AURICULAR CONFESSION 550
AUSTIN
confession, or, rather, the publication by the priest of flagrant sins confessed, and permitted, and even en- joined with some earnestness, that confession should rather be private, and confided to the priest alone. The evil most obviously proceeding from this relaxa- tion was the general increase, or, at least, the more in- decent practice of the mortal sins, and especially (as Mosheim, Church. Hist. cent, v, pt. ii, eh. iv, has ob- served) of that of incontinence; unless, indeed, we are to suppose that the original publicity of confession was abandoned from its being no longer practicable in a numerous body and a corrupt age. But another con- sequence which certainly flowed from this measure, and which, in the eye of an ambitious churchman, might counterbalance its demoralizing effect, was the \ rast addition of influence which it save to the clergy. When he delivered over the conscience of the people into the hands of the priests, when he consigned the most secret acts and thoughts of individual imperfec- tion to the torture of private inquisition and scrutiny, Leo the Great had indeed the glory of laying the first and corner-stone of the papal edilice — that on which it rose and rested, and without which the industry of his successors would have been vainly exerted, or (as is more probable) their boldest projects would never have been formed.
2. But Leo made no law requiring private confes- sion before communion. That step was not taken till the fourth council of Lateran, A.D. 1215, when it was decreed that all persons should confess privately, and be absolved once a year, under pain of excommunica- tion (can. xxi; Hard. Cone. t. vii). The doctrine that penance is a sacrament seems to have been first broach- ed by Aquinas (Summa, pt. iii, 2, 84). The Romish system of sacramental penance was completed by the Council of Trent (sess. xiv, cap. 5, 6), which declared that "from the institution of the sacrament of penance already set forth, the Church has always understood that an entire confession of sins was also appointed by the Lord, and that it is of divine right necessary to all who have lapsed after baptism. Because our Lord Jesus Christ, when about to ascend from earth to heav- en, left his priests, his vicars, to be, as it were, the presidents and judges, to whom all mortal sins into which Christ's faithful people should fall should be brought, in order that, by the power of the keys, they might pronounce sentence of remission or retention. For it is plain that the priests cannot exercise this judg- ment without knowledge of the cause, nor can they ob- serve equity in enjoining penalties if men declare their sins only generally, and not rather particularly and separately. From this it is inferred that it is riLfht that t lie penitents should recount in confession all the deadly sins of which, upon examination, their con- science accuses them, even though they be most se- cret, and only against the last two commandments, which not unfrequently grievously wound the soul, and are more dantrerous than those which are openly practised," etc. Here an attempt is made to invest the Christian priesthood with the prerogative of the .Most High, who is a searcher of the hearts and a dis- oerner of the thoughts, in forgetfulness of the very dis- tinction which God drew between himself and all men, " Man looketh to the outward part, the Lord trieth the heart." As Christ has invested his ministers with no power to do this of themselves, the Tridentine fathers have BOUghl to supply what they must needs consider ous omission on his part by enjoining all men to unlock the Becrets of their hearts at the command of their priest, and persons of all ages and sexes to submit not only to general questions a- to a state of sin or repentance, bul to fhe mosl minute and search- ing questions as to their inmost thoughts. Auricular confession is unquestionably one of the greatest cor. ruptions of the Romish Church. It goes upon the ground that the priest has power to forgive sins; it es- tabliahea the tyrannical influence of the priesthood; it
turns the penitent from God, who only can forgive sins, to man, who is himself a sinner ; and it tends to corrupt both the confessors and the confessed by a foul and particular disclosure of sinful thoughts and actions of every kind without exception.
3. The confessor must be an ordained priest; and no penitent can confess to any other than his parish priest without the consent of the latter, except in ar- ticulo mortis. Special confessors are provided for monks and nuns. For the place of confession, see Confes- sional. The laws of confession may be found in the Romish directories and books of moral theology ; and a glance at them is enough to satisfy any candid mind of the fearful dangers of such a system. Any one who may think it necessary to satisfy himself upon the point may consult the cases contemplated and provided for (among others) bj' Cardinal Cajetan in his Opuscu- la (Lusd. 1562), p. 114. In the Bull of Pius IV, Con- tra solicitantes in confessione, dated Apr. 16, 1561 (£ul- larium Magn. Luxemb. 1727, ii, 48), and in a similar one of Gregory XV, dated Aug. 30, 1622 {Gregory AT, Const it. Rom. 1622, p. 114), there is laid open another fearful scene of danger to female confitents from wicked priests. For a full account, of the history of the sys- tem, its laws and its dangers, see Hopkins, History of the Confessional (N. Y. 1850, 12mo).