“The fourth sacrament is penance, the matter of which is, as it were, the acts of the penitent, which are divided into three parts.”¹ This description from the Council of Florence (1439) does not define penance’s matter, full stop, but its matter “as it were”— quasi materia. This does not suggest that, alone among the sacraments, penance lacks any relation to true sacramental matter. Quasi does indicate, however, that penance’s matter does not consist of a material substance.²

Instead, “this sacramental sign is carried out wholly through actions; actions, moreover, do not require any special application, such as is required in matter properly speaking.”³ Thus, there exists no remote matter from which (ex qua) the sacrament accomplishes what it signifies. Theologians do, nonetheless, speak of postbaptismal sins as remote matter⁴ concerning which (circa quam)—through detestation and deletion—the sacrament operates.⁵ This sacrament, then, cannot be celebrated unless some actual sin has been committed. Yet not every sin must be confessed, and a penitent may be unsure of whether an act is truly (or gravely) sinful. Therefore, remote matter is divisible into: “1. either necessary [to confess] or free; 2. either certain or doubtful; 3. either sufficient or insufficient” matter for absolution.⁶ Necessary matter is most relevant to our purpose and will be treated among the acts of the penitent.

Acts for Forgiveness

The Council of Trent reiterates and expands upon Florence, declaring that “for the entire and perfect remission of sins, three acts in the penitent are required, which are, as it were, the matter of the sacrament of penance, namely, contrition, confession, and satisfaction, which are called the three parts of penance.”⁷ Closer examination reveals that not all of this proximate matter is necessary in the same sense.

Absolutely indispensable is that “part” denoted “most important” in the Order of Penance: contrition, a tripartite complex of “heartfelt sorrow and detestation for the sin committed, with the resolve not to sin again.”⁸ “When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called ‘perfect’” and obtains forgiveness of mortal sin even prior to confession (provided one intends to confess as soon as possible).⁹ Contrition arising from a lesser supernatural motive (such as fear of hell) is imperfect yet sufficient for celebration of the sacrament. Contrition must be expressed in some external sign, not necessarily words, and must be present while the priest absolves for effective union of matter and form.¹⁰

The next part is confession, the penitent accusing himself of personal sin committed since baptism in order to obtain absolution.¹¹ Outward manifestation is necessary for the minister to exercise “spiritual judgment” and pronounce sentence in the person of Christ, “for the forgiveness or retention of sins.”¹² The sole ordinary means of forgiving grave sin is a confession both individual and integral; “only physical or moral impossibility excuses” from this norm.¹³ For a confession to be integral, one must “confess in kind and number all grave sins committed after baptism and not yet remitted directly through the keys of the Church nor acknowledged in individual confession, of which the person has knowledge after diligent examination of conscience.”¹⁴ One must also confess “the circumstances which change the species of a sin.”¹⁵

Any necessary confession intentionally withheld invalidates the sacrament, though sins accidentally omitted are forgiven indirectly through the power of the keys. Note, consequently, that while such sins are truly forgiven, their indirect remission requires that they be mentioned in one’s next individual confession for that confession to be valid. The same requirement holds for sins forgiven in extraordinary circumstances on the basis of a generic confession.

Generic Specifics

What circumstances, then, allow for generic confession—a confession without enumeration of the kind and number of mortal sins? Apart from imminent danger of death or other grave necessity that admits general (i.e., group) confession and absolution,¹⁶ physical impossibility can be posed by one’s inability to speak or be understood (due to illness, speech impediment, or foreign language), and moral impossibility arises when confessing entails mortal physical danger (e.g., in time of plague) or risks causing scandal, violating the seal, or harming a reputation (e.g., by revealing an accomplice’s identity).¹⁷ Under such constraints, a generic confession still provides enough matter for ministerial judgment because “judgment requires knowledge of the case, but it does not always and essentially demand exact [accuratam] knowledge.”¹⁸ Simply the indication of the desire to confess may be sufficient for someone altogether bereft of speech or now insensate. Even if unperceived by the confessor but attested by bystanders,¹⁹ “an expression of this sort is a sufficiently formal confession, which altogether suffices in consideration of the circumstances.”²⁰

In such dire straits, the penitent will often also be unable to perform the last part of penance, satisfaction. But although satisfaction actually completed, “or fulfillment of the enjoined work, is called an integral part” of the sacrament, satisfaction in voto “or the will to accept and fulfill the penance that is imposed,” is what is essential.²¹ On this basis absolution is normally imparted before the assigned satisfaction has been completed. Later failure to fulfill one’s penance cannot retroactively invalidate absolution received with proper intention.

In sum, we have seen that while contrition is an ever-necessary condition of absolution, “sometimes it is sufficient for the validity of the sacrament if only the desire for confession and satisfaction is present, since these are then considered to be included implicitly in the act of contrition.”²² Through these three acts, the penitent “has a part in the sacrament itself, which is completed by the words of absolution spoken by the minister in the name of Christ.”²³ We turn, then, to this “sign of absolution”²⁴ to examine the sacramental form.

Anatomy of Absolution

The Roman Rite prescribes a longer text for ordinary circumstances, but its more minimal form for urgent cases is “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti).²⁵ Theorizing the minimal core and evaluating deviations, theologians posit from comparative study that: “The essential form must express three things: a) the person of the minister, who absolves; b) the person of the guilty party; c) the sort of bond from which the guilty is absolved.”²⁶ On this basis the invocation of the Trinity certainly does not impact validity—many forms in use by other churches sui iuris lack one²⁷—and even “from your sins” is probably sufficiently implicit in context (especially after integral confession) as to be unnecessary. Therefore “I absolve you” is probably sufficient for validity.²⁸ “I absolve from your sins” (absolvo a peccatis tuis) would likewise suffice, since the guilty party is identified by the possessive pronoun.²⁹

“The act of absolution is a judicial sentence which cannot be conditional [upon the future] nor expressed in the form of a wish,”³⁰ yet that does not exclude deprecatory formulae, such as the Byzantine form quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “May the same God, who through the Prophet Nathan forgave David… through me, a sinner, forgive you” (CCC, n. 1481). In fact, almost all of the most ancient forms are deprecatory.³¹ “A form that is materially deprecatory can be formally indicative, sc., be put forward by dint of (vi) such power and with such certitude of the effect to follow that it is equivalent to an indication that the intended effect is in fact obtained.”³²

The proper form must be expressed vocally, i.e., producing sound with the mouth, “even in the greatest necessity, and this is the perpetual practice. Although not of faith, it is theologically certain and in practice all expressions of absolution other than in words must be considered invalid.”³³ Vocal expression can furthermore only have reasonable sense if the “you” absolved is present to the speaker. While the close proximity termed physical presence is not required for such communication, moral presence, “that within which men in a common voice, albeit loudly, can and customarily do speak,”³⁴ is enough. Authors broadly agree this admits separation up to twenty paces,³⁵ and general absolution might effectively extend fifty to one hundred paces provided the farthest members of the group are in moral unity (e.g., in military formation or gathered in a crowd) with penitents nearer the minister.³⁶ The penitent need not actually hear the absolution, since the words are spoken to move God to action, not the penitent.³⁷

If moral presence only requires a certain potential for conversation rather than clear perception of the minister’s speech, we should also consider the confessor’s perception of the penitent. While validity of absolution is not certain within twenty paces if priest and penitent are in separate rooms preventing the communication,³⁸ the fact that the ordinarily required grate³⁹ often obscures a penitent’s identity confirms that some obstruction or confusion of the priest’s perception still allows valid absolution, provided the penitent is in some sense perceptible. For instance, a penitent who leaves before absolution can be absolved without being recalled to the confessional if he is still in morally present range.⁴⁰ More unusually, if risk of contagion forces the priest to speak from a doorway through which he does not directly see the penitent, or a person was seen to fall into a river or sea and is now submerged, valid absolution is still possible.⁴¹ Although each member of the group absolved generally is not actually perceived, during a pandemic a priest can absolve all patients in a hospital ward and even use amplification so that his voice may be heard.⁴²

Phone It In?

This raises a final question of establishing moral presence via technology. While a minority view upholds possibilities, arguing that invalidity of various means “is not certainly established,”⁴³ the more common opinion is that absolution by telegraph, radio, or television is certainly invalid.⁴⁴ Speaking tubes offer greater hope, because the vibrations produced by the voice reach the hearer, but doubts remain as to whether a separation requiring such a device allows true moral presence.⁴⁵ The Apostolic Penitentiary once explicitly declined to resolve the question of the telephone,⁴⁶ yet modern interventions reinforce the improbability of valid absolution by telephone,⁴⁷ moving us closer to certainty of its impossibility.⁴⁸ Amid ever-greater virtual connectivity, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications reminded that “there are no sacraments on the Internet; and even the religious experiences possible there by the grace of God are insufficient apart from real-world interaction with other persons of faith,”⁴⁹ and though that was not doctrinally authoritative, the Penitentiary’s choice not to even mention absolution via telecommunication “in the painful impossibility of receiving sacramental absolution” during the recent pandemic suggests a certain judgment against such means.⁵⁰

_{^{Image Source: AB/ Emilio Labrador on Flickr.com}}

1. Council of Florence, Decree for the Armenians (1439).
2. Felix M. Capello, S.J., Tractatus Canonico-Moralis de Sacramentis, 5th ed., vol. 2 (Rome: Marietti, 1944), 44.
3. Capello, 25.
4. Nicholas Halligan, O.P., The Administration of the Sacraments (Staten Island: Alba House, 1963), 172.
5. Capello, 26. Cf. Eduardo F. Regatillo, S.J., Ius Sacramentarium, vol. 1 (Santander: Sal Terrae, 1945), 215.
6. Dominic M. Prummer, O.P., Handbook of Moral Theology (New York: Kenedy, 1957), 293.
7. Sess. XIV, ch. 3, can. IV.
8. Order of Penance, no. 6.
9. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1452.
10. Prummer, 297.
11. Prummer, 299.
12. Order of Penance, n. 6.
13. Code of Canon Law, Can. 960.
14. Can. 988 §1.
15. Council of Trent, Sess. XIV, ch. 3, can. VII.
16. Can. 961 §1. John M. Huels, The Pastoral Companion: A Canon Law Handbook for Catholic Ministry, 3rd rev. ed. (Quincy, IL: Franciscan, 2002), 121-123 explains grave necessity in more detail.
17. Prummer, 303. Capello, 42, adds mental incapacity to recall or accuse of any sin in particular as a legitimate cause for generic confession.
18. Capello, 40.
19. Halligan, 179.
20. Capello, 45.
21. Regatillo, 271.
22. Prummer, 294.
23. Order of Penance, n. 11.
24. Order of Penance, 6.
25. Order of Penance, n. 19. For general absolution there is no need to change the English formula, but in Latin one must change the singular te to plural vos.
26. Regatillo, 264; cf. Capello, 52.
27. Regatillo, 264.
28. Both Capello, 52, and Regatillo, 264, consider it much more likely (longe probabilius) that “from your sins” is not necessary.
29. Capello, 53.
30. Prummer, 295.
31. Capello, 60. Full text of many ancient and current Eastern forms are provided on p. 60-62.
32. Capello, 59.
33. Halligan, 178; cf. Capello, 64, 71; Regatillo, 265. While it was widely held through the end of the 16th century that one could absolve an absent penitent via letter or messenger, decrees of the Holy Office under Clement VIII (1602) and Paul V (1605) uphold that “written absolution handed to a penitent is invalid” (Prummer, 294).
34. Regatillo, 265.
35. Halligan, 179; Prummer, 295; Capello, 68; Regatillo, 265.
36. Halligan 179; Capello, 68. Larger groups should, however, be broken into smaller sections when possible so that each lesser grouping is more certainly present to the minister.
37. Halligan, 178; Capello, 68.
38. E. Regatillo, 266.
39. Can. 964 §2.
40. Capello, 69.
41. Regatillo, 266.
42. Apostolic Penitentiary, “Note on the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the present emergency of the coronavirus,” March 19, 2020.
43. Regatillo, 268.
44. Halligan, 180; Capello, 71.
45. Ibid.; Regatillo, 268.
46. Capello, 70: “S. Poenit. interrogate ‘utrum in casu extremae necessitates dari possit absolution per telephonium,’ die 1 iul. 1884 respondit: ‘Nihil est respondendum.’”
47. Prummer, 295; Halligan, 180.
48. Capello, 70.
49. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, “The Church and the Internet,” §9.
50. “Note on the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the present emergency of the coronavirus.”