PENANCfi
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PENANCE
"loose", so that tliis text spccilics and distinctly
applies to sin the power of loosing and bindinfj. (b)
He prefaces this grant of power by declaring that the
mission of the Apostles is similar to that which He
had received from the Father and which He had ful-
filled: "As the Father hath sent me". Now it is
beyond doubt that He came into the world to destroy
sin and that on various occasions He explicitly forga\e
sin (Matt., ix, 2-S; Luke, v, 20; vii, 47; Apoc, i, 5),
hence the forgiving of sin is to be included in the
mission of the Apostles, (c) Christ not only declared
that sins were forgiven, but really and actually for-
gave them; hence, the Apostles are empowered not
merely to announce to the sinner that his sins are
forgiven but to grant him forgiveness — "whose sins
you shall forgive". If their power were limited to the
declaration "God pardons you", they would need a
special revelation in each case to make the declara-
tion valid, (d) The power is twofold — to forgive or
to retain, i. e., the Apostles are not told to grant or
■withhold forgiveness indiscriminately; they must act
judicially, forgiving or retaining according as the
sinner deserves, (e) The exercise of this power in
either form (forgiving or retaining) is not restricted:
no distinction is made or even suggested between one
kinil of sin and another, or between one class of sinners
and all the rest: Christ simply says "whose sins".
(f) The sentence pronounced by the Apostles (re-
mission or retention) is also God's sentence — "they
are forgiven . . . they are retained".
It is therefore clear from the words of Christ that the Apostles had power to forgive sins. But this was not a personal prerogative that was to cease at their death; it was granted to them in their official capacity and hence as a permanent institution in the Church — no less permanent than the mission to teach and baptize all nations. Christ foresaw that even those who received faith and baptism, whether during the lifetime of the Apostles or later, would fall into sin and therefore would need forgiveness in order to be saved. He must, then, have intended that the power to forgive should be transmitted from the Apostles to their successors and be used as long as there would be sinners in the Church, and that means to the end of time. It is true that in baptism also sins are for- given, but this does not warrant the view that the power to forgive is simply the power to baptize. In the first place, as appears from the texts cited above, the power to forgive is also the power to retain; its exercise involves a judicial action. But no such action is imphed in the commission to baptize (Matt., xxviii, 18-20); in fact, as the Council of Trent affirms, the Church does not pass judgment on those who are TTot yet members of the Church, and membership is obtained through baptism. Furthermore, baptism, because it is a new birth, cannot be repeated, whereas the power to forgive sins (penance) is to be used as often as the sinner may need it. Hence the condemna- tion, by the same Council, of any one "who, con- founding the sacraments, should say that baptism itself is the Sacrament of Penance, as though these two sacraments were not distinct and as though penance were not rightly called the second plank after shipwreck" (Sess. XIV, can. 2 de sac. poen.).
These pronouncements were directed against the Protestant teaching which held that penance was merely a sort of repeated baptism; and as baptism effected no real forgiveness of sin but only an ex-ternal covering over of sin through faith alone, the same, it was alleged, must be the case with penance. This, then, as a sacrament is superfluous; absolution is only a declaration that sin is forgiven through faith, and satisfaction is needless because Christ has satis- fied once for all men. This was the first sweeping and radical deni.al of the Sacrament of Penance. Some of the earlier sects had claimed that only priests in the state of grace could validly absolve, but they had
not denied the existence of the jjower to forgive.
During all the prece<ling centuries, Catholic belief in
this power had hci-ii .so clear and strong that in order
to set it aside Pnitcsluntism was obliged to strike at
the very constitution of the Church and reject the
whole content of Tradition.
Belief and Practice of the Early Church. — Among the modernistic propositions condemned by Pius X in the Decree "Lamentabih sane" (3 July, 1907) are the following: "In the primitive Church there was no concept of the reconciUation of the Christian sinner by the authority of the Church, but the Church by very slow degrees only grew accustomed to this con- cept. Moreover, even after penance came to be recog- nized as an institution of the Church, it was not called by the name of sacrament, because it was regarded as an odious sacrament" (46): and: "The Lord's words: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained' (.lohn xx, 22-23), in no way refer to the Sacrament of Penance, whatever the Fathers of Trent may have been pleased to assert" (47). According to the Council of Trent, the consensus of all the Fathers always understood that by the words of Christ just cited, the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and their lawful successors (Sess. XIV, c. i). It is therefore Catholic doctrine that the Church from the earliest times believed in the power to forgive sins as granted by Christ to the Apostles. Such a belief in fact was clearlj inculcated by the words with which Christ granted the power, and it would have been inexplicable to the early Christians if any one who professed faith in Christ had questioned the existence of that power in the Church. But if, contrariwise, we suppose that no such belief existed from the beginning, we encounter a still greater diffi- culty: the first mention of that power would have been regarded as an innovation both needless and intolerable; it would have shown little practical wisdom on the part of those who were endeavouring to draw men to Christ; and it would have raised a protest or led to a schism which would certainly have gone on record as plainly at least as did early divisions on matters of less importance. Yet no such record is found; even those who sought to limit the power itself i)resupposed its existence, and their very attempt at limitation put them in opposition to the prevalent Catholic belief.
Turning now to evidence of a positive sort, we have to note that the statements of any Father or orthodox ecclesiastical writer regarding penance present not merely his own personal view, but the commonly accepted belief; and furthermore that the belief which they record was no novelty at the time, but was the traditional doctrine handed down by the regular teaching of the Church and embodied in her practice. In other words, each witness speaks for a past that reaches back to the beginning, even when he does not expressly appeal to tradition. St. Augustine (d. 430) warns the faithful: "Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God has power to forgive all sins" (De agon. Christ., iii). St. Ambrose (d. 397) rebukes the Novatianists who "professed to show reverence for the Lord by reserving to Him alone the power of forgiving sins. Greater wrong could not be done than what they do in seeking to rescind His commands and fling back the office He bestowed. . . . The Church obeys Him in both respects, by binding sin and by loosing it; for the Lord willed that for both the power should be equal" (De poenit., I, ii, 6). Again he teaches that this power was to be a function of the priesthood. "It seemed im- possible that sins should be forgiven through penance; Christ granted this (power) to the Apostles and from the Apostles it has been transmitted to the office of priests" (op. cit., II, ii, 12). The power to forgive
