II. To the Initial Arguments

22. To the first argument [n.5] I say that he who does in due manner what he is bound to do does not sin.

23. To the minor I say that no one is bound to receive communion in mortal sin, Gregory IX Decretals V tit.38 ch.12.

24. To the same proof [n.5] I say that just as he is bound to receive communion once a year so he is bound to make an effort by exterior penance [sc. auricular confession] to be outside mortal sin [v. IV d.15 q.1 n.8].

25. To the second proof [n.5] I say that a priest is bound to make an effort to be outside mortal sin before he receives communion; but if it happen that, after consecration and before communion, a memory comes to him of a mortal sin committed some time ago about which he did not do interior or exterior penance, then he is bound to have interior penance before he receives communion, and to put off exterior penance until an opportunity for confession arises.

26. To the second [n.6] I say that the precept about confessing once is less often than the times the faithful can keep the sacrament of penance. But many are bound also in special cases to exterior penance, as someone gravely ill whose recovery is despaired of, or someone undertaking an act where it is likely (in human judgment) that he is exposing himself to danger of death, as in deadly war. Thus too is a priest bound by a special law to exterior penance before he performs the act [of consecrating and receiving communion].

27. And if you say ‘by what law?’, I say by the law of the Apostle in I Corinthians 11.28 [n.11], “Let a man prove himself etc.”