absolution from censure, apart from the absolution from sin, may be conveyed by writing and the presence of the penitent is not required; similarly censures may be inflicted on one who is absent. Without grave necessity, however, the absolution from censures ought not to be given in the absence of the penitent. S. Alph. L. VII. n. 117.