II. To the Initial Arguments

106. To the arguments.

To the first [n.56] I say that it is a right not only of the one confessing that a confessed sin ought to be concealed but it is a right of the community, for there would follow from the opposite (namely from the revelation of it) continual disturbance in the community, because everyone everywhere would reckon the other abominable; and it is not licit for this person to renounce the right of the community, though it is licit for him to renounce his own.

107. It could be said in another way: let it be also that it were only his own right and a right granted in his favor, it would not be licit for him to renounce it so that the confessor would be free to reveal things; for a confessor is bound by multiple right, namely the right of nature and positive right, the revoking of none of which is in the power of the one confessing.

108. What then will the confessor do when the one confessed is willing for his sin to be made public?

I say that the one confessing is able to state his sin afterwards outside confession, and if he state it as secret the subsequent permission still does not absolve the confessor from the law of nature without him being bound to conceal it. But if the one confessing state it so it not be held secret, and especially before some person or some certain persons for whom it is perhaps licit because of some good end that can follow from the revelation made to them or him - then the confessor can say it as something said to him publicly outside all secrecy.

109. But surely he cannot then say “I heard this in confession”?

I reply: it might be said [Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.21 q.3 a.3] that these words by themselves “I heard this sin in that person’s confession” include mortal sin, because they include a revealing of the sin as known in a way it is not licit for it to revealed. Hence, he to whom it is revealed outside all secrecy after confession should be wary in his manner of speaking and talking, lest he tell it as something said to him in a way in which it is not licit for it to be revealed.

110. Against this: it is licit for him to say to whom he will what is told him outside confession, and the telling is not special by the fact he says it was confessed to him; therefore, it is licit for him to say it.

111. To the second [n.57] I say that there can be no case in which silence militates against charity; on the contrary, the opposite would militate against common charity, as was shown by the four reasons for the first conclusion [nn.79-85].

112. And when you make objection about the common good [n.57], I say “you shall do justly what is just,” Deuteronomy 16.20; therefore you shall do charitably what is of charity; but he does not act charitably who, against the law of nature in the aforesaid ways [nn.79-85], does not conceal some evil committed or to be committed. Therefore, the verse of the jurists is to be rejected that “Heresy is a crime that not even confession conceals” - not that the metre is not good but the opinion is false.

113. To the third [n.58] it can be said that the priest can possess multiple occasions for not entering the woodland other than from the malice of the thieves uncovered to him - at least he can think out multiple others and say in their presence, “I wish to do this and that,” “I wish to turn aside to that and that place before I proceed further;” and if he seem to turn aside for this sort of alleged occasion, he reveals the confession neither in word nor deed.

114. But if he cannot turn aside for any occasion without it appearing to the others that he was turning aside because of a confession, and without in this revealing a confession, someone says [Richard of Middleton, ibid. n.58] that he is bound to enter the woodland, and if he expose himself to death, this is for a right cause, namely that he may keep the Law of God about the seal of confession; and consequently if he dies he is a martyr.

115. But it can be said in another way that facts can be ambiguous signs, because they can be conceived in diverse ways by diverse people, namely for this or that fact. Therefore [the fact of not entering the woodland] should not be reckoned a revealing of confession unless of its nature it make public the confessed sin. But to turn aside from the woodland does not so lead, because if they had said nothing beforehand about the killing, never would they recognize, from the fact the priest turns aside, that that other confessed about their intention to kill him. But if turning aside were of its own nature a sign leading to knowledge of the sin of the one who confessed, it would lead anyone to this knowledge, and them equally too if they had not spoken just as if they had spoken.

116. It can therefore be said in general that a sign that is of itself indifferent as to the fact that such a sin was confessed or not confessed, though it be for some a more determinate sign because of some supposition, is not a sign that of itself is revelatory of confession, nor consequently is it simply illicit for a confessor.

117. To the fourth [n.59] I say that a confessor who incautiously ministers the sacrament of penitence is not bound to confess at once his incautious deed, namely when his confessor will be able at once to arrive at the knowledge of the person about whom he incautiously exercised the use of the keys; and this at least, he is not bound to express in detail the fault about which and the manner in which he acted incautiously, but either precisely in universal terms, “by my fault I unduly and incautiously ministered the sacrament of penitence,” or if his conscience about giving confession in this matter specifically weigh on him, as the argument says [n.59] (because it is a special and a mortal sin and the circumstances make it specifically worse), he is bound to wait for an opportunity to confess to someone who cannot, from such confession of sin and circumstances, arrive at a knowledge of the person who confessed to him.

118. But if such a confessor can never be obtained without being able, from the explanation of the sin and the circumstances, to arrive at the fault and the person who confessed to him, he is in a case of being unable to confess to man, for he is more bound to the precept of not making public a sin confessed to him than to explicit confession of his own fault; because he is bound to the first in many ways by the law of nature (as the reasons for the first conclusion prove [nn.79-85]), and in many ways by the divine positive law (as the reasons for the second conclusion prove [nn.86-89]); but to the second he is bound at most by the divine positive law, as was said in d.17 {nn.42-57]; therefore let him confessThe Latin text here misprints ‘confiteatur’ as ‘confineatur’. ⁶⁶ to God.

119. From this follows that anyone ministering the sacrament of penitence must beware most of all lest he minister incautiously, precisely in the case where from his incaution he will not be able to be penitent explicitly without betraying the confession of another who confessed to him

120. To the fifth [n.60]: let it be that the second person not make the sin worse, as the fact that it be Bertha or Alice does not make fornication worse, other things being equal (as that she is not married, not a close relative, and the rest of the sort), and then it is fatuous to confess the second person. And one might doubt whether to make her explicit in this way be a mortal sin (whether in other respects or whether the second person was then made explicit in a way in which she necessarily had to be made explicit); always does the second person fall under the seal of confession, as was said in the fourth article [nn.99-100].

121. And then the major is to be denied in the first case [n.60]: “it is licit to reveal what is not a sin or a circumstance of sin,” for in order for this to be true it must be added “nor anything by which one could reach the person or knowledge of the person confessing.” Or more should be added to the major, namely “nor anything that must be held to be secret by the law of nature or the divine law.” And the minor is manifestly false about the second person, as is plain from the fourth article [nn.99-100].

122. To the sixth [n.61] I say that if in a college there is a common custom that anyone prolonging a stay outside the monastery (whether having a curacy or without a curacy) may, without notice, be recalled at the will of the president, or even not at will everywhere, but sometimes for another honest cause (so that now he rests in the cloister, now labors with Martha in exterior ministry, and now this one does and now that one, insofar as it has seemed useful to the president) - I say then that a monk who has made confession of a crime committed in some place outside the monastery where he is staying can be recalled by the abbot to the monastery, because in this the abbot does in no way make public a sin confessed to him; although someone may say that a confessor can, by reason of confession, in no way be disposed to the one who confessed as to any act outside that forum otherwise than if he had heard absolutely nothing. But if the custom in the college is that a monk is not thus transferred to the cloister from a place outside save by reason of some failing or insufficiency in his curacy of the place, it does not then seem licit for the abbot to recall the confessed monk to the monastery.

123. If you say that ‘he is not applying or procuring a remedy for the salvation of his sheep’ - I reply: let him consult him in a better way in the forum of penitence, whereby he may know to dismiss him a place that is dangerous. But if he will not [sc. be consulted in penitence], let the abbot not attempt to be God, but let him dismiss hidden failings to the correction of God that, according to justice, cannot be corrected by himself.

124. To the last argument [n.62] I say that that chapter is not expressly speaking of him who knows through confession that someone is excommunicated, not even by way of a secret committed to him; but he knows it privately, that is, he thus knows what the community does not know, or what he believes the community does not know, and knowing thus in private he must avoid him in private. And no wonder, because he is not in debt to the other for it as it is secret [sc. he has no debt to associate with him in secret].

125. But if he knew through the form of confession only, what should he do?

I reply as to the third argument [nn.113-116], that if he can avoid him in another way than through an avoidance that betrays his excommunication, he must avoid him; but if not he should not only not avoid him, but rather is it not licit for him to avoid him. For avoidance of someone excommunicated is by ecclesiastical positive right only; he is bound not to betray him by the law of nature and by ecclesiastical and divine positive right. And when precepts seem contrary, that which is superior is more obligatory and is therefore to be kept more firmly. Nor by keeping it and omitting the other does he sin, because no one is in perplexity because of divine law and ecclesiastical law.Natural law precedes divine law and ecclesiastical law, since divine is revealed on the basis of nature and ecclesiastical is ordained by the Church with authority from divine law. In case of conflict, then, there is no perplexity which to obey, because natural law takes precedence over divine law and divine law takes precedence over ecclesiastical law. ⁶⁷