' And I am sure you will own that the
following decision of Father Bauny goes far to alleviate the shame
which one must feel in confessing his relapses, namely, 'that,
except in certain cases, which rarely occur, the confessor is not
entitled to ask his penitent if the sin of which he accuses himself is
an habitual one, nor is the latter obliged to answer such a
question; because the confessor has no right to subject his penitent
to the shame of disclosing his frequent relapses.'"
"Indeed, father! I might as well say that a physician has no right
to ask his patient if it is long since he had the fever. Do not sins
assume quite a different aspect according to circumstances? and should
it not be the object of a genuine penitent to discover the whole state
of his conscience to his confessor, with the same sincerity and
open-heartedness as if he were speaking to Jesus Christ himself, whose
place the priest occupies? If so, how far is he from realizing such
a disposition who, by concealing the frequency of his relapses,
conceals the aggravations of his offence!"
I saw that this puzzled the worthy monk, for he attempted to elude
rather than resolve the difficulty by turning my attention to
another of their rules, which only goes to establish a fresh abuse,
instead of justifying in the least the decision of Father Bauny; a
decision which, in my opinion, is one of the most pernicious of
their maxims, and calculated to encourage profligate men to continue
in their evil habits.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174