CONFITEOR
222
CONFITEOR
agent at Rome, Rev. Dr. Stonor, 12 Sept., 1766, he
says : " there be so many thousands there that hve and
die without Confirmation"; and in another letter, 4
June, 1771 : " It is a lamentable thing that such a mul-
titude have to live and die always deprived of the
Sacrament of Confirmation. " Cardinal Castelli wrote,
7 Sept., 1771, to Bishop Briand of Quebec asking him
to supply the need of the Catholics in Maryland and
Pennsylvania. In 17S3 the clergy petitioned Rome
for the appointment of a superior with the necessary
faculties "that our faithful living in many dangers,
may be no longer deprived of the Sacrament of Con-
firmation. ..." On 6 June, 1784, Pius VI ap)-
pointed Rev. John Carroll as superior of the mission
and empowered him to administer confirmation (Shea,
Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll, New York,
1888; cf. Hughes in Am. Eccl. Review, XXVIII, 23).
V. Confirmation Among Non-Catholics. — The Protestant Reformers, influenced by their rejection of all that could not be clearly proved from Scripture and by their doctrine of justification by faith only, refused to admit that confirmation was a sacrament (Luther, De Capt. Babyl., VII, p. 501). According to the Con- fession of Augsburg, it was instituted by the Church, and it has not the promise of the grace of God. Mel- anchthon (Loci Comm., p. 48) taught that it was a vain ceremony, and was formerly nothing but a cate- chism in which those who were approaching adoles- cence gave an account of their faith before the Church ; and that the minister was not a bishop only, but any priest whatsoever (Lib. Ref. ad Colonien.). These four points were condemned by the Council of Trent (supra I; cf. A. Theiner, Acta Genuina SS. CEcum. Cone. Trid., I, p. 383 ,sqq.). Nevertheless the Luth- eran Churches retain some sort of confirmation to the present day. It consists of the examination of the candidate in Christian doctrine by the pastors or mem- bers of the consistory, and tlie renewal by the candi- date of the profession of faith made for him at the time of his baptism by his godparents. How the pas- tors properly ordained can alone be said to "give" confirmation does not appear. The Anglican Church holds that "Confirmation is not to be counted for a sacrament of the Gospel ... for it has not the like nature of sacraments [sacramentorum eandem ra- tioTiem] with Baptism and the Lord's Supper, for it has not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God" (Art. x.w). But, like the Lutheran Churches, it re- tains "the Confirmation of chUdren, by examining them of their knowledge in their articles of faith and joining thereto the prayers of the Church for them" (Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments, p. 300). The rite of confirmation has undergone various changes in the different prayer books (see Book op Common Prayer). From these it can be seen how the Angli- can Church has varied between the complete rejection of the Catholic doctrine and practice, and a near ap- proach to these. Testimonies could easily be quoted for either of these opinions. The wording of Art. xxv left a loophole which the Ritualistic party has made good use of. Even some t'atholics, as stated above, have admitted that confirmation " has not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God"; the imposition of hands, the anointing, and the words used being all of them "ordained of" the Apostles of the Church.
Generai-. — Diet, de throl. cnth. s. v., full bibliography; WiL- HELM AND ScANNF.LL. Manual of Cath. Theol. (Ixindon, 1898). II; De AuGUsTlNia, Dc Re Sacramenlariii (Rome, 1889); Gihr. Die hi. Sakramcnle d. kathol. Kirche (Freibure;. 1902). I; Hein- Ririi-r,rTBEHLET. Doflma/. r/niofofftf (Mainz, 1901), IX; Pohle, Lehrb. d. Dogmnlik (Paderborn, 1906), III, Kood bibliography; PoDRBAT, Im thcologie mcramfniaire (Paris. 1907).
Speciai,.— V1TA88E, De Sacram. Confirm, in Miqne, Theol. Cursu.1 Camp., XXI; JaN88enb, La confirmalion (Lille, 1S88); Heimbdcher, Das Sakramenl des HI. GeUtes (Augsburg. 1889); DoLQER Das Sakrament d. Firmuna (Vienna, 1906); J. R. Gab- QUET. The Early History of Baptism and Confirmation in Dublin Kev. (189.')), 116.
LiTDRQicAL.— MARTfc.NK, De ArUitiuis Bed. Rilibus (Rouen. 1700), I, n; Martig.ny, Diet. de.i aniiquiles chrft. (Paris, 1877); Dknzinqkb, liilus orivntalium Bed. (Wurzburg, 1863); Malt-
ZEw (priest of the Russian Church), Z)j> Sarramcnte d. orthodox-
kath.olischen Kirehe des Morgenlandes (Berlin, 1898); Duchesne,
Christian Worship, tr. from 3rd ed. of Les Origines (London.
1903).
Non-Catholic. — Mason. The Relation of Confirmation to Baptism (London, 1893); Hall, Confirmalion (London, 1902); Ffohlkes in Diet. Christ. Biog., s. v. See also RicHARnsoN, Periodical Articles on Religion, IS90-1S90 (New York, 1907). T. B. SCANNELL.
Confiteor. — The Confiteor (so called from the first word, confitenr, I confess) is a general confession of sins; it is used in the Roman Rite at the beginning of Mass and on various other occasions as a preparation for the reception of some grace.
History of the Confiteor. — It is first heard of as the preparation for sacramental confession and as part of the preparation for Mass. Both the original East- em liturgies begin with a confession of sin made by the celebrant (for the Antiochene Rite see Brightman, Eastern Liturgies, p. 31, and for the Alexandrine Rite, ibid., 11(3). The first Roman sacramentaries and ordos tell us nothing about this preparation ; they all describe the Mass as beginning at the Introit. The Confiteor in some form was probably from an early date one of the private prayers said by the celebrant in the sacristy before he began Mass. But the " Sixth Roman Ordo " (Mabillon, Museum Italicum, II, 70-76), written apparently in the tenth or eleventh century, tells us that at the beginning of Mass the pontiff " bow- ing down prays to God for forgiveness of his sins" (ibid., p. 71). So by the eleventh century the prepa- ration is already made at the altar. In the "Canon- ical Rule" of Chrodegang of Metz (d. 743) the ques- tions put by the priest to the penitent before confes- sion contain a form that suggests our Confiteor: "First of all prostrate yourself humbly in the sight of God . . . and pray Blessed Mary with the holy Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors to pray to the Lord for you (Chrodeg. Met., "Reg. Canon.", cap. xxxii, in P. L., LXXXIX, 1072). So also Egbert of York (d. 766) gives a short form that is the germ of our present prayer: "Say to him to whom you wish to confess yoiu' sins: through my fault that I have sinned ex- ceedingly in thought, word, and deed." In answer the confessor says almost exactly our Misereatur (Bona, "Rerum liturg.", Bk. II, ii, v). But it is in Micrologus (Bernold of Constance, d. 1100) that we first find the Confiteor quoted as part of the introduc- tion of the Mass. The form here is; "Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, istis Sanctis et omnibus Sanctis et tibi frater, quia peccavi in cogitatione, in locutione, in opere, in poUutione mentis et corporis. Ideo precor te, ora pro me." The Misereatur and Indulgentiam follow, the former slightly different, but the latter ex- actly as we have it now (De eccl. observ., xxiii, in P. L., CLI, 992).
In the "Ordo Romanus XIV" (by Cardinal James Cajetan in the fourteenth century, Mabillon, op. cit., II, 246-443) we find our Confiteor exactly, but for the slight modification: "Quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, delectatione, consensu, verbo et opere" (ib., p. 329). The Third Council of Ravenna (1314, Hardouin, Coll. Cone, VII, 1389) orders in its Rubric .xv our Con- fiteor, word for word, to be used throughout that province. The form, and especially the list of saints invoked, varies considerably in the Middle Ages. Car- dinal Bona (Rerum liturg. libri duo, II, 5-7) quotes a number of such forms. In many Missals it is shorter than ours: "Confiteor Deo, beatiE Mariae, omnibus Sanctis et vobis" (so the Sarum Missal, ed. Dickinson, Burnti-sland, 1861-1883). In the Missal of Paul III (1534-1549) it is: "Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, B. Mariae semper Virgini, B. Petro et omnibus Sanctis et vobis Fratres, (|uia peccavi, me.a culpa: precor vos orare pro me" (Bona, loc. cit.). Since the edition of Pius V (1506-1572) our present form is the only one to be used throughout the Roman Rite, with the ex- peptions of the Carthusian, Carmelite, and Dominican
