Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/411

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378
APPENDIX

where passes under the name of attrition, even that which is joined with love, by which man begins to love God as the fountain of all righteousness, and not only contrition formed by charity, but also the fervour of predominant charity, and that too, proved by long trial, by fervour in good works, may be generally and absolutely required, that a man may be admitted to sacraments, and in particular penitents may be admitted to the benefit of absolution: False, rash, calculated to disturb the quiet of souls, contrary to the practice, safe and approved, in the Church, detracting from and injurious to the efficacy of the sacrament.

OF THE AUTHORITY TO ABSOLVE.

De pœnit § 10. n. 6

XXXVII. The doctrine of the synod, which regarding the authority to absolve, received by ordination, says, "After the establishment of dioceses and of parishes, that it was meet that each should exercise this judgment on persons subject to them, whether with respect to territory, or by any personal right, for this reason, that otherwise confusion and perturbation would be introduced," inasmuch as after the establishment of dioceses and parishes it states it to be meet to guard against confusion, that the power of absolving may be exercised on subjects, so understood, as if for the valid use of this power, the ordinary or that subdelegated jurisdiction were not necessary, without which the Council of Trent declares that absolution given by a priest was of no moment: False, rash, pernicious, contrary and injurious to Trent, erroneous.

Ibid. § 11.

XXXVIII. Likewise the doctrine in which, after the synod declared that it could not but admire that so venerable discipline of antiquity, which, as it says, "did not so easily, and perhaps never admitted to penance him, who, after the first sin and the first reconciliation, had relapsed into crime," subjoins, "that by the fear of perpetual exclusion from communion and peace, even in articulo mortis, a rein will be thrown on those who but little consider the evil of sin, and fear it still less;" Contrary to the 13 can. of the Council of Nice, to the decretal of Innocentius I., to Exuperius of Toulouse, and also to the decretal of Celestinus I. to the bishops