cormacburke.me.ke

[A conference given at Tigoni Study Centre, Limuru, Kenya, in 1983.]

            ----------------------

            A perplexing pastoral problem, for many priests throughout the world, is that of general absolutions.

            A careful reading of the revised rite of Penance (Nos. 31-34) does not quite remove this perplexity. On the one hand we are told that "individual, integral confession and absolution remain the only ordinary way" of reconciliation for the faithful. This seems to indicate quite clearly that general absolution is meant to be something exceptional. The following paragraphs of No. 31 say in which cases general absolution is lawful: "In addition to cases involving danger of death, it is lawful ... if there is grave need, namely when, in view of the number of penitents, sufficient confessors are not available to hear individual confessions properly within a suitable period of time, so that the penitents would, through no fault of their own, have to go without sacramental grace of Holy Communion for a long time." We are the told that "this may happen especially in mission territories" (this is concrete enough), "but in other places as well (this is rather vague), "and also in groups of persons when the need is established" (this is very vague).

            The last paragraph of No. 31 tells us that if there are enough confessors, general absolution is not lawful just because it would take them a longer time to hear the confessions of all the penitents. The first part of No. 32 says that "the judg ment about the presence of the above conditions ... (is) reserved to the bishop of the diocese."

            The substance of these dispositions has been written into the new Code of Canon Law (canons 960-961). It is important to note, however, that the second part of No. 32 of the Ordo has been omitted in the new Code. This allowed a priest, unable to consult his bishop, a certain discretion or freedom to decide by himself that a particular situation calls for a general absolution. Under the new Code, this discretion no longer exists, and therefore the priest must always consult his bishop.

            As we have noted, some expressions in the official texts seem a bit vague. Nevertheless there is no vagueness about the major points: i.e., it is quite clear that general absolutions can only be lawfully given if there is a grave or serious need. It is also clear that the decision as to when (within the conditions indicated) such a need can be considered grave is reserved to the bishop. Priests must follow the indications given by the bishops.

Serious need is a requirement

            Does a serious need for a general absolution often arise? Should bishops be ready, or rather be slow, to see such needs? Here legal requirements intertwine with pastoral considerations.

            In a mission area, it is easy to see that at times there may be a clear and grave need. A single priest may have a couple of dozen out-stations to cover; and he may, with luck, be able to visit each one once every month. On such visits, even after several hours of confessions, he may still find a long line of people waiting to receive the Sacrament. One's first thought is that recourse to general absolution is the answer to such situations. Nevertheless, in many mission areas, one finds both bishops and priests preferring a different solution, one that to my mind is definitely more pastoral.

            Two or three times a year (in Advent and Lent, and perhaps in August), priests from neighboring parishes come together on a shared pastoral mission, forming what might be termed "reconciliation teams." Over a number of weeks they cover at least the main churches or Mass-centers of their several parishes. It may not be possible for the team to visit every single out-station; but if those chosen are strategically placed, and if people have been adequately motivated by a proper catechesis, the inhabitants of areas not actually visited by the team (but instructed at least by the catechist), will not have far to travel for confession (in the catechesis they can be reminded that they often make much longer trips for much less important reasons).

            I have seen this done with remarkable fruit in many places. As far as priests are concerned, there should in fact be very little difficulty, given a good spirit of pastoral collaboration. How about the "bugbear" of time? Again, difficulties should have an easy solution. If necessary, just part of the time that we priests tend to find these days for seminars and workshops on pastoral theory could be channelled into intensive pastoral work on such reconciliation teams. Another point is that we are all used to seeing 20, 50 or even 100 priests come together, sometimes even on Sundays, for an Ordination ceremony lasting several hours and involving them in lengthy journeys. Would it not be an even more impressive sign - above all to our people — of the priestly spirit and pastoral zeal and unity of the presbyterium, if some of the time, travel and effort spent on these occasions were channelled into a team pastorate of confession?

            In sharp contrast to any possible mission situation, one hears of city parishes - where people will have little problem in coming for confession on weekends or during the week - where monthly or even weekly general absolutions have become the standard practice. It is not easy to see how this squares with the law or the mind of the Church.

            In between these extremes one meets many situations in which a general absolution might perhaps be lawful, if one were to stretch the letter of the law. Do we, should we, want to stretch the law? What does pastoral experience or pastoral prudence recommend? Which type of absolution is more advantageous pastorally? Which is likely to be of most benefit to penitents?

            To begin with, we should note that general absolution is undoubtedly a time-saving procedure. It saves priests time that we may well feel we can profitably devote to other pastoral concerns. But is there not a certain danger, in consequence, of general absolution tending to become something frequent or normal, less out of genuine pastoral concern on the part of the priest, than of a certain pastoral laziness?

Does saving time lead to abuses?

            However, there is a far more important consideration to examine. We are in fact not comparing two modes of absolution, the one rather long and tiring, the other brief and handy - but both equally effective. We are comparing a form of absolution, individual absolution, which is seldom likely to be invalid, with another form, general absolution, which is particularly open to a serious danger of being rendered invalid in many cases.

            This is the tricky point about general absolutions, and the one that is bound to worry our pastoral sense: the danger of such absolutions being invalid by reason not so much of their being given in the wrong circumstances, as of their being received with the wrong disposition. The point is that general absolution even if (prima facie) validly given, could in concrete cases be invalidly received.

            For absolution to be validly received, there must be true penance, i.e., a true conversion, on the part of the penitent. He must will truly to turn away from his sins, with all that this may imply. If, for instance, he is not prepared to repair the scandal he has caused, or to make restitution of the goods he has stolen, then he lacks the necessary purpose of amend ment, and even if in individual confession he deceives the priest about these bad dispositions of his, and so receive absolution, the absolution — validly given as far as the priest is concerned - is ineffectual in his case; he receives it invalidly.

            No. 33 of the Ordo Poenitentiae takes up this point of the penitent's dispositions, in cases of general absolution, and says, "In order that the faithful may profit from sacramental absolution given to several persons at the same time, it is absolutely necessary that they be properly disposed." And adds that these dispositions "are required for the validity of the sacrament."

            There is nothing new in this. We have always done our best to ensure that penitents realize that they can render the sacrament invalid by inadequate dispositions. But there is a new ground of possible invalidity that applies to general absolutions, and is specifically mentioned in the same paragraph of the Ordo. Along with the necessary dispositions to make up for scandal and harm, the Ordo adds that the penitent must "likewise resolve to confess in due time each one of the grave sins which he cannot confess at present." And this requisite is equally stated to be necessary for the validity of the absolution. The Ordo insists that these three elements on the penitent's part - sorrow, purpose of amendment, and resolution to confess the sins now absolved in a subsequent individual confession — "are required for the validity of the sacrament," (and) "should be carefully recalled to the faithful by priests."

            Are penitents, at general absolutions, aware of these three conditions, not only the first and second, but also the last? Are they aware that they can render their reception of absolution null and void i.e., absolutely valueless to forgive their sins - if they fail to fulfil any of them? Are priests, above all, those who confer general absolutions with a certain regularity, carefully reminding their people of these conditions?

Repentance can never be general

            This is no small matter. We are speaking of elements that are absolutely necessary for the forgiveness of sins. What a tremendous responsibility we would have if, by carelessness and neglect, we failed to instruct people of all that they must do to make the absolution we give applicable to them. How responsible we would hold a doctor to be if he failed to instruct his patients properly about some important vaccine or medicine that would be totally ineffective if not prepared and taken by the patient himself in a particular way. If they were not cured as a result, would we not hold him gravely responsible?

            I am afraid that it has to be said — that some priests seem to be extremely careless in this matter, administering general absolutions regularly, one after another, without instructing their penitents as the Ordo requires; and so exposing the general absolution they give to invalidity, at least in respect of some of those receiving it.

            Carelessness in this matter not only involves a lack of respect for a Sacrament - which cannot be lightly exposed to invalidity. It also involves a lack of pastoral concern for individual penitents. Priests need to remember, and to remind their people time and again: For all the general absolutions you may receive, they will be absolutely without effect for you if you lack the essential dispositions, and these are... The absolution will forgive the sins of those on your right or your left if they are properly disposed, but it will pass over your head ineffectually, if you are not...

            Absolutions, in determined circumstances, can be general. Penance, repentance, conversion can never be general. Repentance must always be personal and individual.

            Continuing to examine the matter from the purely pastoral point of view, we can ask: which form - general or individual confession and absolution - favors conversion most? Which favors the permanence of conversion most (for we all know how easily we, and our people, backslide)? The lasting quality of conversion depends mainly on the depth and wholeness of contrition which the Ordo (6,a) describes as "the most important act of the penitent." The Ordo continues: "We can only approach the Kingdom of Christ by 'metanoia.' This is a profound change of the whole person by which one begins to consider, judge, and arrange his life according to the holiness and love of God... The genuineness of penance depends on this heartfelt contrition. For conversion should affect a person from within so that it may progressively enlighten him and render him continually more like Christ."

            If people find individual confession particularly hard at times, this is usually when they are precisely in more urgent need of that thorough metanoia, that profound experience and change that comes from not shirking a full face-to-face encounter with reality: the reality of one's sins (seen in the full light of God's holiness and his call to reject them and make amends for them), and the reality of God's infinite love and mercy.

Personal encounter eliminated

            What sort of encounter is there in general absolution? There, too, of course. God comes to meet the sinner. The danger is that the sinner, presenting himself as one more in a crowd, tends less to come to meet God; he tends to evade that sense of personal encounter and personal demand; and so also misses that sense of personal love and personal forgiveness which leaves as fruit a heartfelt gratitude and a deep peace in the soul.

            Individual confession and absolution give that peace. My experience is that general absolution most often does not. One frequently meets persons who have received a general absolution, and later on feel impelled to come to confess their sins in individual confession, not because they have been instructed that they are in any case bound to do so (they generally have not been so told), but simply because they are not at peace until they have individual confession!

            I cannot avoid the impression that general absolution favors a sort of halfhearted conversion, a half turning to God; and so the penitent is left with a less acute awareness of his sins and also a lesser awareness not only of God's holiness, but especially of his loving forgiveness. Two of the main personal fruits of the sacrament — horror for sin and gratitude to God - are lessened.

            Pope John Paul has insisted that one of the fruits of the Jubilee Year should be "the reviving a sense of sin among our people" (L'Osservatore Romano [OR], English Ed., 25/4/83, p.6). The keener the sense of sin, the deeper the contrition; and the deeper the contrition, the greater the sacramental grace received.

            One used to hear criticism of frequent confession - that people's contrition was just routine. Perhaps; but surely general absolution favors routine and superficiality - thoughtlessness in contrition - even more?

            It would be theologically and pastorally unsound to regard the Sacrament of Penance negatively, i.e., exclusively as a means of removing sin. Properly received, with full dispositions, it is an immense means of spiritual progress, a marvelous means of holiness. In Pope John Paul's words, "The Sacrament of Penance, because of the wholesome exercise of humility and sincerity that it involves, the faith it professes in actu exercito in the mediation of the Church, the hope it includes, and the careful examination of conscience that it requires, is not only an instrument aimed at destroying sin - the negative phase - but also a valuable exercise of virtue, which is itself expiation, an irreplaceable school of spirituality, and a highly positive process of regeneration in souls of vir perfectus, in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi (cf. Eph. 4, 13). In this sense, confession, rightly instituted, is already in itself a very high form of spiritual direction" (OR, 23/2/81, p. 19).

            The Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, cap. 5) defined that divine law requires that each and every mortal sin be confessed in confession. As the present Pope has seen fit to remind us, "This teaching of the Council of Trent about the necessity of the integral confession of mortal sins is still in force in the Church, and always will be" (OR, ibid.).

Confessing mortal sins, a "must"

            From the very way in which Our Lord chose to institute this Sacrament (cf. John 20:21; Matt. 16:19), it follows that the Church, in her ministers, needs to know each individual (mortal) sin, so as to judge if it can be forgiven or not. It cannot be too often emphasized that this is not meant to restrict the granting of forgiveness but precisely to ensure that inadequate dispositions on the penitent's part do not impede the receiving of forgiveness. The clear and deep pastoral purpose of this divine disposition, that the minister should know each individual sin, is precisely to enable him to explain what is required on the penitent's part, and to try to induce the dispositions necessary for forgiveness if these are lacking.

            Every confessor knows from experience how penitents need to be instructed so as to bring them to dispositions in which they can receive all of God's pardon and grace and, by uncovering and striking at the roots of sin, can more easily overcome sinful habits.

            The priest is a physician - to people's souls and consciences. Too frequent use of general absolution would make a priest like a negligent doctor, who is content with a superficial examination of his patients, from afar. The priest is not meant to be a healer of souls in general, but a healer of individual souls. For this he must know the state of individual souls. But - the objection may be made — people don't come to make themselves known! People will come - if the advantages of individual confession are explained and if every facility for confessing is given to them. We priests will have to work harder; but then that is one of the main pastoral functions that we were ordained for.

            The suggestion is often made that general absolution is more community-centered. This can only be maintained if one holds a very external and superficial view of the nature, function and effect of the sacrament. Individual confession equally serves the community in the deep sense of healing wounds inflicted on the Mystical Body. But its pastoral service to the community is evident in other ways. So often the penitent needs to have pointed out to him his specific obligations: of restitution, for instance (e.g., the employer paying unjust wages), of avoiding or repairing scandal towards the community (e.g., the pornographer, the drug trafficker), etc.

            Christ dealt with sinners individually. There are cases of collective physical cures (e.g., the 10 lepers). There are none that I recall of collective spiritual cures. The paralytic, with his sins, the adulterous woman, Mary Magdalene, with her seven devils, the Gerasene man, with his legion, were all treated and healed individually.

Confession is "personalized"

            "But people prefer collective absolutions." Do they? If they do, it may be due to a variety of reasons. It may be because they find it "less painful," since they don't have to go through an individual private confession that they would find distasteful... But they do have to go through that individual confession, however painful! They have to go through it later on, sooner rather than later; and if they are not firmly resolved to do so, we have seen that they will receive the general absolution invalidly. Is there not a danger of our letting our people be deceived, grievously deceived, on this tremendously important matter? Is it not true that some people are coming to prefer, and some priests are even presenting, general absolution, as an "easier" way of receiving the Sacrament of Penance, without people reflecting, or priests telling them, that this is false; that every single mortal sin one is aware of when receiving a general absolution must be afterwards confessed specifically in private personal confession, and that unless there is a present effective resolution to do this, the general absolution is invalidly received, i.e., one's sins are not forgiven.

            It would be a pity if a person were to regard individual confession as a "bitter" medicine, and general absolution as "easier to swallow." It would denote a lack of understanding of God's merciful ways. But their pastors, in any case, would incur a most grave responsibility if they were to let people think they can take the more palatable medicine now without any need for taking the more bitter one later on.

            It is worth noting that the new Code of Canon Law (Canon 963) tightens up the dispositions of the Ordo Poenitentiae. To the indication that penitents who have had grave sins forgiven in a general absolution must confess them in a subsequent private confession, the canon adds the words "quam primum" - as soon as possible, an expression that had not been used in the Ordo.

            In other cases people may feel they prefer collective absolution because the treatment they got from some priest in a previous private confession was not too encouraging. A sad experience, if it really was so. But the best remedy is to get them to go to confession now to a priest who will truly receive them as shepherd and father. All the reasons that might be adduced to show that people prefer collective absolutions boil down in the end to a certain deformation of conscience, to a lack of due instruction. Properly instructed, people prefer personal individual confession because they prefer to receive "personalized" treatment and advice. Would it be normal for sick people to prefer to go, in groups of 50 or 100, to the doctor, and to be given the same general prescription as to medicines to be taken? No; sinners, just as patients, prefer to be treated kindly, gently, firmly, but individually.

            People will have sound preferences on this matter if they are soundly instructed. But, in any case, as we have tried to show, the matter of personal preferences is not the major issue here. We are speaking of something far more vital which is the real danger that, by the too frequent use of general absolutions, people may remain in (or even be actually led into) inadequate dispositions that render the absolution invalid.

Confession: conversing with God

            Pope John Paul, speaking of the conditions to be fulfilled before general absolution can be granted, insists that these conditions must be fulfilled with "scrupulous observance," and continues that "in any case, the faithful have the right to their own private confession." He goes on: "In this connection, I wish to emphasize the fact that, rightly, modern society jealously watches over the inalienable rights of the person: how, then, precisely in that most mysterious and sacred sphere of the personality in which the relationship with God is lived, could one desire to deny the human person, the individual person of every faith, the right of a personal, unique conversation with God, by means of the consecrated ministry? Why would one desire to deprive the individual member of the faithful, who is precious qua talis before God, of the deep and extremely personal joy of this extraordinary fruit of grace?" (OR, 23/2/81, p. 19).

            The more one reflects on this question of general absolution, the more one realizes that it is a subject of the greatest theological and pastoral delicacy, and one where priests need especially to follow the prudent indications of their pastors. It is not surprising that the Pope, in a recent address to a group of U.S. Bishops and speaking of the "proper application" of general absolution, emphasized that "the experience of the universal Church confirms the need on the part of all the bishops for further pastoral vigilance" (OR, 25/4/83, p. 6).

            In the same address, the Pope recalled his predecessor Pope Paul VI's clear and encouraging words: "If priests deeply understand how closely they collaborate, through the Sacrament of Penance, with the Savior in the work of conversion, they will give themselves with ever greater zeal to this ministry. More confessors will readily be available to the faithful. Other works, for lack of time, may have to be postponed or even abandoned, but not the confessional."

            I pray that priests will treat general absolution as what the Church's documents really mean it to be: an emergency recourse for extraordinary situations; and that they will seek a real pastoral hunger to act, in the confessional, as physicians to soul after individual soul. Our Lord never collectivized people. In the fourth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, we are given an eloquent testimony. On a visit to Capernaum, when Jesus was besieged by people looking for a cure, he received and dealt with each one individually: "singulis manus imponens"— laying his hands on each one of them, he cured them and sent them home.

            If we give to the hearing of Confessions the rightful place it should have in our priestly service to our people, we will indeed tire ourselves with long hours - many hours each week - in the confessional. But our people will see in us much more clearly the image of the Good Shepherd, who gives his life for his sheep, seeking out those that have strayed, one by one.