"I grant you," replied the father, "that habit aggravates the
malignity of a sin, but it does not alter its nature; and that is
the reason why we do not insist on people confessing it, according
to the rule laid down by our fathers, and quoted by Escobar, 'that one
is only obliged to confess the circumstances that alter the species of
the sin, and not those that aggravate it.' Proceeding on this rule,
Father Granados says, 'that if one has eaten flesh in Lent, all he
needs to do is to confess that he has broken the fast, without
specifying whether it was by eating flesh, or by taking two fish
meals.' And, according to Reginald, 'a sorcerer who has employed the
diabolical art is not obliged to reveal that circumstance; it is
enough to say that he has dealt in magic, without expressing whether
it was by palmistry or by a paction with the devil.' Fagundez,
again, has decided that 'rape is not a circumstance which one is bound
to reveal, if the woman give her consent.' All this is quoted by
Escobar, with many other very curious decisions as to these
circumstances, which you may consult at your leisure."
"These 'artifices of devotion' are vastly convenient in their
way," I observed.
"And yet," said the father, "notwithstanding all that, they
would go for nothing, sir, unless we had proceeded to mollify penance,
which, more than anything else, deters people from confession. Now,
however, the most squeamish have nothing to dread from it, after
what we have advanced in our theses of the College of Clermont,
where we hold that, if the confessor imposes a suitable penance, and
the penitent be unwilling to submit himself to it, the latter may go
home, 'waiving both the penance and the absolution.
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