Note 564 — Chapter II · LIMITATION OF JURISDICTION OR RESERVED CASES

Formerly, in accordance with the prescription of the canon law, the teaching universally held was that (a) one who is prevented during a very long time, or always (five years or longer) from going to the Superior or his delegate, is absolved by a subordinate priest without any further obligation, and (b) one who is prevented for a long time (from six months to five years) is absolved, with the duty of presenting himself before the Superior when the obstacle is removed, while one who is prevented only for a short time may not be absolved from reserved sins; but if necessity urges hic et nunc, absolution for the non-reserved sins can be given him, so that the reserved sins may be indirectly blotted out, the obligation of obtaining absolution from the reservation or censure from the Superior or delegated priest remaining in force. This theory was based upon the assumption that he who was not able to appear before the Pope was not bound to employ any other means of communication (a letter, for example) unless this were expressly prescribed by the legislator. Moreover, on July 8, 1860, in answer to the question: Are penitents who are prevented from going to Rome in person bound to seek absolution from reserved cases at least by letter or through the agency of another? the S. C. Officii replied that the decision of approved authorities, especially of St. Alphonsus of Liguori, should be adhered to. Now the latter teaches (Lib. VII. n. 89) as sententia probabilior et communis, that one is not bound to this. On June 23, 1886, another line of conduct in this matter was prescribed by the S. Officium. The questions there put were: 1. May one positively adopt and act upon the teaching that the absolution from reserved sins and censures, also from those speciali modo reserved to the Pope, devolves upon the bishop, or upon any approved priest, when the penitent finds himself unable to go to the Pope? 2. If the answer to this question be in the negative, is one obliged to communicate by letter with the Prefect of the Penitentiary with regard to all cases reserved to the Pope, if the bishop has not a special Indult (the hour of death excepted), in order to receive the faculty to absolve? To these questions the above-named Congregation returned the following answer sanctioned and confirmed by the Pope (30 June, 1886): Ad I. With regard to the practice of the Sacred Penitentiary, especially since the appearance of the apostolical constitution of Pius IX which begins with the words “Apostolicæ Sedi,” Negative. Ad II. Affirmative; but in the really more urgent cases in which the absolution cannot be deferred without danger of great scandal or disgrace, as to which the confessor is answerable to his own conscience, the absolution can be administered, injunctis de jure jungendis, also from the censure speciali modo reserved to the Pope; under pain, however, of “reincidence” in the same censures (that is, under pain of again incurring the censures) if the person absolved does not, at least within a month, and through the confessor, apply to the Holy See. (Linzer Theolog. prakt. Quartalschrift, 1887, S. 380. See Lehmkuhl, l. c. n. 410; Müller, l. c. § 145; Bucceroni, Enchirid. Morale et Supplementum. Compendio Theol. Mor.; Gury-Ballerini, Commentar. IV. p. 224 ss.; Ballerini, Op. Theol. Mor. l. c. cp. II. n. 664, Nota p. 356; Aertnys, l. c. De Censuris, n. 27.) On this Lehmkuhl remarks: “The rule laid down by the Apostolic See is clear. It does not distinguish between reserved cases with censure and without censure, and to follow it is now everywhere allowed, without waiting for a further promulgation, in all Papal reserved cases; indeed it seems to be becoming a general rule.” (L. c. n. 413.) Ballerini adds the remark: Ergo (1) urgente rationabili causa, quilibet confessarius absolv’d a censura, censuræ autem absolutio non est nisi directa: cessante autem censura cessat reservatio peccati, a quo proinde Confessarius directe absolvit. Absolutio proinde, quæ in casibus urgentibus diferri non posse dicitur, est absolutio directa. Jam vero vides (2) heic de absolutione indirecta a peccatis reservatis, quia in casibus urgentioribus succurri potest necessitati pœnitentis ne verbumquidem fieri: Nimirum cum necessitati pœnitentis succurrendum est, absolutionem directam a reservatis dandam esse et hunc esse Ecclesiæ sensum supposuerunt Patres.