Scotus Academicus, Tomus decimus: De Baptismo, De Poenitentia, De Extrema Unctione

The name contrition is derived from the verb contero, which means to divide a hard thing into very small parts, as Aristotle teaches in bk. IV of the Meteorologica, giving an excellent comparison. For through sin a man’s will and heart are hardened and made obstinate in evil, according to Job, ch. 41: His heart will be hardened like stone and become firm like a smith’s anvil. Hence the act by which this hardness is removed and sin blotted out is rightly called contrition by theologians. For this reason William of Paris commends and describes penance by the very crushing of the heart: Penance, he says, is the contraction and crushing of the heart, and the reduction of the old man to dust. St. Bonaventure explains this etymology of contrition very well in In IV Sent., d. 16, a. 1, q. 1, ad 7, where he says: “Some say it is called by this name because, just as a healing ointment is made from many herbs crushed together in a mortar, so an ointment of compunction is made from the herbs of sins that grow in our soil when they are crushed in the mortar of conscience; Bernard seems to say this in his commentary on the Song. But then a man would not be called contrite by this contrition, but one who crushes. Therefore it must be added that three things are to be considered in this contrition: what is crushed, by what it is crushed, and toward what end contrition is directed. What is crushed is the sinner’s heart, which is like an earthen vessel filled with the poison of sin, according to the words: The gall of dragons is their wine, etc. By what it is crushed is a twofold millstone: one above, lifting upward, namely hope of pardon through consideration of mercy; the other below, divine justice. Of these millstones it is said: You shall not take the upper and lower millstone as a pledge. This vessel is crushed so that it may be softened, for it is hard. For a hard heart will fare badly at the end. Or, better, so that the delight of sin may be entirely poured out. For this reason it is called contrition, not breaking: breaking makes larger pieces, contrition smaller ones; when the pieces are larger, some flavor remains. So that neither flavor nor reality remains, it is crushed into the smallest pieces, and this delight is entirely removed by eternal punishment and by grace. Therefore it is called contrition in both cases: in eternal punishment, according to the words, The crime will be crushed along with the transgressor; and through grace, according to A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise. But the cases differ: there the sinner is crushed to dust, not so that another vessel may be made, for of the impious it is said, Not so the impious, not so, but like dust, etc. In the contrition of grace, however, the crushing is meant to generate a new and solid vessel through the honor of grace and tears. Thus it is rightly called contrition, not attrition, because the parts that have been ground are joined together to make a vessel for honor, according to what is said of Paul: He is a vessel of election to me…. If anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel, etc.” Thus the Seraphic Doctor.

It is called contrition of the heart because, as the Roman Catechism says, n. 31: Sacred Scripture frequently uses “heart” for the will: for just as the beginning of the body’s movements comes from the heart, so the will moderates and governs all the other powers of the soul. This contrition of the heart is the penitent’s primary and principal act, as well as the foundation and crown of the others. For we would never confess our sins rightly, and would strive in vain to expiate them by works of satisfaction, unless we felt sorrow for the sins of our former life and detested them through contrition. For (says the author of the book Questions on the Old and New Testaments, pt. III, q. 11): injured bodily limbs cannot receive the remedy of health without pain; so sinners cannot redeem their sins unless the soul that sinned has felt sorrow. Since contrition must be practiced frequently—because there is no moment when past sins come to mind at which we ought not at once to conceive salutary sorrow for them and detest them—its nature, power, and dignity must therefore be examined and explained through careful inquiry. We shall do this, as far as we are able, in the following five QUESTIONS. The first will explain what contrition is and of what sort; the second, what things it must concern; the third, how great it must be and how long it must last; the fourth, what its effect is; the fifth, what imperfect contrition, or attrition, is and of what sort.

NOTE 1. In Sacred Scripture the word “contrition” signifies the same as devastation or destruction. Thus Isaiah 51: “Desolation and Contrition, and famine, and sword: who will console you?” And Jeremiah 6: “Evil has been seen from the north, and great Contrition.” And Psalm 13: “Contrition and misery are in their ways.” Among theologians, however, this word is used to signify displeasure over past sins; this meaning indeed has its foundation in Sacred Scripture, for Psalm 50 says: “A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise.” And Psalm 146: “He heals the contrite of heart and binds up their contritions.” Hence it is also called the humbling of the heart; for, as St. Augustine expounds the words just cited: “Those who do not crush the heart are not healed. What is it to crush the heart? ‘A spirit afflicted is a sacrifice to God.’ Those who have crushed the heart are the humble. Who have not crushed the heart? The proud. What is contrite will be healed; what is lifted up will be cast down—perhaps for this very purpose it is cast down, that, once contrite, it may be healed. ‘He heals the contrite of heart’; therefore humility heals the heart,” etc. It is likewise called “bitterness” of heart, because it makes sins bitter to the penitent’s soul, in keeping with Isaiah 38: “I recall all my years to you in the bitterness of my soul.… Behold, my bitterness is most bitter in peace.” It is also named “compunction,” as it were a piercing of the heart: “For, as William of Paris says in his treatise On the Sacrament of Penance, ch. 5, the thorns and goads of sins are first felt when the Spirit has quickened and sanctified the sinner’s heart by the infusion of his grace; or because they are then fixed in the heart’s depth and innermost part, in keeping with what is read in the Psalm: ‘I was turned in my anguish, while a thorn was fixed.’ For sometimes, before his coming and his life-giving visitation, the heart, being intent upon—or rather, mortified and dead, felt neither the wound of sin nor the iron in the wound, neither the goads of sins nor their pricks. The Psalmist names compunction in Psalm 4: ‘Be pierced in your beds’; and Acts 2: ‘When they had heard these things, they were pierced to the heart.’ Or it is so called, he says in the same place, because, just as trees of frankincense and myrrh are wounded with iron rods, and through the very wounding such trees seem to weep or to coagulate, so the pierced hearts of penitents emit the frankincense of devout prayer and the myrrh of inward bitterness. Finally, it is called compunction because, just as swollen sores are cut with iron so that the enclosed poison may be able to burst forth, so hearts are cut, as it were, with the scalpel of Contrition, so that the deadly poison of sin may be able to burst out. Wherefore the Prophet Joel also calls it a “rending” of the heart: ‘Return’* (he says, ch. 2) *‘to me with all your heart, in fasting, weeping, and mourning, and rend your hearts.’”

NOTE 2. Since Contrition can be considered either according to the very entity of the act, or according to the manner in which the act itself is elicited, or according to the principle from which it is elicited, or finally, according to the effect it produces, it follows that several and varied definitions of Contrition are put forward according to these different respects. First, as regards the substance and entity of the act, the Council of Trent defines it, sess. XIV, ch. 4: “Contrition is sorrow of soul and detestation for a sin committed, together with the purpose of not sinning thereafter.” This definition of Contrition applies to it both as an act of the virtue and as a part of the sacrament of penance, since in either respect it must necessarily be sorrow for a sin committed, together with a firm purpose of not sinning thereafter. Although, insofar as it is a part of the sacrament, it also entails the purpose of confessing and making satisfaction, by which it is distinguished from Contrition insofar as it is an act of the virtue of penance; in the latter respect it did not formerly entail a purpose of confessing and making satisfaction, but only a will to punish and avenge the sin. In view of its principle, however, it is called “a voluntary sorrow punishing what it grieves itself to have committed”; for Contrition is an act of the will, unwilling and grieving that it has sinned, such that, if it could be done, it would efficaciously wish that the sin had not been committed by it. Third, in view of its effect, St. Augustine calls it “sorrow remitting sin,” or St. Gregory calls it “humility of spirit annihilating sin between hope and fear.” Finally, in view of the manner in which it is exercised, St. Isidore describes it: “Contrition is compunction and humility of mind, coming with tears from recollection of sin and fear of judgment.” Moreover, in the first definition, which is the most excellent of them all, three acts are enumerated as belonging to perfect Contrition: namely, sorrow for a sin committed, hatred of it or detestation of it, and a purpose not to sin any more. The question, then, is which of these acts chiefly constitutes the formal character of Contrition, and whether all three are necessarily required for true and perfect Contrition. For Cajetan, in his little work On Contrition, q. 1, contends that Contrition essentially consists in an act of hatred for sin, so that sorrow is merely its property, while the purpose not to sin thereafter is a consequence and effect of that sorrow. Suarez, however, in disp. 4, sect. 1, holds that it is essentially detestation of sin, which he wishes to distinguish both from hatred and from sorrow for sin. Others, such as Conink, disp. 1, tit. 1, teach that Contrition essentially consists both in an act of sorrow and in an act of hatred for sin. The heretics of our time, however, together with Luther, hold that Contrition is only love of righteousness, a new life, and correction of one’s former life, but not hatred, displeasure, detestation, or sorrow for that life; thus Contrition does not imply anything painful or bitter, but only what is pleasing, joyful, or sweet. Hence they infer that sorrow or sadness makes a person more of a hypocrite, and not truly penitent.

NOTE 3. Contrition is customarily distinguished into two kinds: perfect, which is simply called “Contrition,” and is sorrow for sins on account of God, supremely loved; and imperfect, which is called “Attrition,” or sorrow for sins from some other honorable motive that is not God himself, who is to be loved for his own sake insofar as he is the supreme good from which mortal sin turns one away. For it must be known that someone can detest sin for various ends: first, from fear of hell, which he would incur by sinning; second, from desire for the glory and eternal happiness that he would lose by dying in sin; third, from love of virtue, which sin would cloud, and hatred of vice, by which he would be stained; fourth, from love of God, whom he loves ardently, either with a love of desire on account of the various goods he receives from him, or with a love of friendship, namely insofar as God is the supreme, infinitely perfect and lovable good—which is properly to love God for his own sake. The question, then, is in which of these motives the formal character of Contrition consists.

These, then, are the three principal matters that arise for determination in this Question. First, whether the four acts mentioned are required for perfect Contrition: namely, hatred, detestation, and sorrow for a sin committed, together with a firm purpose not to sin thereafter, as well as to confess and make satisfaction. Second, in which of these acts Contrition formally consists. Third, whether perfect Contrition is formally an act of charity and love of God, or at least is commanded by charity.

First conclusion. — THE FOUR AFOREMENTIONED ACTS ARE REQUIRED FOR TRUE AND PERFECT CONTRITION. This is gathered from the Council of Trent, which mentions such acts when it defines and explains Contrition. For sess. XIV, ch. 1, speaking of penance as a virtue—which does not remit sin except insofar as it is true Contrition—it says: “Penance was indeed necessary at all times for all people who had stained themselves with any mortal sin, in order to obtain grace and righteousness, even for those who, washed in the sacrament of baptism, had sought it, so that, having rejected and corrected their wickedness, they might detest so great an offense against God with hatred of sin and devout sorrow of soul.” Here it requires detestation, hatred, and sorrow for sin for perfect penance. But in ch. 4, treating of Contrition, it says: “Contrition, which holds the first place among the aforesaid acts of the penitent, is sorrow of soul and detestation for a sin committed, together with the purpose of not sinning thereafter. At all times this manner of Contrition was necessary for obtaining forgiveness of sins; and in a person who, after baptism, has fallen, it prepares for the remission of sins only if it is joined with confidence in divine mercy and with a vow to perform the rest of what is required for the fitting reception of this sacrament.” Here it delineates two kinds of Contrition: namely, that which occurs outside the sacrament of penance, and that which is joined to the sacrament. For both, under the New Law, it requires not only sorrow and detestation for sin, but also a vow to perform all those things—namely, confession and satisfaction—that are required for sacramental absolution.

That it likewise required hatred is clear enough from the fact that there it calls Contrition—what at first it had called sorrow and detestation—simply “hatred” immediately after the words just cited. For, condemning Luther’s erroneous opinion, it says: “The holy Synod therefore declares that this Contrition contains not only cessation from sin, and a purpose and beginning of a new life, but also hatred of the old,” etc. It again insists on this in the same place. Hence, in canon 5, it defines as follows: “If anyone says that the Contrition which is prepared by the examination, collection, and detestation of sins, whereby someone recalls his years in the bitterness of his soul, weighing the gravity and multitude of his sins, his infidelity, the loss of eternal blessedness, and his incurring of eternal damnation, together with a purpose of better life, is not true and profitable sorrow, nor prepares for grace, but makes a person a hypocrite and more of a sinner; and, finally, that it is sorrow under compulsion and not free and voluntary—let him be anathema.” Although by these words the Fathers of Trent chiefly intended to define, against the heretics of our time, that a bare and sterile purpose of a better life, or cessation from sin, is not sufficient for true penance, they nevertheless suggest clearly enough that, along with hatred and detestation of sins and a purpose of a better life, sorrow for a sin committed is also required, whether that sorrow be sensory or merely intellectual.

For when Contrition is defined by sorrow, “sorrow” is not taken precisely for the very act of sorrow, nor for sadness, which is a passion, but for the cause of sadness and sorrow itself, namely, the unwillingness toward sins. For these three differ: unwillingness, sadness, and sorrow. Unwillingness is an act of the will, namely, not to wish that one had sinned. Sadness, however, is distress and a passion that arises from this very unwillingness and affects the will. Sorrow in turn is a passion that occurs in the sensory faculty, namely, that anguish of heart which the penitent has from unwillingness and detestation of sin. Of these three, only unwillingness seems to belong to the essence of Contrition; the others are its effects.

For, as St. Bonaventure teaches admirably, d. 16, a. 1, q. 1, from St. Augustine, bk. 14 of The City of God, ch. 15: “Just as sin is perpetrated through consent, so, conversely, it is erased and destroyed through the dissent of the rational will; and because dissent from something that cannot not exist generates sorrow, Contrition must therefore be said to be sorrow essentially. But it should be observed that ‘sorrow’ is said in two ways: in one way, the very dissent of the will; in another way, the passion resulting in the sentient person, or in the sensitive appetite, from that dissent, through which a person breaks into tears. That dissent belongs to the essence of Contrition, but that passion is its effect.” This is the Seraphic Doctor. Hence our most learned Vega concludes admirably, bk. 13 of On Justification, ch. 35: If there are some, he says, who would not wish to have committed the sins they did commit, yet do not grieve for them with sensory sorrow, or even intellectual sorrow, their detestation of sins, without any sadness or sorrow, would suffice for justification; Scotus, Almavus, and others consistently taught this, and it is very much in keeping with divine mercy. For among human beings, too, this is sometimes enough to be restored to favor with them. Nor can it be doubted that these sinners already repent of their sins and truly regret them. And insofar as sorrow, or sadness for sins, is properly taken for the passions that follow the affections of those who would in no way have consented to their sins, we can believe certain sinners who say that they cannot grieve over their sins. For this may happen with sensory sorrow, from which tears follow, because of a hard constitution or because the sorrow¹ is excessively intense². Nor is it surprising if other things that are more perceptible cause greater sorrow and draw more tears from us. According to the Subtle Doctor, this is also possible with intellectual sorrow, which is sadness, because, in his view, sadness does not necessarily follow from flight from, hatred of, or unwillingness toward sin, although it is very often joined to it. Hence that well-known saying of St. Augustine, bk. On Penance: “As sorrow is the companion of penance, so tears are witnesses of sorrow.”

If, then, as some sinners are accustomed to say, they grieve over the fact that they do not grieve, and in this way, whether with sensory or intellectual sorrow, simply say that they do not wish to have sinned, they ought to be admitted to penance. If, however, they were to say that they have no affection by which they would wish not to have consented to the sins they committed, because they cannot have such an affection, and were to use the common word “sorrow” for that affection, they must gradually be led, by the common and well-worn arguments drawn from the evils in sins, to wish that they had not committed them. For it is impossible for them to grieve that they do not grieve over their sins if “sorrow” is taken, as it usually is, for an affection by which one wishes not to have sinned. For this affection is always within the power of one who truly wishes to have it. But because it depends more on God’s grace and kindness than on our freedom, God must first of all be begged to deign to impart it: “For who,” as Bernard says most truly in On the Threefold Mercy, “will cleave this hardness, except he who in his Passion cleft the rocks? Who will give a penitent heart, except he from whom every best gift comes?” Thus far Vega.

Since, however, he cites the Subtle Doctor in support of his position, I am pleased to quote his words. Scotus, In I Sent., d. 11, q. 2, n. 17, at the end, says: “Sometimes, from charity or contemplation of God, a certain detestation of sin is present at once, and the greatest sadness follows, even though no act of justice with respect to that sadness has yet been posited; at other times, an act of justice (of vengeance) is present first and is intense in itself, yet its proximate causes—namely, the intellect in considering and the will in detesting—are not efficaciously moved by that command of justice, perhaps because they lack the habits that would be principles of perfection in their acts.” For he continues in n. 18: “And although these are sometimes moved—namely, the intellect in considering and the will in detesting—sadness nevertheless does not follow. Although this could happen for many reasons, it sometimes happens because, just as the intellect is conformed in us to the sensitive part, so the intellectual appetite tends toward the sensitive appetite in being easily pleased and saddened together. Therefore, the will of someone whose sensitive appetite is not naturally disposed to sadness or sorrow is not easily saddened.” From this the Doctor infers: “Someone may have the greatest act of penance in the first way, that is, the greatest act of avenging the sin he committed, and yet have no affect of sadness, or only a slight one; while some, without any act of penance in the first way, have the greatest effect of the same kind as that which is naturally an effect of penance. Whether that effect is greater or lesser is indeed some excellence with respect to the destruction of sin; namely, simply speaking, there is a greater excellence of act in relation to act, for the acts are followed on either side by sadness, since the act that causes sadness merits sin more than sadness itself does.” Therefore, according to the Doctor, detestation of sin, as causative of sadness, can meritously erase sin, even if by accident no sadness, or only slight sadness, follows. For it is not plausible that God, who is the Father of mercies and who does not will the death of the sinner but rather that he turn and live, required for conversion and life something that is not within the sinner’s free power, such as the sorrow or sadness that follows an act of detestation. Moreover, natural reason plainly indicates that detestation itself is necessary when someone takes on a new person and changes his state, unless he casts off the old through some displeasure, and unless his former state displeases him in some way; otherwise there is no cause for changing, indeed it is scarcely possible to change. For the nature both of us and of our affections is such that whatever has once pleased us remains with us so long as we are moved away from it by no hatred or displeasure; and whatever we have once approved, we are considered to approve, and to will to be firm and settled, for so long as, on thinking better about it, we do not reject or retract it. So Vega above.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Just as a truly penitent person ought to grieve, so too ought he to feel shame; but that shame is neither confession nor satisfaction, and consequently neither hatred, nor detestation, nor sorrow: therefore more acts than those listed above are required for Contrition. Moreover, the penitent ought not only to grieve but also to rejoice, as we said when treating of penance as a virtue; consequently, just as Contrition is called sorrow, so it should also be called joy. — The Seraphic Doctor answers both points in the same place: “Shame follows upon the will’s dissent, insofar as it dissents from sin as something shameful; joy also follows, insofar as from that dissent one feels oneself removed from sin. But the passion that is sorrow follows more immediately; for the dissent itself, when vehement, from a thing we do not wish to exist and yet which exists, immediately generates sorrow—because it is dissent; but because it is dissent on account of a shameful thing, it generates shame; and because through that sorrow the sinner is removed from the shameful and hostile thing itself, therefore he grieves over sin and rejoices in his sorrow.”

YOU WILL SAY 2: “Sorrow is dissent from those things that happen against our will,” says St. Augustine, bk. 14 of The City of God, ch. 15; but Contrition is dissent from sins that happen with our will; therefore, etc. — The same Seraphic Doctor answers that sin is voluntary with respect to its delight, but it is not voluntary with respect to the character of its malice, deformity, and punishment. “But if you say that the sorrow of Contrition must be not only for the deformity but also for the delight: he answers that for a sinner to grieve properly, it is enough that what he grieves over be unwanted for the time at which he grieves, though not at every time.” The remaining points that may bear on this difficulty have already been resolved by what we said about the essence of the virtue of penance.

Second conclusion. — CONTRITION MORE PROPERLY CONSISTS IN DETESTATION OR HATRED OF SIN THAN IN THE OTHER ACTS.

It is proved, because Contrition is an act of the appetitive virtue; therefore it is an act of the will insofar as it detests sin. The antecedent is evident, since Contrition is an actual unwillingness toward sin—not absolute, but conditional—as though the penitent were to say: If it were possible, I would not wish to have sinned. But this unwillingness is formally nothing other than detestation of sin itself; therefore, etc. Nor is it an objection that the Council of Trent, in the places cited in the preceding conclusion, equally calls Contrition sorrow and detestation of sin. For these must be understood in due proportion and according to a sense of accommodation: that is, Contrition is essentially detestation, while sorrow is only concomitant or causal, because that detestation is nothing other than wishing not to have sinned, from which sorrow follows. For sorrow is nothing other than sadness and affliction, or a certain anguish, because a person sees that he has done what he would not wish to have done. Therefore that detestation necessarily has sorrow accompanying or following it.

It is confirmed: Contrition must be constituted chiefly in that from which, as streams from a spring, the other acts required for perfect Contrition flow. But they all arise from detestation of sin itself. For sorrow proceeds from it, as we just said; hatred also arises from it, if that hatred is in truth something distinct from detestation itself—which I do not think it is. For in the will, with respect to good and evil, there are only those acts that correspond to the passions of the sensitive appetite; but hatred and detestation correspond to the same passion, which is called “hatred,” and no philosopher seems hitherto to have said that hatred and detestation are two virtues. Likewise, from that detestation proceeds the will not to sin thereafter and to fulfill those things necessary for obtaining remission of sin. For one who truly detests sin has the disposition not to admit it any more, and to apply all the means conducive to its destruction; and consequently to do all that is necessary for sacramental absolution, without which, whether received in fact or by vow, remission under the New Law of a sin committed after baptism cannot take place.

YOU WILL SAY 1: If sorrow essentially consisted in detestation and hatred of sin, since this detestation and that hatred are most perfect in the Blessed, it would likewise follow that they have most perfect Contrition. But this cannot be said; therefore neither can the former be said. — I distinguish the major: if the Blessed had such detestation as would have sorrow for sins accompanying or following it, I grant it: otherwise, I deny it. And with the minor, thus distinguished, I deny the consequence. For detestation of sin can be distinguished in two ways. One is general, diffused through all acts of every virtue, but especially charity, which, insofar as it tends toward an object fitting to itself, turns away from whatever is opposed to that object. The other is special, tending chiefly toward the vengeance and destruction of sin itself; it is nothing other than the will’s very formal, positive unwillingness, by which the penitent, if it were possible, would not wish to have sinned and grieves that he has sinned. The former can be in the Blessed, but not the latter.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Contrition consists chiefly in this, that it is in itself the first thing opposed to sin and destroys it. But that which is in itself the first thing opposed to sin is not its detestation, but the sorrow by which the penitent is affected when he grieves that he has offended God. Therefore Contrition consists more in sorrow for sin than in hatred or detestation of it. The major premise is established: for just as Penance regards sin under the aspect of an offense to be avenged and punished, and capable of being compensated for by the penitent’s acts, so too does its principal and primary act, which is Contrition. The minor premise, however, is proved: the act by which a man avenges sin ought to be opposed to the act by which he committed it. Therefore, just as a man sinned through unlawful pleasure, he ought to avenge that sin and make satisfaction to God through an act opposed to that pleasure; but this can be none other than sorrow. For, says St. Augustine, Serm. 7, On the Time: When you repent in such a way that what was once sweet to you in life now tastes bitter in your heart, and what formerly delighted you in the body now torments you in your mind, then indeed you groan well before God and say: Against you alone have I sinned.” Therefore, etc. — I deny the minor premise: for since sin consists in a voluntary turning away from God, the first movement of Penance must consist in man’s voluntary turning to God, and consequently in hatred and detestation of that which turns him away from God. This detestation is nothing other than the very act of not-willing by which the penitent would wish that he had not sinned; since that cannot be, sorrow then arises over the sin committed. Hence I do indeed admit that sorrow is the avenging of unlawful pleasure insofar as that sorrow is sensual, but not insofar as it is wholly spiritual and something consequent upon the aforesaid act of not-willing.

From these things, then, it follows that detestation or hatred of sin is the primary and chief act of Contrition, from which the other acts spring as from a root. For from a man’s loathing sin, it follows that he grieves that he committed it, and is moved to destroy it by every means and method prescribed by God; and consequently to frequent and make sacramental Confession as soon as possible, by which he may obtain the destruction of that sin and forgiveness.

YOU WILL ASK: Whether all these acts of detestation, hatred, sorrow, and the purpose of not sinning again must be elicited separately for perfect and integral Contrition? — I answer, it does not seem improbable that it suffices for them to be contained virtually in the formal detestation of sin itself. This is indeed proved: for if any one of those acts were required to be elicited formally for perfect Contrition, it would above all be the purpose of not sinning again. But for this it suffices that this purpose be included virtually in the very efficacious and perfect detestation. For, says our Vega, bk. 13, On Justification, ch. 31: “It cannot stand that past offenses displease someone because they are offenses against God, if he intends to offend God gravely or to continue some deadly offense against Him. And no one truly repents of past errors, or wills to change his former life, without having some displeasure at it; thus no one has perfect displeasure at his former life without intending, either actually or virtually, to change it. These affections accompany one another actually or virtually. And one so disposed that he truly grieves over the offenses he has committed never, while that grief endures, commits new ones; indeed, he will avoid them as far as he can, and would say that he desires to shun them if asked about it. This suffices for him to be said to have a virtual purpose of amending his life. And he who truly purposes to avoid them in the future will never, while that purpose stands, acquiesce in or take pleasure in his past deeds; rather, if someone questions him, he will say that he grieves over those he committed. And since ordinarily scarcely anyone truly repents of sins unless he both detests them and purposes henceforth to avoid them, all sinners should be admonished, when they are stirred to penance, not only to detest their former sins and refrain from continuing or repeating them or any others, but also to purpose to avoid all sins henceforth to the best of their ability.” Thus far Vega. And a little later he adds: “Yet all this is consistent with these effects being separable from one another: detestation of one’s past life can stand without a purpose to begin a new one, and a purpose of a new life without detestation of the former. Hence the Fathers set down as two distinct things abstaining from sins and detesting them. Experience also shows that sometimes we remember the past in such a way that we think nothing at all about the future; and, conversely, look to the future in such a way that no recollection of the past enters our minds. This can happen much more readily in the affections. And whether it happens or not, we are discussing only this one question: whether detestation of sins committed can suffice for forgiveness without a formal purpose never to sin again, just as in the preceding chapter we showed, with the agreement of all Catholics, that this purpose does not suffice without detestation of past sins. And indeed, the same author goes on, although I consider the course already mentioned both common and safest, and one that should always be impressed upon the people, yet when I ponder more deeply the riches of God’s mercy toward us, I cannot doubt that sinners are sometimes justified by compunction for the sin committed alone.” That is what he says. He proves this pious opinion by the example of David, who was justified immediately when he said from his heart, 2 Kings, ch. 12, n. 13: I have sinned against the Lord. For he at once heard: The Lord also has put away your sin. No mention is made there of a purpose of amendment. You will find many other similar examples in Sacred Scripture, which Vega cites in that same place in confirmation of his opinion and ours. “But if,” he says, “God never forgave the sins of a sinner in response to any degree of compunction unless a purpose of avoiding sin in the future were actually present, Scripture would also have recalled this purpose in those whom it says were justified through their penance. For why would it have remembered detestation rather than the purpose of ceasing from sins, if both are required equally and neither suffices without the other?” Thus Vega.

YOU WILL SAY: A virtual purpose of not sinning again is nothing other than hatred and detestation of sin itself. But the Council of Trent, besides sorrow, detestation, and hatred of sin, requires a vow and purpose not to sin again and to fulfill what is necessary to obtain sacramental Absolution. Therefore, in the mind of the Council of Trent, a virtual purpose does not suffice, but a formal and actual one is required. — I answer, the Council of Trent joins a purpose of amendment to detestation of sin in order to signify that any simple displeasure at sins is not sufficient for perfect Contrition; rather, an efficacious detestation is necessary, such that, if future sins presented themselves and there were no lack of suitable time, the will would immediately spring into an affection of not sinning again. That this suffices, and that a purpose of not sinning again is virtually included in the will that detests and excludes sin, is gathered from the same Council: first, because in sess. XIV, ch. 4, speaking of imperfect Contrition, which is called Attrition, it says: If it excludes the will to sin, together with hope of pardon, it declares (the holy Synod) that it not only does not make a man a hypocrite or a greater sinner, but is also a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit—not yet indeed indwelling, but only moving—by which the penitent, aided by it, prepares for himself a way to justice. By these words, what it had called a purpose of not sinning when generally describing Contrition, it here calls an exclusion of the will to sin. It thereby signifies that one who sincerely and efficaciously detests sin is so disposed that, if asked whether he wished to sin again, he would testify that he would rather lay down his life a thousand times than mortally offend God. This affection is nothing other than a virtual purpose of not sinning again. Second, in the same place the Council requires not only a purpose of amendment, but also of Confession and Satisfaction, and even an act of hope; but an explicit vow of Confession, nor a formal act of hope, is required for true and perfect Contrition. Therefore neither is an explicit vow of amendment required. — Vega strongly confirms all these points in these words: “It can happen that some sinners are overtaken by sudden death in such a way that they can indeed remember the sins they committed, and die grieving over them and crying, ‘Lord, have mercy,’ before they have been able to think or determine anything about the future. Will these, then, also be deprived of pardon? What could be more rigid, harsher, or more unmerciful than that? Indeed, God receives with open arms all who flee to Him; He despises no one who does what lies within him; at the very point of death He grants pardon to all who turn to Him. Nor do we read in the Evangelists anything else about that fortunate thief who found pardon in the very moment of death, beside Christ hanging on the cross, except what attests that he turned away from his former life, humbly had recourse to Christ, and prayed for His mercy. Are not sure signs of sorrow for sins sometimes enough for sacramental absolution? Sinners who are overtaken at the point of death and cannot confess their sins certainly can and ought to be absolved if they have at least specified some sin and indicate their inward sorrow by outward signs, even if they show no sign declaring what they purpose for the future. Absolution on this account should in no way be delayed.” Thus far Vega.

Third conclusion. — FOR CONTRITION TO BE PERFECT AND TRULY TO MERIT THE REMISSION OF SIN OUTSIDE THE SACRAMENT, IT MUST DETEST SIN FROM AN AFFECTION OF CHARITY, AND HAVE AN ACT OF CHARITY FORMALLY OR AT LEAST VIRTUALLY, OR ONE COMMANDED BY CHARITY. This conclusion consists chiefly of two parts.

The first of these parts—namely, that for Contrition to be perfect and remit sin outside the Sacrament, it must be elicited on account of God, who has been offended, and have annexed to it a vow to receive the Sacrament—is common among Catholic Doctors. For perfect Contrition differs from imperfect Contrition in this: the latter, which is called Attrition, is not directed toward God for His own sake and insofar as He is the supreme good in Himself, but insofar as He is good to us, that is, as He is our ultimate happiness, from attaining which the sin we detest removes us. The former, however, is directed toward God, to be loved for His own sake, that is, insofar as He is infinite goodness and supremely lovable, and as He is attained by charity. (The Council of Trent indeed teaches this, sess. XIV, ch. 1, where it says: It teaches further (the holy Synod) that, although it sometimes happens that this Contrition is made perfect by charity and a man is reconciled to God before he actually receives this Sacrament, nevertheless that reconciliation must not be ascribed to Contrition itself without the vow of the Sacrament, which is included in it. But that imperfect contrition, which is called Attrition, since it is commonly conceived either from consideration of the shamefulness of sin or from fear of hell and purgatory, etc.) By these words the Council distinguishes perfect from imperfect Contrition in this respect: the former is said to be perfected by charity. This can happen only because the act of this Contrition is either a formal act of charity, or at least has one annexed to it, or contains one virtually, and detests sin insofar as it is offensive to God, who is supremely lovable; and so at least indirectly it is directed toward God as the object of charity. Imperfect Contrition, however, or Attrition, detests sin either on account of its shamefulness, or the evil of hell, or because it removes us from possession of God insofar as He is our highest good and our beatitude. Thus it is not directed toward God from the motive of charity and an affection of friendship, but only of desire. Although this affection is not itself vicious, as the Council defines in the same place, it nevertheless cannot justify outside the Sacrament, as perfect Contrition can.

There is greater difficulty concerning the second part of this conclusion, namely, that the act of Contrition must be elicited by the virtue of charity, or have a formal act of charity annexed to it, or at least contain one virtually. In determining this assertion, three opinions of authors appear. The more probable one seems to us to be that which maintains that Contrition can at once be an act of detestation of sin and of love of God above all things, so that it is at once formal love of God and formal hatred of sin. Nor should this seem surprising, since it belongs to the same virtue to will good for someone and not to will evil for him—for example, to will complete health for Peter and not to will even the least sickness for him. But to will some good for God insofar as it is good for Him—for example, that He be infinite, eternal, etc., and be glorified and honored by all creatures—is a formal act of the virtue of charity. Therefore, likewise, not to will evil for God, insofar as it is an offense against Him, will be a formal act of the virtue of charity. Consequently, detesting sin insofar as it is an extrinsic evil for God and offensive to Him can be a formal act of charity and elicited by it. This is indeed confirmed: formally to love God is nothing other than to wish some positive good for Him insofar as it is His good, and consequently to will removed from Him everything that has the character of an evil in relation to Him. For often the absence and removal of some evil is far more desirable than some positive good. Consequently, the same act of love of God can at once be hatred of sin and have as its formal motivating object both the deformity and malice of sin and the divine goodness, which is, as it were, externally stained by such malice.

This truth can be confirmed by all those testimonies of Sacred Scripture and the holy Fathers by which remission of sin is attributed especially to charity. Thus Luke 7: Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much. The passage speaks of St. Magdalene, who stood behind the Lord beside His feet, bathed His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head, and thereby testified to the deepest sorrow of heart and Contrition for the sins she had committed. Nevertheless, remission of sins is attributed to her love and charity, as a sign that this detestation of sin was one and the same with an act of charity and love of God. Likewise, Proverbs 10: Charity covers all offenses. And 1 Peter 4: Charity covers a multitude of sins. And 1 John 3: We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers … he who does not love remains in death. Here Scripture is not speaking of the habit, but of the act of charity; for in those passages it exhorts us to perform an act of charity with actual helps, so that God, in view of it, may grant us remission of sins, which comes through grace or habitual charity. Hence St. Chrysostom, Hom. 7 on 2 Timothy, near the end: Just as fire, once it has seized a forest, is accustomed to cleanse everything, so the fervor of charity, wherever it falls, destroys and breaks through everything that demolishes the divine harvest, and cleanses the soil to receive and nourish seeds deeply. He continues: Where charity is, all evils have been removed. And below: Charity is the fullness of the law: for all crimes that disturb peace are loosed wherever charity is present.

Hence St. Augustine, Serm. 7, On Time, says: Only hatred of sin and love of God make repentance genuine. That is, hatred of sin which proceeds from the motive of charity. For it is clear from the words that follow that St. Augustine does not there understand by love of God an act of love distinct from Contrition itself. For he adds: When you repent in such a way that what was once sweet to you in life tastes bitter in your heart, and what formerly delighted you in the body now torments you in your mind, then you already groan well before God and say, “Against you alone have I sinned.” … This, my little child, is true Penance: when one is converted in such a way as not to return, when one repents in such a way as not to repeat the sin. It is clear that true Contrition on the part of charity suffices to effect this conversion, without any further distinct act of love of God above all things. The author of On True and False Penance, ch. 17, seems to interpret and confirm this opinion of the holy Doctor in this way when he says: The truly penitent must not only fear God as judge, but also love Him as just: let Him not be feared for punishment, but loved for glory. For one must grieve over the crime and all its aforesaid variety; and because this is scarcely possible, Augustine could doubt about that man’s salvation, etc. By these latter words he signifies that the act of love and affection for God which he requires for true Penance is the same as sorrow for or detestation of sin, since he says that sorrow itself suffices for salvation.

YOU WILL SAY: The same St. Augustine, bk. 2, Against Cresconius, ch. 2, shows that no one can be cleansed, however many acts of Contrition he performs, unless he likewise elicits an act of charity. “For this reason,” he says, addressing the Donatists, “you do not think that they are cleansed when they pass over to us from you: because they are not baptized anew, as though men were cleansed from error by baptism alone, which ought not to be repeated, since it is one and the same.” To prove the contrary of this, he immediately adds: “They are cleansed also by the word of truth, by Him who says in John 15: “Now you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” They are cleansed also by the sacrifice of a contrite heart, by Him of whom it is said in Psalm 50: “A spirit afflicted is a sacrifice to God; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, You will not despise.” They are cleansed also by alms, by Him who says in Luke 11: “Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” They are cleansed by charity, which surpasses all things, by Him who said through the Apostle Peter: “Charity covers a multitude of sins.” If charity alone is present, all those things are rightly done; but if it is absent, all are done in vain.” Therefore, according to St. Augustine, acts of charity and Contrition are distinct.

I deny the inference: for it is not sufficiently clear from the words quoted above which charity St. Augustine was speaking of, whether actual or habitual. For he immediately adds: “But as to where this Charity comes from, hear the Apostle teaching: ‘The charity of God,’ he says, ‘has been poured into our hearts,’ etc. Hence those who have received the Church’s baptism outside the Church are rightly believed not to have the Holy Spirit until they adhere to the Church herself in the bond of peace through the bond of charity.” Here he clearly indicates that he is speaking of habitual charity and sanctifying grace, which adults who receive the Church’s baptism outside the Church cannot possess because of their falling away from the Church.

Add that even if St. Augustine is speaking of actual charity, nothing is thereby proved against our assertion. For we readily admit that the sacrifice of a contrite heart avails nothing unless it is either a formal act of charity or at least contains one virtually and is directed toward the same object of charity.

YOU WILL PRESS: If the act of Contrition is not distinct from the formal act of love of God, it follows either that it is the same formal act of love or that it contains that act virtually. But neither can be said, because the act of detestation is a departure from sin as the greatest of all evils, whereas the act of love is an approach to God as the best of all goods; but those approaches and departures are two distinct acts. Therefore, etc. Nor can the second alternative be said, for the act of charity is the most perfect of all acts; therefore it cannot be included virtually in the act of Contrition, which has less perfection, since that which contains virtually is nobler than what is contained. — I DENY the minor premise: and for its first proof I say that the same act of love is at once, at least virtually and equivalently, an approach to God as the highest good and a departure from sin; likewise, the same act of Contrition, which formally is a departure from sin and detestation of it, is at least virtually and equivalently an approach to divine goodness. For, by reason of the same motive, one of these movements necessarily follows from the other, if both are occupied with the same formal and terminating object. For precisely insofar as someone detests sin on account of God, who is supremely lovable, he also loves God; just as, conversely, someone detests sin at least virtually while directing his act and affection of love toward God as supremely lovable for His own sake. Hence the same act is at once pursuit and flight, approach and departure, since it is impossible for someone to approach God through an act of love and charity without departing from and fleeing sin, which is most opposed to Him. For the second proof I say that Contrition is not an act less perfect than the act of charity itself, since, from what has been said, it is itself an act of love, although not so explicit as if it were directed toward God by way of pursuit. Hence the acts of Contrition and charity seem to differ only as to their manner of being directed toward God: the act of charity is directed toward God by way of pursuit, and insofar as He is presented as the highest and supremely lovable good; but the act of Contrition is directed toward God insofar as, on His account, it flees and detests sin as opposed to Him. Thus the act of charity terminates immediately in God as the highest good and mediately in the sin it detests, insofar as that sin is opposed to the highest good; whereas the act of Contrition terminates immediately in the sin to be detested and mediately in the supreme goodness of God, on account of which sin is opposed to Him. It follows, then, that the act of Contrition differs from the act of charity only by its differing direction toward the same object and by its distinct connotation of that same object, mediately or immediately. For since those two objects are so connected—God as the highest and supremely lovable good, and sin as supremely hateful—that one is in some way on account of the other, it follows that both objects can be attained by one and the same simple act. Therefore Contrition can be called love of God by way of flight, because it is not only pursuit of divine goodness, but at the same time flight from sin insofar as it is offensive to God. Consequently, the second part of our assertion is established: Contrition perfected by charity can be a formal act of charity.

The third part is also evident: Contrition must necessarily be an act either elicited through the habit of charity when elicited by a justified person, or at least commanded by charity—namely, when that detestation of sin has an act of charity specially joined to it. Thus it does not suffice for such detestation to be made from the motive of obedience, or Religion, or Penance; it must necessarily be made from the motive of charity. First, because, as we said on the authority of the Council of Trent, for Contrition to justify outside the Sacrament it must be perfected by charity, that is, be made for the motive of charity or elicited by charity itself. Second, because remission of sin does not occur precisely without love of God, as we said on the authority of Sacred Scripture; consequently, that Contrition must be elicited by charity or commanded by it.

The Council of Trent confirms all these points, sess. VI, ch. 6, where it teaches that Penance takes its beginning from the love of God. For it says of penitents: They are disposed to that very justice when, aroused by divine grace and aided … by fear of divine justice, by which they are usefully shaken, they turn to consider God’s mercy, are raised up to hope, trusting that God will be propitious to them for Christ’s sake, begin to love Him as the source of all justice, and therefore are moved against sins by some hatred and detestation, etc. By these words the Council teaches that true Contrition must necessarily arise from love of God. For through it a man is finally disposed for sanctifying grace, by which he is constituted in the city of God. But no one belongs to the city of God except through love of God, even to contempt of self, as St. Augustine teaches, bk. 14, On the City of God, last ch. Therefore Contrition must necessarily presuppose love or have it annexed to it—if not formally, at least imperatively. That is, if it neither presupposes nor has annexed to it a formal act of love, at least it must be commanded by charity and love of God. For Contrition is detestation of sins on account of God, and consequently must necessarily presuppose some act of the will concerning God. But no other act besides love is intelligible: for because we love God, we detest the offense inflicted on Him. Therefore, since Contrition includes hatred of sins on account of God, it must necessarily be made from love and elicited from the motive of charity.

YOU WILL SAY: If love of God is necessary for true Contrition, then Contrition is superfluous for remission of sin. The inference is evident: for, as we have said many times, an act of charity suffices for justification and remission of sin. Therefore, when it precedes Contrition, it truly contributes to the remission of sin, and thus leaves nothing for Contrition to remit. — I DENY the inference: for either the act of Contrition is the same as the act of love of God, or it has that act annexed to it. If the first, Contrition is not useless for justification, since it is itself the final disposition for it. But if it only has an act of love annexed to it, so that the act of detestation of sins comes first and an act of love follows afterwards, or conversely, full remission of sins cannot take place outside the Sacrament until both acts have been elicited. For when someone remembers his sins, love of God alone without actual Penance does not suffice; nor can someone love God and remember that he has offended God without immediately detesting that offense. Thus in loving God he grieves that he offended Him, and in grieving he loves God more fervently.

It is now clear from what has been said that penance and contrition have the power to remit any sins—not formally, but only dispositively—as we taught in the eighth volume, when treating justification. The Council of Trent also indicates this in sess. XIV, ch. 4, when it says: “The movement of contrition in a man who has fallen after baptism finally prepares him for the remission of sins, if it is joined with confidence in divine mercy and the purpose of performing the other things required for rightly receiving this sacrament.” By these words it plainly teaches that contrition is indeed a disposition for obtaining pardon of sins, but is not the formal remission of sin of this kind: for a form cannot be a disposition toward itself, since some causality obtains between a disposition and a form, and this necessarily presupposes a distinction. Two things remain to be determined here: first, whether contrition, before the actual reception of the sacrament and as soon as it is formed, contributes to obtaining remission of sin; second, what sort of contrition and how intense it must be to produce this effect.

NOTE 1. All theologians agree that when necessity presses and danger of death is imminent, contrition suffices to obtain remission of sin without the sacrament, provided there is a purpose to receive it if a priest could be had. Thus St. Bernard teaches this in Letter 78, concerning the contrition of a catechumen who has no occasion or opportunity to receive baptism. The Council of Trent plainly teaches the same in the place cited above, where it says: “The holy Synod further teaches that, although it sometimes happens that this contrition is perfected by charity and reconciles a man to God before this sacrament is actually received, nevertheless that reconciliation is not to be attributed to contrition itself without the desire for the sacrament, which is included in it.” Yet there are some who, with Estius, In IV Sent., d. 17, § 2, think that it happens neither ordinarily nor frequently, much less always, but rarely, that before the priest’s actual absolution a sinner is absolved before God. Whether or not this opinion is true will be determined in the first conclusion.

NOTE 2. One object can be loved or hated more than another in three ways. First, objectively, when we will and desire greater goods for it than we will for another. Second, intensively, when it is loved with greater effort and ardor than any other, so that the act of love toward it has more degrees of intensity than any other act of love toward another object. Third, estimatively, when it is valued more than another, so that in order to attain or preserve the loved object any other thing would be relinquished, whether meanwhile that loved object is loved more intensely and with greater effort or not. Thus we say that we love God estimatively when we prefer him to anything lovable. Similarly, we are said to hate something estimatively, or in comparison with another thing, when we would rather suffer any other evil than that one. Thus a person is said to hate sin when he would rather endure any other evil than commit sin and mortally offend God. Now intensive love, and likewise intensive sorrow, differ greatly from estimative love and sorrow in this: the former belongs to the subject and faculty that acts with greater or lesser effort, whereas the latter belongs to the object, which is more valuable within its own order of lovableness or hatefulness.

NOTE 3. The Seraphic Doctor, In IV Sent., d. 26, pt. 1, a. 2, q. 1, says that one intensity of love is sensitive, another intellectual. The former accompanies an act of the sensitive appetite; the latter an act of the will insofar as it is will. The former resembles the love with which a mother loves her child with tenderness of heart; the latter the love of a father who loves that same child with constancy and firmness of mind, since he exposes himself to danger for the child’s enrichment or preservation. Furthermore, in the will there is one intensity of love according to the lower part, arising from the soul insofar as it is joined to the body; another according to the higher part, which is governed by the direction of faith and grace and consists in valuing one object willed for its own sake more than another. It is certain that everyone is bound to love God more than father or mother with rational, or intellectual, love and according to the higher part, at least estimatively, more than any created object. It is equally certain that we are not bound to love God more, or more intensely in tenderness according to the lower part of the will. For even the holiest men experience greater tenderness of heart toward their children than toward God, and feel more sensitive sorrow at their children’s death than at losing God through sin, although they would rather that everything else cease to exist and that they lose all their children than mortally offend God. The question, then, is whether we are bound to love God more in another way, and consequently to repent more through contrition.

First conclusion. — PERFECT CONTRITION SUFFICES FOR THE REMISSION OF SIN WITHOUT THE SACRAMENT, EVEN OUTSIDE A CASE OF NECESSITY, WITHOUT ACTUAL RECEPTION OF THE SACRAMENT, PROVIDED THAT THERE IS A DESIRE TO RECEIVE IT. This is the more common opinion among theologians, and

It is proved first by the authority of Scripture. Contrition is no less efficacious under the Gospel Law than under the Mosaic Law; but under the latter it sufficed to obtain remission of sin as soon as it was conceived. Therefore it will suffice for this now as well. The major premise is established, since the grace of the New Law is far more abundant than that of the old, and we now obtain remission of sins more easily than the children of the Synagogue did. The minor premise is proved first by the example of David, who, having scarcely turned to God through penance, spoke these two words in 2 Samuel 12: “I have sinned against the Lord,” and immediately heard from the prophet Nathan: “The Lord also has taken away your sin.” He expressly said, “The Lord has taken it away,” to signify that as soon as David’s act of contrition had been formed, God at once granted him pardon. — The royal Prophet himself testifies to this when he says in Psalm 31: “I said, I will confess my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the wickedness of my sin.” On these words St. Augustine adds: “He does not yet declare it, but promises that he will declare it, and He already forgives. Attend, brothers: a great thing—‘I said, I will declare it,’ and you forgave; for by saying ‘I will declare it’ he shows that he had not yet declared it. To say ‘I will declare it’ is itself to declare it; therefore you forgave the wickedness of my heart. My confession had not yet come to my mouth, for I had said, ‘I will declare against myself’; nevertheless God heard the voice of my heart. My voice was not yet in his ear, but God’s ear was already in my heart.” The Prophet adds: “For this”—that is, on this account—“every saint will pray to you in a timely moment,” so that he too may rise at once through contrition and likewise obtain pardon of sins. Cassiodorus agrees on the same words of the Psalm, saying: “Great is God’s mercy, that sin is forgiven at the mere promise, for a purpose is reckoned as an action.” — The same truth is inferred from Ezekiel 33: “The justice of the just man will not deliver him on whatever day he sins, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not harm him on whatever day he turns from his wickedness.” Here “day” is taken to mean an hour or a moment, according to Hebrew usage, as when God said to Adam in Genesis 2: “On whatever day you eat of it, you shall die.” From this one may argue as follows: the Prophet speaks in the same way of recovering justice through the sinner’s conversion as of losing and forfeiting it through the just man’s turning away. But the just man loses justice as soon as sin occurs. Therefore the sinner who turns to God through true contrition formed by charity is at once freed from sin; otherwise his wickedness would harm him on the day he turns. — This is confirmed by Isaiah 30. Where the Vulgate reads, “At the voice of your cry, as soon as he hears it, the Lord will answer you,” the Seventy translate: “When you return and groan, then you shall be saved.” He expressly says “then” to signify that no delay intervenes between the sinner’s return through contrite groaning and his salvation by the grace of justification. St. Leo explains this admirably in Letter 89, otherwise 71. Speaking of satisfaction and of reconciliation not to be denied to penitents at the end of life, he says: “For those who, in a time of necessity and the urgency of imminent danger, seek the help of penance and then at once seek reconciliation, neither satisfaction is to be forbidden nor reconciliation denied, because we can set no measure to God’s mercy or determine its time. With him conversion suffers no delay in pardon, since the Spirit of God says through the Prophet: ‘When you return and groan, then you shall be saved.’” Although there he speaks only of penitents at the end of life, nevertheless, by using the Prophet’s words, he signifies that whether in necessity or outside it, whenever anyone returns and groans, then—that is, at that very moment and without any delay—he will be saved. Consequently there is no danger in granting reconciliation in the Church’s forum to someone at the point of death, since he has already truly been reconciled before God. Pope Celestine interprets these words of the Prophet in the same way in his Letter to the Bishops of Gaul, ch. 2, where he says: “True conversion is to be measured by the mind rather than the body, as the Prophet says: ‘If you turn back, you will be saved.’”

It is proved secondly from the bulls of the supreme pontiffs Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Urban VIII, in which these propositions of Baius are condemned. The first is n. 31: “Perfect and sincere charity, arising from a pure heart, a good conscience, and unfeigned faith, can exist without remission of sins in catechumens as well as penitents.” The other is n. 37: “Through contrition, even when joined with perfect charity and the desire to receive the sacrament, guilt is not remitted outside a case of necessity or martyrdom without actual reception of the sacraments.” Those who condemn this doctrine consequently assert that contrition joined with perfect charity and the desire for the sacrament remits guilt outside a case of necessity or martyrdom without actual reception of the sacrament of penance. They therefore hold that such contrition has this power whenever it is present. This is confirmed by the Catechism of Pius V, which, treating contrition at n. 39, says: “Nor should the faithful despair in this matter of God’s supreme goodness and clemency, for, since he most earnestly desires our salvation, he delays no time in granting us pardon, but embraces us with paternal love as soon as the sinner has gathered himself together.” And below, n. 42: “Contrition itself, the Prophet says, is a contrite and humbled heart that God will not despise. Indeed, that God grants us remission of sins as soon as we have conceived contrition in our minds is declared by those words of the same Prophet elsewhere: ‘I said, I will confess my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the wickedness of my sin.’ We also see a figure of this in the ten lepers, who, sent by our Savior to the priests, were cleansed of leprosy before they reached them. From this we may learn that true contrition, as was said above, has such power that by its benefit we at once obtain from the Lord pardon for all our offenses.”

The theological argument also supports this. Contrition is the final disposition for sanctifying grace; consequently, once it is perfectly in place, sanctifying grace must also be present at the same time. When the final disposition is posited, the form is posited; but in the ordinary course sanctifying grace does not coexist with sin. Therefore contrition necessarily and infallibly brings remission of all sins. Furthermore, contrition is either formally an act of charity, or virtually such an act, or at least has an act of charity joined to it. But, as we said above, charity necessarily brings remission of sin with it, since love of God truly makes a man God’s friend. For Proverbs 8:17 says: “I love those who love me.” Sirach 31:15: “The eyes of God are upon those who love him.” 1 John 4:7: “Everyone who loves is born of God”; and v. 16: “God is charity, and whoever remains in charity remains in God, and God in him.” John 14:21: “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father”; and v. 23: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him” (through sanctifying grace) “and make our dwelling with him.” But God cannot make his dwelling in a sinful soul, nor can a sinful soul remain in God. Consequently, since God hates sinners and loves those who love him, anyone who loves God must be saved from sin so that he may be loved by God.

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. ESTIUS: We must reason about the remission of sin through contrition in other sinners in the same way as in Mary Magdalene the penitent. But her sins were not remitted by the power of contrition and love as soon as she formed that act. For in Luke 7 Christ said of her, “Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much,” thereby signifying that he was then forgiving her sins on account of her preceding act of contrition and charity. Estius confirms this by the example of the martyrs Genesius and Emerentiana, who are said to have been baptized in¹ their own blood. It would seem that the baptism of desire should be attributed to them rather than baptism of blood, if the former, like the latter, had the power to justify immediately. So too St. Paul, though wondrously converted and therefore possessing perfect contrition, nevertheless heard Ananias say to him in Acts 22²: “Rise and wash away your sins.” Therefore his contrition did not have the power to remit sins immediately. — I DENY THE MINOR PREMISE. Since Magdalene’s conversion was extraordinary and had the most outstanding signs of true and perfect love, I do not doubt that before Christ said of her, “Many sins are forgiven her,” etc., she had in fact been cleansed from sins by the power of contrition. Hence those words did not signify that remission was then taking place, but that it had already taken place at the instant of her love and contrition; thus they declared or at least confirmed a remission already accomplished. The same is true of the words of sacramental absolution when spoken over sins already once forgiven: they signify at the same time that the sin has truly been remitted as to the debt of guilt, and additionally release it as to the debt of punishment and unworthiness. Hence, some time later, Christ again said to the same Magdalene, “Your sins are forgiven you.” These words did not signify a repeated absolution of sin but confirmation of the prior one, just as in Mark 7 he said to the woman already healed of the flow of blood: “Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.” Nor is it an objection that St. Augustine said of her in Homily 32 among the Fifty: “She came to the Lord unclean to return clean, she came sick to return healed, she came confessing to return professing.” This, I say, is no objection: he speaks of her coming insofar as it included her initial intention to approach, or certainly of the time when, as she approached the Lord, she perhaps did not yet have contrition perfected by charity. — As for the example of the holy martyrs Genesius and Emerentiana, I say that remission of their sins should be attributed to baptism of blood rather than baptism of desire: first, because, as Bosco rightly says, disp. 6, n. 829, baptism of blood is more certain, since it is an external act; second, because it is more efficacious, as it erases all guilt and all debt of punishment; finally, because ordinarily it includes, or at least presupposes, baptism of desire, since death for the faith of Christ is an outstanding act of charity, at least materially, according to Christ’s saying in John 15:13: “Greater love than this no one has, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Finally, regarding the example of St. Paul, one may answer that Ananias spoke in this way either because he was uncertain whether St. Paul had perfect contrition sufficient to obtain pardon of sins, or because he judged that temporal punishments due for sins already remitted still remained to be washed away. Although these do not stain the soul, they are nevertheless called sins, much as concupiscence is called sin because it arises from sin. Such punishments are said to be washed away in baptism because they are relaxed and forgiven through the sacrament of washing.

OBJECTION 2. Contrition in a penitent who desires to receive the sacrament of penance is no more efficacious than in a catechumen who desires to receive baptism. But in the latter it does not suffice for remission of sin until he is baptized. For St. Augustine says, Tractate 13 on John: “However much a catechumen may progress, he still carries the burden of his iniquity; it is not forgiven him until he comes to baptism. As the people of Israel were not freed from the Egyptian people until they came to the Red Sea, so no one is freed from the burdens of sins until he reaches the font of baptism.” Therefore sin is not forgiven any penitent, however contrite, until he has received the sacrament of absolution. — I DENY THE MINOR PREMISE. As for St. Augustine, I say either that he speaks of what happens commonly, since few catechumens truly have perfect contrition before baptism, and so they ordinarily remain in sin until they are baptized; or that he meant that complete remission of sins as to both punishment and guilt cannot be obtained except through baptism. For although a catechumen obtains remission of guilt by virtue of contrition, ordinarily the debt of punishment still remains to be expiated; or, finally, I say that Augustine there speaks of catechumens who neglect to approach baptism and consequently lack an efficacious desire and purpose to receive it, and therefore do not have perfect contrition. Thus St. Bernard says admirably in Letter 77: “Just as no penance remits sin for a man if, when he can, he does not restore what he took, so faith profits this man nothing if, when he can, he does not receive the sacrament of baptism. Indeed, he is shown not to have perfect faith if he neglects it; for true and complete faith embraces all the commandments, and this is a true and indeed the chief commandment. He will therefore rightly be judged not faithful but plainly rebellious and contemptuous if he refuses to obey. How, indeed, is he faithful who despises God’s sacrament?” That this was St. Augustine’s meaning is clear from the text itself, for he says: “Lest anyone, in arrogance over possessing an abundance of some grace, disdain to be baptized with the baptism of the Lord.” Immediately afterward he adds: “However much a catechumen may accomplish,” etc.

OBJECTION 3. The Council of Trent, sess. XIII, ch. 7, speaking of preparation for the Eucharist, says: “Ecclesiastical custom declares that this examination is necessary, so that no one conscious of mortal sin, however contrite he may seem to himself, ought to approach the Holy Eucharist without prior sacramental confession.” And in canon 11: “The holy Synod itself decrees and declares that those burdened in conscience with mortal sin, however contrite they may consider themselves, must necessarily make sacramental confession beforehand when a confessor is available.” But cleansing from sins suffices for the proper disposition required for duly receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist. Therefore, since besides confession the Council still requires absolution, this is a sign that it does not consider contrition to have the power to remit sins outside a case of necessity without actual reception of sacramental absolution. — I DISTINGUISH THE MINOR PREMISE: true cleansing from sins suffices, I grant; merely supposed cleansing, I deny. The Council does not deny that true and perfect contrition suffices for the proper reception of the Eucharist; it denies only that contrition merely supposed to be perfect suffices. Hence it did not say, “However contrite he is,” but “however contrite he seems to himself,” and “however contrite they consider themselves,” so as to remove and restrain the vanity and presumption of certain people who trust themselves too rashly and, supposing they have perfect contrition when in fact they do not, neglect and scorn the benefit of absolution, which they could obtain easily when an opportunity to confess is given. Add that, since true contrition must be a supernatural act, a person can scarcely know whether he has it. For in our present state our intellect depends in its operations on phantasms and cannot judge when an act is supernatural. The Council therefore rightly advises and takes care that no one approach the Eucharist before using the means and remedies by which he can be more certain and secure that he is not wholly unworthy to partake of so great a sacrament. “For,” the Council says in the same place, ch. 7, “the more a true Christian knows the holiness and divinity of this heavenly sacrament, the more diligently he must take care not to approach to receive it without great reverence and holiness.”

OBJECTIONS. 1. The Tridentine Catechism says at n. 16: “Since very few would attain this degree of contrition, it followed that pardon of sins by this way was to be hoped for by very few; therefore the most merciful Lord had to provide for the salvation of men in a more accessible way, which he accomplished by a wonderful plan when he entrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Therefore very few obtain pardon through contrition before receiving the sacrament. — I ANSWER that nothing can be inferred from this against our assertion. For although we recognize that very few elicit perfect contrition, it would nevertheless always be entirely true that whoever had an act of perfect contrition, in necessity or outside it, would truly obtain remission of sin. From this it is clear how empty and slight are the grounds on which Estius’s particular opinion rests.

Second conclusion. — TO BE PERFECT, CONTRITION MUST DETEST SIN ABOVE ALL EVILS, IF NOT INTENSIVELY, AT LEAST APPETITIVELY; CONSEQUENTLY, TO JUSTIFY OUTSIDE THE SACRAMENT, NO GRADUAL DEGREE OF INTENSITY IS REQUIRED. This seems to be the opinion of the Seraphic Doctor, In IV Sent., d. 16, pt. 1, a. 2, q. 1, where he says: “It must be said that when the amount of sorrow is in question, sorrow can mean rational displeasure, or the passion in the sensitive part that results from it. If it is taken in this second sense, I say it is not necessary to grieve over sin more than over a temporal thing. Nor is such grief necessary, since it is not in everyone’s power: this sorrow does not follow from love but from affection, and affection from experiential knowledge. Since not everyone has experience of divine love, not everyone feels sorrow for sins in this sensible way. Nevertheless, to grieve even more sensibly over sin than over some loss is a perfection and fitting, but not necessary. But if sorrow means rational displeasure, I say that displeasure is measured according to the amount of charity. The amount of charity can be taken in two ways: in itself or in comparison with other loves. In itself, it may be small, greater, or greatest. In comparison with other loves, I say that it claims dominion in the heart as long as it is there, and is never there unless it is mistress. Hence I say that to have charity, it is necessary to love God above all. Do you doubt what it means to love God above all? This means”—St. Bonaventure continues—“to love God above all, so that for no loss or gain would one wish to offend God. The same is to be understood of the displeasure of contrition. Hence I say that sin must so displease reason that one would in no way, for any advantage or disadvantage, wish to consent to it or to have consented to it. The will of those who consent to sin for some reason is not just.” And below he says: “If, then, it is asked whether the sorrow of contrition must be greatest: if this means sensitive sorrow, the answer is clearly no. If it means rational displeasure, either as to the absolute intensity of the movement—and in this respect it need not be greatest—or in comparison with other sorrows, I say, as I do of love, that it must have predominance. That this predominance does not consist in degrees of intensity is clear from what precedes.”

Therefore, in the mind of this holy man, an exemplary Doctor of the Church, justifying contrition requires no determinate degree of intensity—as our Bosco rightly concludes, disp. 6, sect. 2, canon 8—but however slight it may be, it can suffice for remission of sin, provided it is elicited because God has been supremely offended and is formed by charity.

St. Chrysostom plainly teaches this truth in his Letter 17 to Theodore after his fall, cited in On Penance, dist. 3, ch. Talis. He says: “Believe me, God’s mercy toward men is such that he never rejects repentance if it is offered to him sincerely and simply. Even if someone has reached the summit of evils and then wishes to return to the path of virtue, he receives him and gladly embraces him, doing everything to restore him to his former state. What is still more remarkable and outstanding: even if someone has not been able to complete the whole order of satisfaction, God does not reject repentance however slight or brief its duration, but receives it and does not allow the reward of even the smallest conversion to be lost.”

The Seraphic Doctor proves the conclusion in the place cited above. First, greater is the sorrow that has no joy joined to it; but sorrow of contrition has some joy joined to it, since the penitent ought both to grieve for sins and to rejoice in grieving, as St. Augustine says. Indeed, the contrite person rejoices in being delivered from sin and in similar things, whereas sorrow over the loss of a parent³ or child has no joy joined to it. Therefore contrition need not be most intense by a gradual intensity. Second, one ought to grieve more over what has been lost and cannot be restored than over what can be recovered and has in fact been recovered. But parents or children who have died cannot be restored in this mortal state except by a miracle, whereas God, lost by the penitent through sin, can be recovered and is in fact possessed again through contrition. Therefore, and so on. Third, however slight sanctifying grace may be, it erases all guilt. Therefore, similarly, however slight the sorrow of contrition may be, if it has grace and charity joined to it, it will suffice to erase all guilt. This is confirmed because contrition stands to sanctifying grace, for which it disposes, as the final disposition: the final disposition must be proportioned to the form for whose reception it prepares or disposes the subject. But sanctifying grace, which remits sins and for which contrition disposes, is not necessarily most intense and requires no certain degree of intensity below which it would not suffice to erase sin. Therefore however slight and small contrition may be, it will suffice to effect remission of sin. Finally, that the sorrow of contrition need not be most intense or greatest intensively, and need not have any determinate degree of intensity, is shown and supported by examples. David truly had contrition for the sins of adultery, murder, and empty vainglory in numbering the people; yet his contrition was not most intense, for he showed more intense grief at the death of his son Absalom (2 Samuel 18)⁴. St. Paula also truly had contrition, for she was a most holy and penitent woman; yet her sorrow of contrition was not most intense, since she experienced more intense grief at the death of her children. Jerome says in her Life that at their death she was so overcome that she was always in danger of her life, but she never felt such sorrow for her offenses against God.

The reason is that what is most intense is not more intense in one person than in another, whereas one penitent’s sorrow is more intense than another’s, as in David, Magdalene, and Peter. No determinate degree or measure of intensity is required, because in Scripture God promises pardon to the contrite without qualification, imposing no limit on the degree of intensity of sadness or sorrow. Zechariah 1: “Turn to me, and I will turn to you.” Tradition likewise nowhere assigns a determinate degree of contrition or measure of its intensity. Therefore no such degree is fixed below which contrition does not suffice, provided it has the proper motive and object. The reason is that if a fixed degree or measure of intensity were required in contrition, the penitent would have the proper measure of sorrow by chance, not by choice, which is absurd.

The Doctor does not oppose this truth, as Hiquaeus contends in his Commentary on d. 14, q. 2, n. 97, where he defends the contrary opinion. For if the Doctor asserted anywhere that some intensity in the act of contrition is necessarily required, he would seem to do so most of all in d. 27, n. 19, where, speaking of infused habit and supernatural act, he appears to distinguish it from a natural act by a further intensity: “Of the third I say,” he writes, “as was said in d. 17 of the first book, that the habit of charity, as regards the substance of the act, gives it a certain further intensity which the same power, with equal effort, cannot give to its own act.” But in fact the contrary is not proved from this. For the Subtle Doctor reasons as follows in the same distinction, n. 16: “Of the first I say that ‘above all’ can be understood extensively: for example, that one loves God more than all other things, so that one would sooner wish all other things not to exist than that God not exist; and intensively: for example, one wishes God well with greater affection than anyone else. It is commonly granted concerning the first member that nothing other than God, nor all things together, are to be desired as much as God. Concerning the second, one distinction is made: love surpasses love either because it is more ardent or tender, or because it is stronger and firmer. These loves are said to surpass one another in the way a mother is said to love her son more tenderly and ardently, but a father more strongly and firmly, because he would expose himself to greater danger for love of his son. In this way it is said that love of God must be above all as regards firmness, so that nothing else can pull one away from it; but it need not be above all as regards ardor, tenderness, and sweetness, since sometimes someone finds that he loves a creature more ardently than another loves God.” Since this distinction does not please him, he argues against it as follows: “Only what is loved more firmly is loved more. For I love those things more for which I am less willing that evil should occur, and for whose good I expose myself more to save them out of love, because exposure follows love; I speak of love that is an act of the will, not of the passion of the sensitive appetite. Therefore, if some are said to love more ardently or tenderly, yet do not love more firmly, this is not due to an excess of intellectual love in them, but perhaps to a passion of sensitive love. Thus some who are called devout feel a greater sweetness than others who are far more solid in the love of God and would endure martyrdom a hundred times more readily. Sweetness is not an elicited act of the will, but a passion bestowed on the act, by which God attracts and nourishes the little ones lest they fail on the way.” From this the Doctor concludes: “I say, then, that ‘above all’ must be understood in both ways, namely extensively and intensively. For just as I am bound to love God above all other things extensively, so also with greater affection than anything else.” Do you doubt whether this means greater affection on the side of the subject, that is, according to degrees of intensity, or on the side of the object, that is, according to its essence? He continues: “And I say ‘greater’ simply, because it is more opposed to the effect posited, since one could more easily be inclined to the opposite of love for anything else than to the opposite of love for God.” Therefore, according to the Doctor’s mind, the person who loves God above all intensively is one who could more easily be inclined to the opposite⁵ of love for any other thing than to the opposite of love for God. Therefore a greater affection on the side of the object, that is, according to its essence, is not required.

This interpretation is confirmed by the note prefixed to the already cited n. 16. Scotus, it says, holds that God must be loved above all intensively and extensively, and for that reason it is attributed to him that he thinks we are bound to a love of God more intense than any other. Valentia, IIa IIae, d. 3, q. 1, pt. 1, says that no one except Scotus holds this. But Scotus does not hold it, and many others do. Scotus says only that God must be loved above all extensively and intensively, as others explain these terms: that is, God must be loved more tenderly and firmly than other things, since he regards intensity in those two senses as one and the same; but he does not say that God must be loved with a greater love by degrees, only with greater affection, for which a greater appetitive tendency, or an affection more exclusive of its opposite, suffices. Thus one may infer that by the further intensity which the Doctor says the habit of charity gives to a supernatural act in the aforesaid n. 19, he does not mean intensity on the side of the subject, or gradual intensity, but intensity on the side of the object, or essential intensity. “As regards the substance of the act”—that is, its generic character, which is derived from the object and the mode of tendency known by natural light—it gives a further intensity, that is, a correspondence with the object by which the act is constituted in the specific character of a supernatural act. Bosco, n. 246 and following, confirms this interpretation admirably, saying that no more suitable reason for this assertion can be given than that an obligation of this kind should not be prescribed to people unless its foundation is apparent and can be inferred from Scripture, the Councils, or the holy Fathers. But the necessity of such intensity in the act of contrition is inferred from none of these sources, as will appear from the response to the objections and arguments for the opposing opinion.

OBJECTIONS, THEN. 1. With Hiquaeus, n. 97, various passages of Sacred Scripture seem to suggest that just any sorrow does not suffice for true penance, but that the greatest and most intense is necessary. This is evident from Joel 2: “Turn to me with all your heart, in fasting, weeping, and mourning; tear your hearts and not your garments,” etc. Similarly, Deuteronomy 4: “If you seek the Lord your God, you will find him, provided you seek him with all your heart and all the anguish of your soul.” And Deuteronomy 30: “If, moved by sorrow of heart … you return to the Lord with all your heart and all your soul … he will have mercy on you.” 1 Kings 8: “If they sin against you … and return to you with all their heart and all their soul … you will be propitious to your people.” 2 Chronicles 30: “The Lord, who is good, will be propitious to all who seek him with their whole heart.” Jeremiah 29: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” — I ANSWER that these and similar passages of Scripture do indeed establish that turning away from sin and turning toward God are required for the sinner’s justification. A man must truly put aside every inclination to sin, turn away with his whole heart from creatures that were occasions of sin for him, and turn toward God. But it is not necessary that he do so with the greatest affection and contrition of soul. These passages therefore establish that turning to God with the whole heart includes withdrawing the heart from every love opposed to love of God and involves detesting all sins for God’s sake, with the purpose not to sin again. Such conversion is made with the whole heart even if by a less intense act: it is made with an undivided heart, no part of the heart remaining in an affection for sin. Thus to love God with the whole heart means nothing other than to love him more than finite loves; for we give him our undivided heart when we love nothing more than him. To repent with all the anguish of one’s soul is to be displeased with one’s sins and take pleasure in none.

OBJECTIONS 2. Various authorities of the holy Fathers seem to require for true contrition and penance the greatest sorrow of soul, especially for graver sins. Thus St. Cyprian, in his treatise On the Lapsed, says among other things: “As great as our offenses have been, so greatly let us weep. Let diligent and prolonged medicine not be lacking to a deep wound; let penance not be less than the crime … We must pray more earnestly and plead, spend the day in mourning, pass the nights in vigils and tears, occupy all our time with tearful lamentation, lie prostrate on the ground, cling to ashes, wear sackcloth, and beat our hearts,” etc. Similarly St. Ambrose, Exhortation to a Fallen Virgin, ch. 8, says: “But how great and what sort of penance do you think is needed, such as equals the crimes or at least exceeds them? Consider, then, whether this sin of adultery is simple, or whether it is doubled by the murder committed in secret; and a great measure of penance must be applied according to the weight of the conscience.” Below he says: “Let the heart melt like wax, let it torment itself with fasts,” etc. A little later he adds: “A great crime requires great satisfaction. One must grieve more strongly, because the sin is stronger.” Likewise St. Augustine, Letter 54 to Macedonius, cited in On Penance, dist. 3, ch. 33, introduces a sinner speaking as follows: “Either grant me again the opportunity to repent, or allow me in despair to do whatever I please.… Or, if you turn me away from this wickedness, tell me whether it will profit me in the future life if in this life I spurn the enticements of this most alluring pleasure, restrain the provocations of lust, deprive myself of many things both lawful and permitted in order to chastise my body, exercise myself in repentance more vehemently than before, groan more vehemently, weep more freely, live better, support the poor more generously, and burn more ardently with the charity that covers a multitude of sins. Who among us is so foolish as to say to this man, ‘None of this will profit you hereafter; go, at least enjoy the pleasures of this life’? May God avert such monstrous sacrilegious madness.” — I ANSWER that these and similar sayings of the Fathers teach that, in doing penance, the sinner should deliberately apply all his effort and affection, not only to make satisfaction as far as he can for guilt and for the temporal punishment that remains to be paid after guilt is remitted, either in this age or in purgatory, but also to be more secure, lest by striving less he fail to offer sufficient satisfaction. It is most certain that greater satisfaction is required to erase the punishment corresponding to greater guilt, both interiorly through sorrow and externally through good and penitential works. For we can make satisfaction for sins not only through punishments imposed at the priest’s discretion and judgment according to the measure of the debt, but also through those we willingly take upon ourselves. Therefore the holy Fathers prudently admonish us to undertake graver punishments for expiating crimes in proportion to their gravity. — In the same way we satisfy the Council of Trent, sess. XIV, ch. 1, where it says: “The fruit of baptism differs from that of penance. Through baptism we put on Christ and become in him an entirely new creation, obtaining full and complete remission of all sins. Yet we cannot attain this newness and integrity through the sacrament of penance without great tears and labors, since divine justice requires it; hence the holy Fathers rightly called penance a kind of laborious baptism.” The Council speaks here not of remission of guilt but of the whole punishment, which is freely remitted through baptism but in penance is relaxed only through great groans and labors. Therefore, in sess. VI, ch. 14, likewise assigning the difference between penance and baptism, it says that penance requires not only cessation from sins and detestation of them, or a contrite and humbled heart, “but also their sacramental confession, at least in desire, to be made in its proper time, and priestly absolution, as well as satisfaction through fasts, almsgiving, prayers, and other pious exercises of the spiritual life—not indeed for the eternal punishment, which is remitted together with guilt either by the sacrament or by desire for the sacrament, but for the temporal punishment which, as the sacred writings teach, is not always wholly remitted to them as it is in baptism.” Therefore neither the holy Fathers nor the Council require intense sorrow and the penitent’s utmost effort for perfect contrition in order to obtain remission of guilt, but only to obtain release from the whole punishment that ordinarily remains to be paid after guilt is remitted.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. God does not confer his grace except on one who does what lies within him. But he promises his grace to the one who has contrition. Therefore, to be truly contrite, a person must apply all his effort and affection. — I answer: the major premise is not to be understood as meaning that, in order to obtain grace, one must expend all one’s effort. There is scarcely anyone among mortals who performs and carries out what is commanded so perfectly that he could not do it in a still better way if he applied absolutely all his effort. Rather, it must be understood in this sense: to obtain from God through penance the grace of sanctification, a person must on his part use all the means necessary to prepare for this benefit. Or I say that he must do all that lies within him by loving God more appetitively than creatures, although he does not love him more intensely.

YOU WILL PRESS: That appetitive love or sorrow weakens concern for sins and diminishes contrition. Therefore it must be rejected. — I deny the antecedent. Sinners must be concerned not only with remission of sins as to guilt but also as to punishment. Since appetitive sorrow contributes only to remission of sins as to guilt, a penitent who has obtained that remission must still strive to obtain release from the punishment due for sins through intense sorrow and penitential works.

YOU WILL OBJECT 4. From the Roman Catechism, n. 36: “Contrition must not only be great but most vehement.” But the most vehement contrition is the most intense, since vehemence of sorrow is this kind of intensity. Therefore, and so on. — I deny the minor premise. By “most vehement contrition” the Catechism means nothing other than efficacious and active contrition, not ineffectual and sluggish contrition; hence it immediately adds: “and must exclude all sluggishness and idleness.” For it is written in Deuteronomy: “When you seek the Lord your God, you will find him, provided you seek him with all your heart and all the anguish of your soul.” And in Jeremiah, ch. 29: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart, and I will be found by you, says the Lord.” Although we may not be able to attain that degree, contrition can nevertheless be true and efficacious; for it often happens that things subject to the senses affect us more than spiritual things. Thus some people sometimes feel greater sorrow at the death of their children than at the foulness of sin. The same judgment applies if tears do not accompany the severity of sorrow, although tears are greatly to be desired and commended in penance. Hence the marginal note also says: “Even if contrition is not so great, it is nevertheless true.”

From these points follows the truth of the second part: contrition must be the greatest of sorrows estimatively or appreciatively. The cited sayings of Scripture show that God commands the sinner to turn to him with his whole heart, just as he commands this conversion to be made with weeping and mourning. But he commands it only as to affection, because weeping, mourning, fasting, and the like are not always free or possible for everyone, whether on account of natural insensibility or illness. Furthermore, we are commanded to be contrite with our whole heart in the same way that we are to love God. For, as the Tridentine Catechism, n. 37, says: “Just as God is the supreme good among all things to be loved, so sin is the supreme evil among all things men ought to hate. It follows that, for the same reason we profess that God must be loved supremely, we must also be seized by a supreme hatred of sin.” But we are bound to have the greatest love of God only estimatively, or appreciatively, preferring God to all things in love and being willing to relinquish anything rather than God or God’s friendship, even if we do not have the most intense love for him. Therefore we are bound only to hate sin above all evils, even if we do not have supremely intense hatred and sorrow. Hence the Catechism continues: “That God’s love must be preferred to all things, so that it is not permissible to sin even to preserve one’s life, is plainly taught by the Lord’s words,” Matthew 10: “He who loves father or mother more than me, or son or daughter above me, is not worthy of me.… Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” And, as St. Bernard testifies, no limit or measure is prescribed for charity, because the measure of loving God is to love him without measure; so no measure is to be set for detesting sin. The reason is that sorrow is greatest estimatively when we detest something as the greatest of all evils and to be detested above all; and love is greatest appetitively when we love something as the greatest of all goods and to be loved above all. But sorrow in contrition for the sin we have committed must be of this kind, for no evil is greater or worse than mortal sin, and we must esteem detesting it more highly than attaining any good or avoiding any other evil, because it is an evil that turns us away from our ultimate end.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Every sorrow that is greatest appetitively is also greatest intensively, because the more we value a thing lost, the greater the effort with which we grieve its loss; for sorrow over a lost thing arises from valuing and loving its goodness. But contrition is not the greatest sorrow intensively. Therefore it is not greatest appetitively either. — I deny the major premise. Although as a rule the intensive magnitude of sorrow arises from its appetitive magnitude, this is not absolutely necessary. Intensive magnitude of sorrow arises on the side of the subject and the effort by which sorrow is intensified to detest some evil; appetitive magnitude arises on the side of the object, which is hated above all other objects of sorrow. It often happens, however, that we grieve more intensely over something we value less appetitively, and conversely. Even the Saints often grieve inwardly more over the loss of children than over the debt of their sins, as Jacob did, who would not accept consolation over the loss of Joseph. But they do not have greater estimative sorrow over the loss of their children than over their sins; for they would rather have lost their children than mortally offended God. Even with bodily things, we often grieve more over what we esteem less: toothache or a burn on one’s finger is sharper and more intense than a lingering fever or plague, yet the sorrow caused by that fever is greater estimatively. The same is evident in love: an old father often loves his younger son more intensely and tenderly than his firstborn, but values the firstborn more appreciatively, since he wills and does greater goods for him.

YOU WILL SAY 2: A cause is known through its effect. But contrition does not have as great an effect of sorrow as other griefs, for tears are an effect and sign of sorrow; yet contrition does not produce as many tears as most other griefs, such as loss of children or property, disgrace, a wound, and the like. Therefore the sorrow of contrition is not greatest appreciatively. — I distinguish the major premise: known through the proximate and immediate effect, I grant; through a remote and mediate effect, such as tears in relation to sorrow of the soul, I deny it. For bodily changes follow immediately from passions and affections of the sensitive part. Hence tears flow more readily from sensible sorrow, or from a harmful sensible object, than from the spiritual sorrow of contrition. Tears are indeed to be desired in the contrite; for, according to St. Augustine, “There are no inward parts of Christian charity in you if you mourn the body from which the soul has departed, but do not mourn the soul from which God has departed.” The holy penitents also obtained pardon from God with tears. Nevertheless, true contrition can exist without tears, because tears are not in our power. Contrition must therefore be perfect, since the perfection of sorrow of soul is taken from choice, and the perfection of choice in sorrow is taken from our grieving over what is most grievous and detesting the evil most detestable above all, namely sin.

NOTE 1. Theologians agree that contrition must detest absolutely all sins, so that if a penitent took pleasure in any sin, his sorrow and contrition would be wholly useless; for, as St. James says, “Whoever sins in one thing has become guilty of all.” Since contrition is the final disposition for sanctifying grace, which cannot be obtained without man’s perfect conversion to God and turning away from everything that removes him from God, it is therefore necessary that, just as by every mortal sin a man turns away from God, so by contrition he turn his mind away from all sins and consequently detest them. Sacred Scripture teaches the same plainly in various places, especially in Ezekiel, ch. 18, v. 21: “If the wicked,” he says, “do penance for all his sins that he has committed, and keep all my precepts … he shall live, and shall not die.” And v. 28: “For considering and turning himself away from all his iniquities which he has committed, he shall live, and shall not die.” Likewise, v. 30: “Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not be your ruin.” Hence Pope Innocent II, in the Roman Council, ch. 22, cited in On Penance, dist. 5, ch. 8, says: “We admonish our brother bishops and priests not to allow the souls of the laity to be deceived by false penances and dragged to hell.” It is clear that penance is false when, though many sins are set aside, penance is done for only one, or when it is done for one in such a way that the sinner does not depart from another. Likewise St. Augustine, or whoever is the author of On True and False Penance, ch. 9, found in On Penance, dist. 3, ch. 42: “There are many who regret having sinned, but not wholly, reserving for themselves certain things in which they take pleasure; they do not perceive that the Lord delivered the deaf and mute man from the demon at the same time, thereby teaching us that we are never healed except of all our sins. If he had wished sins to be reserved in part, the man with seven demons could have progressed with one remaining after six were expelled. But he expelled all seven, to teach that all crimes must be cast out together. When he drove out the legion from another man, he left none of them to possess the man who had been freed, showing that even if there are a thousand sins, one must repent of them all.” Reason also supports this: first, when someone detests a sin out of love for God above all—that is, insofar as it is an offense against divine goodness, which he loves above all—it is impossible that an offense of the same kind should not displease him for the same reason wherever it is found, whether formally and explicitly, if the offense is expressly presented, or implicitly and virtually, if it does not specifically come to mind; second, contrition turns toward sins to be detested in the same way as faith toward objects to be believed. But faith cannot turn toward one object while denying another; therefore neither can contrition detest one sin if the penitent takes pleasure in others, since the motive is altogether the same in all. Just as you cannot keep the faith if you deny one article, neither can you have perfect contrition if you take pleasure in any sin. The difficulty, however, is how this detestation must be made: whether perfect contrition requires a person to grieve specifically for each sin one by one, or whether it suffices to detest them all generally.

NOTE 2. The Doctors also agree that if the occasion is pressing, there is no time or opportunity to recall each mortal sin, and clear danger of death is imminent, it suffices for perfect contrition to detest all sins together, conceived confusedly. Sorrow for sins in a confused manner is nothing other than the sorrow a sinner feels because he knows that he has offended God, without any prior examination of conscience; he forms this or a similar act: “I regret having offended God, on account of his supreme goodness and glory, however I may have done so, and I firmly purpose not to sin again and to confess these sins if the opportunity arises.” That this sorrow suffices in such distress is evident; otherwise that man would have no sufficient means of salvation, and it would be false that God so often insists in the divine Scriptures that whenever the sinner groans, he shall live. The difficulty is whether, when time and opportunity are available and a priest is present to whom he can confess, a man is bound to recall each sin distinctly to mind, both as to kind and number, and so grieve for them. On this there are two principal opinions among authors. The first is that of the Halensis, pt. 4, q. 17, memb. 3, a. 2, followed by many recent authors, who affirm that perfect contrition requires the penitent to grieve for each sin individually. The second is the opinion of the Subtle Doctor, d. 15, q. 1, n. 9, who maintains that true penance does not require contrition and satisfaction for each sin one by one, but that it suffices to do so generally and confusedly for absolutely all sins.

NOTE 3. Sorrow or detestation for each sin can occur and be done in two ways. First, a distinct sorrow and detestation may correspond to each sin according to its number or kind, so that there are as many acts of detestation as there are committed sins that come to mind. Second, it may mean that, after examination of conscience and recalling all the sins the penitent wishes to recall, he grieves for them and detests them generally in a single act. The question is whether a penitent, either outside the sacrament of penance or in receiving it, must recall each sin individually and detest each by a distinct act, and whether he ought to grieve more for graver sins and less for lighter sins.

First conclusion. — FOR PERFECT CONTRITION IT IS NOT NECESSARY THAT THE SINNER GRIEVE FOR AND DETEST EACH SIN INDIVIDUALLY. This is the Doctor’s view in the place cited above. Having said that it is not necessarily required for perfect satisfaction that it be individual either in kind or number, he adds: “That it need not be distinct by kind is evident, because contrition can correspond to this sin and to that, and it is the same in kind, especially if the objects are the same in kind. That it need not be distinct by number is evident, because one contrition for several things together in general can correspond to several of them; but then, for satisfaction to be total and undiminished, something of it must suffice for one sin and something for another—something, I say, not as actual integral parts, but as degrees of intensity: it must be of such a degree of intensity that a much lesser degree would suffice for one sin, and the additional degree would suffice for another. Several satisfactions, total or partial, can also correspond to one sin. They can be total because there is no sin that cannot be remitted by contrition alone, and then that alone is total satisfaction. The same sin can also be remitted by less intense contrition, with other punishments making up for the imperfection of the contrition. Intense contrition on one side and that same contrition in a less intense form together with other punishments on the other side differ also in kind, although they are equivalent in divine acceptance. In brief, therefore, a satisfaction does not correspond to each sin as its own in such a way that it corresponds to no other, nor does another correspond to that sin; rather, a satisfaction corresponds to each sin as its own for the time being, though another could be its own. I mean ‘its own for the time being’ either as distinct in itself or as something virtually included in the satisfaction.” So the Doctor says, and these words plainly explain our assertion.

It is proved: First, from the Tridentine Catechism, On Penance, n. 29, where it says: “The faithful must be most earnestly exhorted and admonished to strive to apply a particular sorrow of contrition to each mortal crime. For thus Hezekiah describes contrition when he says:” “I will recall to you all my years in the bitterness of my soul.” For to recall all one’s years is to examine sins individually, so that we may grieve for them from the heart. But we also read in Ezekiel: “If the wicked do penance for all his sins, he shall live.” And Augustine says to the same effect: “Let the sinner consider the kind of crime, its place, time, circumstances, and person.” Lest anyone suppose that these words were spoken as though such things were necessary for the remission of sins, the example is then added: “Yet let the faithful not despair on this account of the supreme goodness and clemency of God. For, since he is most desirous of our salvation, he delays no time in granting pardon, but embraces the sinner with paternal love as soon as he has gathered himself together, detested all his sins, and turned to the Lord, intending later, if opportunity allows, to recall each one to mind and detest it. For thus the Prophet bids us hope when he says: ‘The wickedness of the wicked shall not harm him on whatever day he turns from his wickedness.’” Thus far the Catechism.

It is also proved by reason: nothing should be asserted in a matter of the greatest importance concerning human salvation unless it has some foundation in Sacred Scripture, the Councils, or the holy Fathers. But none of these teaches that it is necessary for perfect contrition that a person regularly recall each sin individually and grieve for it. Therefore, and so on.

Furthermore, perfect contrition sufficient for the remission of sins can be made in an instant; but in an instant a person cannot recall each sin and grieve for it. Therefore, such individual contrition for each sin is not necessary. The minor premise is clear. The major is proved: first, true and perfect contrition does not require a long duration of time, as we said in the preceding question; second, the worst sinners can grieve for their sins and obtain pardon and forgiveness in a short time, as is clear from the example of the thief crucified with Christ the Lord. Hence Pope Celestine writes admirably in his Letter 2, To the Bishops of Gaul, ch. 2: “Let him despair of God’s clemency who does not believe that it can suffice, even in a moment, to help a dying man. The thief hanging on the cross at Christ’s right hand would have lost his reward if an hour of penance had not helped him; in his punishment he repented, and by a single confession he merited, with God’s promise, a dwelling in paradise. Therefore the true conversion to God of those at the point of death must be measured by the mind rather than by time, as the Prophet says: ‘When you groan, then you shall be saved.’” It is no objection that he speaks only of a man at the point of death. For if contrition in that case suffices for salvation, even though instantaneous and presupposing neither recollection nor individual detestation of all sins, why should it not likewise suffice whenever a sinner generally detests his sins because he has offended God?

Finally, when a penitent recalls some sin individually and forms perfect contrition for it, either he is reconciled to God before recalling and grieving for the other sins one by one, or he is not. If he is reconciled, then the other sins are forgiven him, for at least in the ordinary course it is impossible for a man to be at once God’s friend and his enemy. If he is not reconciled, the preceding contrition is useless, since it is frustrated of its effect. This cannot be said, especially since contrition is in itself the final disposition for sanctifying grace, through which we become friends of God and partakers of the divine nature. Therefore true and perfect contrition need not be made for each sin individually.

Nor does the Angelic Doctor oppose this assertion. Although in IIa IIae, q. 114, a. 5, and III, q. 87, a. 1, he seems to require for perfect contrition that the penitent recall each sin to mind, at least afterward, because of the obligation to confess them, even if they had already been remitted through contrition, nevertheless he does not deny that contrition formed generally for sins suffices for the true remission of sin. For in q. 28 of De Veritate, a. 5, ad 4, he says: “All sins agree in turning away from God, by reason of which they impede grace. Hence justification does not require that each sin be thought of at the very moment of justification; it suffices that the sinner think that by his guilt he has turned away from God. Individual recollection, however, must precede or at least follow justification.”

Nor does the Seraphic Doctor contradict this assertion. For when treating the same question in d. 16, pt. 2, a. 2, q. 1, he says: “It must be said that repentance for something is twofold: general and particular. It is general when a person grieves generally for every offense against God that he has committed; it is particular when he grieves for this or that one. I say, therefore, that one ought to repent generally for sins committed through ignorance, and say with the Prophet: ‘The sins of my youth and my ignorances,’ etc. One is not bound to repent of them individually, but is bound to do what lies within one’s power to know and recognize the sins. Sins are committed through ignorance of the law, and then, once the law is known, one recognizes that one has sinned, as, for example, someone who committed fornication without knowing it was a sin. Sins are also committed through ignorance of fact when due care was not taken; then they are made known by the Lord’s revelation, and one is bound to pray that the Lord pardon or reveal them.” Thus the Seraphic Doctor—although he speaks only of sins not known, he sufficiently indicates that he does not oppose our assertion.

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. Various passages of Scripture seem to teach that recalling each sin is necessary to obtain pardon. Thus Psalm 76: “I meditated in the night with my heart, and I was exercised, and I swept my spirit.” In Isaiah 38, King Hezekiah, speaking of contrition, says: “I will recall to you all my years in the bitterness of my soul.” In Ezekiel 8¹: “If the wicked do penance for all his sins, he shall give life to his soul; for considering and turning himself away from all his iniquities, he shall live.” But this consideration is nothing other than recalling each sin to mind. Therefore, and so on. —

I answer with the Tridentine Catechism cited above that these and similar sayings of Scripture indicate that it is indeed useful and most salutary to recall each sin to mind, insofar as this concerns remission of the whole punishment due for sins. For the more a sinner grieves for sins because they offend God’s supreme goodness, the more worthy he becomes to have those sins forgiven him not only as to guilt but also as to punishment.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. Contrition is the movement of man’s conversion to God, opposed to his turning away that took place through sin. But by every mortal sin a man has turned away from God. Therefore, he must also turn back by an individual act of contrition for each sin, and so on. — I answer that if this argument were valid, it would follow that sin could not be remitted unless as many acts of contrition were made as sins had been committed; thus a sinner guilty of many crimes could not repent of them when danger of death was imminent and pressing. Everyone denies this. Therefore, this argument establishes only that, for contrition to be perfect, it must arise from the motive of charity, which is man’s perfect conversion to God; consequently, through contrition the penitent turns sufficiently away from all sins and toward God.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. Through contrition the penitent performs an act of justice by which he satisfies God for his sins. Therefore there must be as many acts of contrition as there are sins. Furthermore, contrition is medicine for the soul, by which it must be healed of the wounds of sins; therefore a medicine must be applied for each wound of sin. — Denying both consequences: the first, because by a single satisfaction a sinner can punish and avenge in himself all the sins he has committed, just as a defendant guilty of several murders is said to pay an adequate penalty when he is condemned to death to expiate them. To the second consequence I say that curing an illness does not require several medicines when one is entirely sufficient in itself. A single act of contrition suffices to restore the soul’s health and wash away all sins; therefore it is not necessary to apply several acts of contrition.

Second conclusion. — PERFECT CONTRITION MUST DETEST UNEQUAL SINS UNEQUALLY, AND ONE’S OWN SINS MORE THAN ANOTHER’S. This is the common opinion, especially

The reason for the first part is clear: every act must be conformed and proportioned to its proper motive-object. But unequal sins participate unequally in the motive-object of detestation, which is nothing other than an offense against God. Therefore contrition for graver sins must be greater than for lighter ones.

The second part is also evident: one must detest one’s own sins more than another’s, so that a man ought to be more grieved over a mortal, and even venial, sin committed by himself than over a mortal sin committed by someone else. This is evident because the sin that must be avoided more is the one that must be detested more; but one’s own sin, even if only venial, must be avoided more than another’s mortal sin. St. Augustine teaches this plainly in bk. On Lying, ch. 9, where he says: “If it is asked which of the two a man who could not avoid both ought rather to avoid, I shall answer: his own sin rather than another’s, and his own lighter sin rather than another’s graver one.” From this one may conclude that even the least venial sin, such as a lie told to be helpful, must be detested more than another’s greatest mortal sin.

YOU WILL REPLY: Charity more strongly impels us to do what contributes more to God’s glory. But it contributes more to God’s glory that mortal sin be avoided than venial sin, whoever commits it. Therefore charity inclines us more to commit a venial sin than to allow our neighbor to sin mortally. — I distinguish the major premise: Charity impels us more when both things are directly ordered by God and he himself directs them to his glory, I grant; when something contributes to it only indirectly and accidentally, I deny it. God does not intend that I commit a venial sin in order to prevent my neighbor from committing a mortal one: first, because venial sin is not a means in itself ordered to preventing another’s graver sin, and would therefore be adopted in a disorderly way for such an end; second, because God wills me to love my own holiness, however small and slight, more than another’s, however great it may be. Hence I give greater glory to God when I avoid every sin than if I sinned lightly so that my neighbor would not offend God more gravely; third, although another’s sin is apprehended as a greater evil against God, God is nevertheless understood here and now not to will that I sin venially to avoid my neighbor’s grave sin. Since the law of true friendship altogether inclines us not to displease a friend in what he reasonably and prudently wills, it follows that I may not commit a lighter sin lest my neighbor commit a graver one. Finally, as St. Augustine explains lucidly in the same place: “If we open this way for sins, allowing lesser ones so that others may commit greater ones, everything will enter and reign within broad limits—or rather, without any limit, with every boundary torn down and removed, in infinite space. For once it has been settled that a man must sin less so that another may sin more, our thefts will certainly be used to prevent others’ adulteries; and if some impiety is seen, even worse than incest, we shall be said to commit incest too, if it could be done in such a way that others do not commit that impiety … What is this way of thinking but folly, or rather madness? For I must guard against damnation for my own iniquity, not another’s, whether it is committed in me or in others.”

YOU WILL PRESS: It is permissible to follow the examples of the Saints. But at times they wished to admit lesser sins to prevent graver ones in their neighbor, as is clear from Lot’s example. In Genesis 19 he said to the Sodomites: “I have two daughters who have not known a man; I will bring them out to you, and abuse them as you please, provided you do no harm to these men.” Therefore, and so on. — St. Augustine answers in the same place: “That righteous man, in fear of another’s sins—which cannot defile anyone unless he consents—was so disturbed that he did not consider his own sin, by which he wished to subject his daughters to the lusts of wicked men. When we read these things in the Holy Scriptures, we must not believe that because we think they happened, they must also be done, lest we violate the commandments by following examples indiscriminately. Or because David swore that he would kill Nabal, but in a merciful reconsideration did not do so, shall we say that he is to be imitated by our rashly swearing to do what we later see ought not to be done? Rather, fear drove Lot to wish to prostitute his daughters, just as anger stirred the just David to swear rashly.” Yet it will not be so difficult to excuse Lot, a righteous man, from every sin, as St. Augustine testifies above: “Unless someone should perhaps confine himself to such narrow straits in defending this man as to say that it is better to suffer injury than to inflict it; his guests, however, were not going to inflict injury but to suffer it. The righteous man preferred that his daughters suffer injury rather than his guests, by the right he had as their father, and knowing that they would not sin if this happened, since they would suffer the acts of sinners without consenting to them and thus without personal sin. Indeed, they offered themselves to be violated, though women in place of the male guests, so that their non-prevention of another’s lust would not make them consenting in their own will. Their father did not permit this to be done to himself when those men attempted it, nor did he betray his guests, although the evil would have been less if it had been done to one rather than two. But he resisted as much as he could, lest his own consent stain him; even if lustful fury had prevailed by bodily force, it would not have stained him against his consent. His daughters, however, were not sinning, and he too was not sinning, because he did not incite them to sin if they were violated; rather, he made them endure the sins of others, as if he were offering his servants to be beaten by wicked men, so that his guests would not suffer the injury of murder.” Thus far St. Augustine, excusing Lot’s act from sin because it was only the permitting of a lesser sin to prevent a greater one. It should be carefully observed, however, that he did not simply and absolutely urge the Sodomites to violate his daughters, but spoke comparatively: “Abuse them as you please, provided you do no harm to these men.” As if he said: if you wish to do one or the other, do what is lesser rather than what is greater.

NOTE 1. By the term Attrition theologians commonly mean that detestation and sorrow for sin which is made and conceived from some motive other than God himself, insofar as he is to be loved for his own sake and as supremely good in himself, from whom mortal sin turns us away. Moreover, the Council of Trent assigns a twofold motive for this sorrow, in sess. XIV, ch. 4, where, having distinguished Contrition in general as perfect and imperfect—the former it simply calls Contrition, while the latter it calls Attrition—it immediately adds: Attrition is so called because it is commonly conceived either from consideration of the shamefulness of sin or from fear of hell and punishments, etc. Here the two general motives of this Attrition are assigned, namely, the shamefulness of sin and fear of hell and punishments, to which all other motives can readily be reduced. For the desire for blessedness and fear of losing it are included under fear of hell and punishments; since by the term hell the Council understands not only the punishment of sense, but also the punishment of loss, or the absence of the enjoyment and possession of God, which the sinner would incur eternally if he did not repent and obtain admission to the remission of sin. For to fear the lack of some good is the same as to desire it, and conversely, to wish for the possession of some good is the same as to fear its loss and forfeiture. Hence fear of losing an object entails love of that object, and conversely, love entails fear. Thus the common saying: As great as the love in possessing was, so great is the sorrow in losing. Likewise, every other evil for which we detest sin is included under the shamefulness of sin, such as the mark of disgrace one would incur, not only before mortal men but also before God and the most blessed spirits, as well as the dreadfully disfigured, foul, and horrifying state of a soul corrupted by sin, etc.

NOTE 2. Attrition and Contrition agree in this, that each is sorrow of the mind and detestation for a sin committed, together with a purpose not to sin again. For that is how the Council of Trent defines Contrition in general, sess. XIV, ch. 1, when it says: Contrition, which holds the first place among the penitent’s acts—for it is sorrow and detestation for a sin committed, together with a purpose not to sin again. They also agree in this, that each is sorrow for sin on account of God offended. For Attrition, insofar as it is a means of obtaining remission in the sacrament of penance, must be sorrow for sin with some reference to God. Hence purely human disgrace that one would incur through sin, as well as any punishment insofar as it is inflicted only by a human being, could not be the motive of true and properly so-called Attrition, as Lugo observes, disp. 5, n. 11. For through Attrition a person must turn to God in order to obtain from him remission of sin by virtue of the sacrament of penance. But if one has sorrow for sin only on account of purely human disgrace, or on account of punishment to be inflicted by a human judge, that act is in no way a conversion to God, since it would in no way proceed from love or fear of God, but from fear of a human judge. A person who is moved not by fear or love of God but by fear of a human being in no way gives satisfaction to God, honors God, or prefers God to a creature; for he does not leave sin on account of some perfection he recognizes in God, but on account of the power of a created judge or something similar. Yet every true conversion requires turning away from sin and turning to God, just as sin involved turning away from God and turning to a creature. Therefore, just as turning to a creature was on account of some perfection perceived in that creature, so turning to God must be on account of some perfection of God himself: for example, his power to punish, which we fear; his goodness, which we love; or his superiority, which we obey, etc. Where, then, no perfection of God moves a person, there is no repentance of the kind God requires: namely, that by which a person recognizes something in God on account of which God must not be put second, but rather preferred to a creature. Hence not every shamefulness of sin and fear of punishment is a sufficient motive for Attrition, but only insofar as each has some reference to God—that is, insofar as sin is disobedience, irreverence, ingratitude toward God, or something similar. For all these ground sin’s shamefulness precisely as sin, insofar as it expresses opposition to God. Therefore one who detests sin under this aspect is moved by some excellence of God, in view of which he turns to God and prefers him to the creature whom he previously loved more than God. Third, they agree in this, that each has love of God, as the highest good, annexed to it, at least virtually. For one who truly grieves over having sinned on account of God offended must have love of God, at least virtual love: he grieves over having offended God in precisely the measure that he loves him. Finally, they agree in this, that both sorrow—of Attrition as well as of Contrition—is ordered to obtaining remission of sin through the sacrament of penance, received in fact or by desire.

NOTE 3. Attrition and Contrition differ from one another: first, as to their power and effect. For, the Council of Trent cited above says, Contrition sometimes reconciles a person to God by perfect charity before the sacrament of penance is actually received, provided there is a desire to receive it. Attrition, however, even with a desire to receive the sacrament of penance, does not suffice to obtain remission of sin outside the sacrament of penance, as the Council teaches in the same place, saying that although on its own it cannot lead a sinner to justification without the sacrament of penance, nevertheless it disposes him to obtain the grace of God in the sacrament of penance. Second, they differ in their principle, because Contrition is elicited by the virtue of penance insofar as it has charity annexed to it or is commanded by charity; Attrition, however, proceeds from the virtue of penance insofar as it has the virtue of hope annexed to it. For it sorrows over sin from fear of incurring hell and from fear of losing blessedness. This belongs to the virtue of hope, which, since it has God as its object insofar as he is a good for us and to be possessed by us, also tends toward what opposes and removes that possession, such as the shamefulness of sin and the danger of incurring hell. Third, they differ in their motive: perfect Contrition must be elicited from love of God as the highest good, loved above all things, and from the affection of charity; imperfect Contrition, however, must indeed be elicited from love of God as the highest good, to be loved above all things—not for his own sake, but for ours, or not insofar as he is good for himself, but insofar as he is our good, in whose possession our eternal happiness consists and in whose loss our supreme misery and unhappiness consist. Hence Contrition proceeds from the love of friendship, by which God is loved for his own sake. Attrition, however, proceeds from the love of desire, by which God is loved for our sake and as our good. Hence the love of hope, when compared with the love of charity, can be called imperfect and initial: imperfect, not absolutely, but relatively and comparatively, because its motive is less perfect than charity, which loves God only for his own sake and has no regard to the good of the one who loves; initial, because, as will appear below from St. Augustine, we are advanced and prompted by the love of hope itself and by fear of hell toward the love of charity. Thus this fear and love arising from the affection of hope is, as it were, the seed, first beginning, and initial stage of salvation, when it is conceived under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. For, the Council of Trent cited above says, that fear and love is a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, not yet indeed indwelling, but only moving, by which the penitent, helped by it, prepares the way to righteousness.

From these points it is clear that perfect Contrition is not distinguished from imperfect by duration, since prolonged sorrow is not required for perfect Contrition, as we have already said. Moreover, the sorrow of Attrition can last much longer than that of Contrition, since its object is, as it were, perceptible to the senses and affects the mind more powerfully than the object of Contrition. For people are moved more powerfully to flee something by fear of punishment than by love of righteousness. — Nor are Contrition and Attrition distinguished by intensity, since intense sorrow is not required for perfect Contrition: any sorrow, even one elicited at a low degree, is truly an act of Contrition if elicited from the supernatural motive of charity; but greater and lesser degrees do not change the species of a thing. — Finally, Contrition is not distinguished from Attrition on the ground that perfect Contrition is informed by habitual grace and charity, whereas Attrition is not, because it sometimes happens that Attrition is elicited by a person who is just and in a state of grace, while Contrition is produced by a person in a state of sin. Nor is this contradicted by the Council of Trent when it says, sess. XIV, ch. 1: And if it sometimes happens that this Contrition is perfect charity and reconciles a person to God before this sacrament of penance is actually received, etc. For by these words the Council does not mean that Contrition must always be elicited by a person who possesses the habit of charity. Otherwise, it would have said in vain at the beginning of the same chapter that an act of Contrition was necessary at every time for obtaining remission of sins, and that in one who had fallen after baptism it was at last a preparation for remission of sins. For one who possesses habitual charity has already obtained remission of sins, and therefore would be prepared in vain to obtain it. The Council therefore means only that Contrition is deemed perfect when elicited from the motive of charity, in which it differs from imperfect Contrition, which is not elicited from such a motive but only from the motive of hope.

With these points established, two matters remain to be determined in particular in this Question: first, whether sorrow for sins conceived from fear of hell is good and useful for salvation; second, whether Attrition—that is, sorrow elicited from fear of hell and from the affection of hope—suffices for remission of sins when joined to the sacrament of penance.

First conclusion. — ATTRITION, OR SORROW FOR SINS ELICITED FROM FEAR OF HELL OR FROM THE SHAMEFULNESS OF SIN, IS GOOD AND USEFUL FOR SALVATION.

This Conclusion is of faith, determined by the Council of Trent, sess. VI, can. 8, in these words: If anyone says that fear of hell, by which we flee to the mercy of God, grieving over our sins, or abstain from sin, is a sin or makes sinners worse, let him be anathema. And in sess. XIV, ch. 1, it defines that sorrow conceived from fear of hell and punishments, if it excludes the will to sin and is accompanied by hope of pardon, not only does not make a person a hypocrite and a greater sinner, but is also a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, not yet indeed indwelling, but only moving, by which the penitent, helped by it, prepares the way to righteousness.

This truth is proved first from Sacred Scripture, which commends servile fear in many places. Thus Proverbs 1: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom—an oracle which the Holy Fathers explain as referring to servile fear, for that is what begins wisdom, while filial fear brings it to perfection and completion. Likewise, Ecclesiasticus 2: The fear of the Lord drives out sin, because it disposes one to justification and the expulsion of sin, as St. Augustine, cited below, explains. Similarly, Isaiah 26: We have conceived and have been, as it were, in labor, and have brought forth the spirit; we have not wrought deliverance on earth. There the interpreters of the Septuagint read: From fear of you, O Lord, we conceived and brought forth the spirit of salvation and salutary penance.

The Holy Fathers unanimously teach this very thing, commending and extolling that fear. Thus St. Clement of Alexandria calls it an assistant of faith; St. Ambrose, the rudder of a wavering soul. Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women, ch. 2, says: Fear is the foundation of salvation; presumption is an obstacle to fear. St. Augustine teaches the same in many places, especially in his exposition of Psalm 127, where he distinguishes three kinds of fear: the first is fear of temporal evils, the second fear of hell or eternal punishments, and the third, finally, chaste fear. Concerning the first kind of fear he says: Some fear only for this reason: lest they suffer some evil on earth, lest sickness kill them, lest loss leave them bereft, lest they lose someone dear, lest they lack help, lest they be condemned, imprisoned, or undergo some tribulation. For this reason they fear and tremble. This fear is not yet chaste. Of the second kind he continues: Another person fears not suffering on this earth, but fears hell. The Lord too struck fear in people by this, as you heard when the Gospel was read: “Their worm will not die, and the fire will not be quenched.” People hear these things, and because they will truly befall the wicked, they fear and restrain themselves from sin; they have fear, and through fear they restrain themselves from sin. They fear, indeed, but do not love righteousness. Of the third kind of fear he adds: When through fear they restrain themselves from sin, a habit of righteousness is formed, and what was hard to love begins to grow sweet, and God grows sweet, and a person already begins to live righteously—not because he fears punishments, but because he loves eternity. Fear, then, is driven out by charity, but chaste fear succeeds it. What is this chaste fear? According to it, my brothers, we should understand what was said in Psalm 18: “Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways.” He explains this chaste fear there by comparing a chaste woman with an adulteress: “The chaste woman,” he says, “fears lest her husband depart; the adulteress, lest he come. What if both husbands are away? The adulteress fears he will come; the chaste woman, that he will delay.” Hence he later concludes: “Therefore, my brothers, chaste fear has this character: it comes from love. But that fear which is not yet chaste fears the Lord’s presence and punishments. It does whatever good it does out of fear—not from fear of losing that good, but from fear of suffering that evil. It does not fear losing the embraces of the most beautiful bridegroom, but fears being cast into hell. This fear too is good and useful; it will not last forever and ever, but it is not yet that chaste fear which lasts forever and ever. In what does chaste fear consist? I ask you again something by which you may question yourselves. If God were to come and speak to us in his own voice—although he does not cease speaking through his writings—and say to a person: ‘Do you want to sin? Sin. Do whatever pleases you. Whatever you have loved on earth shall be yours. Whoever has angered you, let him perish; whoever you wish to seize, let him be seized; whoever you wish to beat, let him be beaten; whoever you wish to condemn, let him be condemned; whoever you wish to possess, possess him. Let no one resist you, let no one say to you, “What are you doing?” Let no one say, “Do not do what you wish”; let no one say, “Why did you do it?” Let all those earthly things you coveted abound for you, and live in them not for a time but forever; only you will never see my face.’ My brothers, why do you groan, unless because chaste fear, which lasts forever and ever, has already been born? Why was your heart struck if God were to say, ‘You will never see my face’? Look: you will abound in all this earthly happiness and in every good; temporal goods will overflow in you, you will neither lose nor leave them. What more do you want? Chaste fear would indeed weep, groan, and say: ‘Rather, let all be taken away, so that I may see your face.’ Chaste fear would cry out from the Psalm and say: ‘God of hosts, turn us back, and show us your face, and we shall be saved.’ Chaste fear would cry out from the Psalm and say: ‘One thing I asked of the Lord.’ See how boldly this chaste fear, this true and sincere fear, dares to say: ‘One thing I asked of the Lord; this I shall seek: what? That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.’” He says similar things in Sermon 18, On the Words of the Apostle. There, having distinguished this threefold fear in chapters 1 and 5, he finally rejects worldly fear in chapter 7; then, speaking of fear of hell in chapter 8, he writes: What great thing is it to fear punishment? It is a great thing, but to love righteousness is greater. I question you and discover what you are. Look at my spoken question and question yourself in silence. I say to you: overcome by lust, you have a willing partner; why do you not commit adultery? You will answer: “Because I fear hell, I fear the punishment of eternal fire, I fear Christ’s judgment, I fear the company of the devil, lest I be punished by him and burn with him.” What shall I say, that you fear wrongly, as I was saying about the adversary who sought to kill your body? There I rightly said, “You fear wrongly,” because your Lord makes you secure, saying: “Do not fear those who kill the body.” But now, when you say to me, “I fear hell, I fear burning, I fear eternal punishment,” what shall I say? “You fear wrongly”? “You fear in vain”? I do not dare to say so, since the Lord himself, having removed one fear, went on to impose another. He said, after saying, “Do not fear those who kill the body and afterward can do nothing more,” “But fear him who has power to cast both body and soul into the fire of hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Since, then, the Lord has inspired fear, inspired it intensely, and doubled the threat by repeating the word, shall I say, “You fear wrongly”? I will certainly not say that. Fear, then; you fear nothing better, nothing that you ought to fear more. But I ask you: if God did not see you when you act, and no one were to convict you at his judgment, would you do it? Look at yourself. You cannot answer all my questions with words; examine yourself. Would you do it? If you would, then you fear punishment, but do not yet love chastity; you do not yet have charity; you fear in a servile way. It is dread of evil, not yet love of the good. Still, fear, so that this dread may guard you and lead you to love. For this fear by which you fear hell and therefore do not do evil restrains you; it does not let a soul that wants to sin do so. It is a kind of chaste fear, like a tutor. The letter threatens, but grace does not yet help. Still, let this fear guard you while you refrain from doing something out of fear, and let charity come. Let it enter your heart, and as far as charity enters, fear departs. Fear’s task was to prevent you from doing it; charity’s task is to prevent you even from wanting to do it, even if you could do it with impunity. I have told you what you should fear; I have told you what you should desire. — From these passages one may argue as follows: that fear is good which is distinguished from mercenary fear directed toward temporal evils; that fear is good which St. Augustine does not dare call evil, by which a person does not fear in vain, by which one does not sin, which is useful and good, which restrains a person externally from sin—even though it does not let the inner soul that wishes to sin do so—which checks the habit of sinning, which is the beginning of wisdom, and which prepares a place for charity; from it a habit of righteousness is formed, what was hard to love begins to grow sweet, and God grows sweet. Yet Augustine attributes all these things to servile fear. Therefore servile fear is good.

This is confirmed by what he says in Sermon 24, On Time, where he says: When the threatened punishment is feared, one learns to love the promised reward; and so a good life is maintained through fear of punishment. Through a good life a good conscience is acquired, so that through a good conscience no punishment is feared. Therefore, let him who does not wish to fear learn to fear; let him who always wishes to be secure learn to be anxious for a time. For, as John says, “There is no fear in charity, but perfect charity drives out fear.” He spoke truly and rightly. If, then, you do not wish to have fear, first see whether you already have perfect charity, which drives fear out. But if fear is driven out before this perfection, pride puffs up; charity does not build up. For just as hunger in a healthy body is dispelled not by disgust but by food, so in a sound mind fear must be driven out not by vanity but by charity. By these words St. Augustine plainly indicates that fear of failing to attain blessedness, or of incurring hell, can sometimes suffice to exclude every inclination to sin. In this way that fear can be deemed chaste, at least in its initial stage, since by it a person not only avoids sin but filial fear also arises—the fear that proceeds not from hope of reward but from the affection of a person’s goodwill toward God. For this reason that affection is called filial fear: a son obeys his father not because he hopes for some reward from him or fears a punishment to be inflicted, but precisely because he knows that disobedience displeases the father whom he loves; thus, from love of his father, he shuns disobedience, with absolutely no regard for his own advantage.

YOU WILL SAY 1: That fear should not be called good which does not exclude the will to sin; but fear, or sorrow conceived from fear of hell, does not exclude the will to sin. Proof: That sorrow and fear do not exclude the will to sin which virtually and implicitly retain it. But sorrow for sins from fear of hell virtually retains the inclination and will to sin, as St. Augustine teaches very well in Sermon 15 on Psalm 118, where he says: Fear by which one does not love righteousness but fears punishment is servile, because it is carnal. For the will to sin lives on; it appears in action when impunity is available. But when a person believes punishment will follow, it lives in secret; it lives nonetheless. For he would prefer sin to be permitted, and he grieves that the law forbids what he is not permitted to do, because he takes no spiritual delight in its goodness but carnally fears the evil it threatens. But under chaste fear, charity itself—which drives out this fear—fears to sin even if impunity should follow, because charity does not expect impunity to follow when, from love of righteousness, it counts sin itself a punishment. — I DENY the minor premise: although sorrow does not itself include some other motive for hating sins, nevertheless it does not positively exclude every other motive for detesting them. For although the will of one who has Attrition is immediately stirred to avoid sin on account of fear of hell¹, nevertheless it does not rest there, but virtually and mediately tends toward God as its ultimate end. In this way the act of hope immediately and directly tends toward eternal blessedness, or toward God insofar as he is good for the one hoping, but by its power and implicitly is directed toward God in himself as its ultimate end.

YOU WILL PRESS: That is evil in itself which cannot subsist with charity and sanctifying grace. But servile fear, or fear of hell, does not subsist with charity. For St. John says in his First Epistle, ch. 4: There is no fear in charity, but perfect charity drives out fear. Therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major premise: that which cannot subsist with charity on account of its own evil and deformity, which is opposed to charity, I deny; on account of its imperfection, I grant. For, as St. Augustine, cited above, observes very well in his exposition of Psalm 127, there are two kinds of fear which charity drives out. One is fear of temporal things, since some fear only lest they suffer any evil on earth, lest some sickness befall them, or loss or the loss of someone dear, or some tribulation come upon them. The other is fear of hell, by which the Lord frightens people in the Gospel, and on account of which earthly people restrain themselves from sin and thus begin to live righteously and love God. The first fear is always driven out by charity; the latter remains for a time together with charity, especially when charity is not yet perfect. Augustine also teaches this very well in his Tractate 9 on the First Epistle of John: There is no fear in charity—that is, perfect charity—but fear is in charity in its beginning, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear prepares a place for charity, as it were. When charity begins to dwell there, fear is driven out because it prepared a place for charity. The more charity grows, the more fear diminishes; the more charity becomes interior, the more fear is driven out. Greater charity, less fear; less charity, greater fear. If there is no fear, there is no way for charity to enter. A little further down in the same place: There is a fear which charity drives out, and there is a chaste fear which lasts forever and ever. There are people who fear God lest they be sent into hell; this fear introduces charity, but it comes in order to depart. For if you fear God on account of punishments, you do not love him and do not desire good things, but avoid evil things. You correct yourself, you begin to desire good things; when you desire good things, there is in you chaste fear of losing those very good things. Imagine two married women: one wishes to commit adultery but fears her husband may come. She loves wickedness, and her husband’s presence is burdensome to her. The other loves her husband and wishes to defile herself with no impurity of adultery; she longs for her husband’s presence. Each fears, but one fears that her husband may come, the other that he may leave. The one says, “I fear he may condemn me”; the other says, “I fear he may abandon me.” Apply this to the hearts of Christians and see the fear which charity entirely drives out, and the other chaste fear which lasts forever and ever.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. It is a sin to order a greater good to a lesser; but one who sorrows over sins from fear of damnation alone orders a greater good to a lesser, the corruption of guilt to avoidance of punishment. Therefore he sins. — I distinguish the major premise: to order the greater to the lesser as to the ultimate end, I grant; as to a proximate end, I deny. For God himself orders a greater good to an inferior one, as the Incarnation of Christ to the salvation and glory of human beings. One who sorrows over sins from fear of hell alone orders the greater good to the lesser as to a proximate end, not as to the ultimate end. In this way holy men order sacrifices and prayers to obtain health or some other temporal good from God. Hence, if anyone were so disposed virtually or actually that, if there were no punishment, he would in no way grieve over guilt, this Attrition would not be good, because it would not tend in any way toward God as its ultimate end.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. What tends toward a creature does not tend toward God as the ultimate end, because no one can have two ultimate ends. But Attrition tends toward a creature as its ultimate end, for everyone who has Attrition but not Contrition remains in sin; Attrition by itself does not justify at all. — I distinguish the major premise: it does not tend toward God effectively, I grant, for no one can effectively desire several ultimate ends; ineffectively, I deny. For otherwise morally good works performed in mortal sin, such as fasting, prayers, and almsgiving, would be mortal sins, because they do not tend effectively toward God as their ultimate end. We have taught the contrary in the treatise On Grace.

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. If servile fear is good, worldly fear will also be good; but the latter is not good, because it makes people evil. Therefore, etc. — I deny the major premise, because worldly fear is fear of a creature, from attachment to which a person does not hesitate to offend God; servile fear is truly fear of God, drawing a person away from sin and guarding him against it. For by it a person fears offending God on account of fear of the punishment that God himself inflicts for sins.

YOU WILL OBJECT 5. An act by which a person sorrows more over punishment than over guilt is evil, because one ought to grieve more over the greater evil than the lesser; guilt is a greater evil than punishment. But Attrition for sins from fear of damnation alone is an act by which a person sorrows more over punishment than guilt, for he sorrows over guilt because of punishment. Yet that on account of which each thing is such is itself more such. Therefore, etc. — I deny the minor premise. For although a servant loves his master for the sake of a wage, and a believer loves God through hope for the sake of receiving glory, it does not follow that the servant loves the wage more than his master, or the believer the reward of glory more than God, whom he always recognizes as the ultimate end. Therefore, although one who has Attrition hates guilt on account of punishment, it does not follow that he hates punishment more than guilt. For the Aristotelian axiom must be understood of that on account of which something else is such as its principal cause, not as its less principal cause. For although a servant loves his master on account of the sustenance he expects from him as a less principal cause, and a believer loves God on account of glory, it does not follow that the servant loves his sustenance more than his master, or the believer glory more than God.

Third conclusion. — ATTRITION CONCEIVED FROM FEAR OF HELL AND FROM THE LOVE OF DESIRE, THAT IS, FROM THE AFFECTION OF HOPE, IS A SUFFICIENT DISPOSITION FOR OBTAINING GRACE IN THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE.

First, this is proved from the Council of Trent, sess. XIV, ch. 1², where, after distinguishing contrition into perfect contrition, which proceeds from charity, and imperfect contrition, which is called attrition, it says: “Since it is commonly conceived either from consideration of the ugliness of sin or from fear of hell and punishments, if it excludes the will to sin, together with hope for forgiveness,” it immediately adds: “That attrition does not make a person a hypocrite or a greater sinner; rather, it is also a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, not yet indeed indwelling, but only moving, by which the penitent, aided, prepares the way for himself to righteousness; and although by itself, without the sacrament of penance, it cannot lead to justification, nevertheless it disposes him to obtain the grace of God in the sacrament of penance.” The Council says the same in can. 5. In these words the Council assigns two distinctions between contrition and attrition: one, that attrition tends toward sin from a less noble motive than contrition, namely, from consideration of sin's ugliness or from fear of hell, but not from consideration of God as supremely beloved; the other, that perfect contrition by itself suffices outside the sacrament to obtain remission of sin, provided that the vow to receive it is joined to it, whereas attrition indeed disposes one to obtain that remission through the sacrament, but without actually receiving the sacrament it does not suffice for remission of sin.

YOU WILL REPLY 1: The Council there speaks only of a remote and wholly insufficient disposition, not of a proximate one that prepares a person immediately to obtain justifying grace. — On the contrary, the Council there plainly teaches that attrition conceived from fear of hell, if it excludes the will to sin, truly disposes one to the grace of justification obtained in the sacrament of penance, in the same way as contrition disposes one to it before receiving the sacrament. But contrition disposes proximately and sufficiently to sanctifying grace, and reconciles one to God before priestly absolution is received. Therefore the Council's intention too is that attrition joined to the sacrament should dispose the penitent proximately and sufficiently, and reconcile him to God in the sacrament of penance. Moreover, attrition disposes a person to grace with the sacrament in a different way than it does outside the sacrament, as the Council of Trent teaches; but outside the sacrament it disposes remotely and insufficiently to justification, because, as St. Augustine taught above, fear prepares the way for charity. Therefore, in the Council's understanding, attrition joined to the sacrament disposes proximately to justification. Finally, the Council there especially condemns Luther's error, as it does in sess. VI, can. 8, where it says: “If anyone shall say that fear of hell, by which we flee to God's mercy while grieving over our sins, or abstain from sin, is a sin, or makes sinners worse, let him be anathema.” But Luther taught not only that sorrow arising from fear of hell is evil and makes a person worse and a hypocrite, but also that it is altogether an insufficient preparation for receiving absolution and making communion. For he writes in serm. 2, On Penance: “Contrition (for so he begins) called true inward penance is prepared in two ways: first, by displeasure, recollection, and detestation of sins, by which one, as they say, recalls one's years in the bitterness of one's soul, weighing the gravity, harm, ugliness, and multitude of one's sins; then, by admitting eternal blessedness and the attainment of eternal damnation, and other things that can excite sorrow and grief, in the hope of making satisfaction by good works. But this grief makes a hypocrite, indeed a greater sinner, because one does it only from fear of the precept and grief at loss; and all such people are absolved and admitted to communion unworthily. And if they had to confess freely, with the precept and threats of punishments set aside, they would certainly say that their past life did not displease them, though they are thus compelled to confess that it displeases them. Indeed, the more they are thus contrite from fear of punishment and grief at loss, the more they sin and are attached to their sins, which they are compelled, but do not wish, to hate. This is that contrition which they call non-meritorious outside charity; others call it attrition, disposing proximately to contrition: for so they themselves think, and I call that opinion an error.” These are Luther's words about the first mode of contrition. He describes the other mode of contrition as follows: “Second, (contrition) is prepared by the sight and contemplation of most beautiful righteousness, by which one, meditating on the beauty and form of righteousness, burns with desire for it and is carried away, and begins, with Solomon, to become a lover of wisdom, whose beauty he had seen. This makes one truly penitent, because one acts from love of righteousness, and such people are worthy of absolution.”

YOU WILL REPLY 2: When the Council writes that attrition disposes one to obtain God's grace in the sacrament, it intends only to condemn heretics who, denying the usefulness of attrition's sorrow, said that it makes a person a hypocrite and a greater sinner; it does not intend to settle the controversy among Scholastic theologians about attrition's sufficiency with the sacrament of penance. — Against this, the Council not only shows that attrition's sorrow is good and useful and does not make a person a greater sinner, but also distinctly and expressly signifies that although attrition cannot by itself lead a sinner to justification without the sacrament, nevertheless in the sacrament it disposes him to obtain God's grace; and consequently it declares that attrition in the sacrament has a power it would not have without the sacrament. Here it sufficiently clearly upholds our position and vindicates it from the heretics' calumnies. For after saying that attrition is a good act, conceived under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and disposes one to obtain God's grace in the sacrament of penance, at the end of the same chapter it concludes: “Wherefore some falsely calumniate Catholic writers, as though they had taught that the sacrament of penance confers grace without any movement on the part of those receiving it; this the Church of God has never taught or held.” But the heretics seized the opportunity to calumniate Catholic writers solely because they thought that attrition arising from fear of punishments was not a good act but an evil one, and made a person a hypocrite. Therefore the Council teaches that attrition conceived from fear of hell and punishments disposes one to obtain God's grace in the sacrament of penance.

YOU WILL PRESS: If the Council had thought that attrition disposes sufficiently to God's grace when joined to the sacrament, it would have said distinctly that attrition disposes “with the sacrament.” But it did not say so; it said only that attrition disposes “in the sacrament,” in order to signify that it disposes remotely and mediately to grace, namely, insofar as it disposes the penitent to receive sacramental absolution and to elicit contrition from God's grace, from which justification then follows immediately. Therefore the Council lends no support at all to our position. — I deny the consequence. In answer to the antecedent, I say that when the Council says attrition disposes one to God's grace “in the sacrament,” it means the same as if it said “with the sacrament.” For when it sets the phrase in the sacrament against without the sacrament, which means the same as separately and apart from the sacrament, when it says that attrition does not lead to justification without the sacrament, it follows that when it also says attrition disposes one to God's grace in the sacrament, it means the same as if it said with the sacrament.

YOU WILL REPLY 3: When the Council says that attrition disposes one to justification in the sacrament, it is not speaking of attrition conceived from fear of punishments, but only of attrition arising from love of God above all things, though imperfect, which is indeed essentially contrition, but imperfect contrition—as the Council itself calls it there, since it divides contrition into perfect and imperfect. — But the person who dreams this is indeed looking for knots in a bulrush and shadows in the sun. First, because the Council asserts that the attrition sufficient to obtain God's grace in the sacrament is the attrition it says is conceived from consideration of hell and fear of punishments. Therefore it is not speaking of attrition that is initial and imperfect love of God. Second, because the Council speaks of the attrition that Luther had taught makes a person a hypocrite and worse. But the attrition Luther speaks of does not proceed from imperfect and incipient charity, but from fear of punishments alone, as is clear from what was said above. Therefore, etc. Third and finally, because the Council says that the attrition which disposes one to grace in the sacrament of penance “is a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, not yet indeed indwelling, but moving the soul.” But attrition from love of God above all things, however imperfect, is a movement of the Holy Spirit indwelling the soul. For “he who remains in charity remains in God, and God in him.” Therefore, etc.

Moreover, the Council calls attrition imperfect contrition not merely because of a deficiency in degree, as a boy is called an imperfect man because he has not yet attained the perfection of a man at all; rather, it calls it imperfect because it lacks the essence of contrition, since it is not sorrow for sins arising from the love of friendship with God. So an embryo is an imperfect man because it does not yet have human nature, but is disposed toward it, as we said in the Third Note. This is confirmed: no greater disposition is required to receive grace through the sacrament of penance than to receive it through baptism. But attrition is a sufficient disposition in an adult being baptized to receive justifying grace. Therefore it will also be sufficient in a penitent. The major premise is established, since the reason is the same for the sacrament of penance as for baptism, inasmuch as both are sacraments of the dead. The minor premise is proved by the authority of St. Augustine, who in On Catechizing the Uninstructed, ch. 17 recounts three kinds of people who wish to be Christians and come to baptism. The third kind consists of those who wish to become Christians for the sake of everlasting blessedness and perpetual rest, which is promised to the saints after this life, so that they may not go into eternal fire with the devil, but enter the eternal kingdom with Christ. “He who is such a person,” he says, “is truly a Christian: cautious in every temptation, lest he be corrupted by prosperous circumstances or broken by adversity; moderate and temperate amid an abundance of earthly goods, and strong and patient in tribulations. By making progress he also reaches such a disposition of mind that he loves God more than he fears hell, so that even if God were to say to him, ‘Enjoy carnal delights forever, and sin as much as you wish; you will neither die nor be sent to hell, but only you will not be with me,’ he would shudder and not sin at all—not now to avoid falling into what he feared, but lest he offend the one he loves so much, in whom alone is rest.” In these people there is only attrition concerning the sins of their former life. For if their only motive for attrition is fear of hell, their fear of God is merely servile; they do not yet have filial fear or contrition made perfect by charity, since St. Augustine lists them among those coming to faith and says that they will later reach the point of loving God more than they fear hell. If they were aflame with perfect charity, they would not be on their way to such a state or advancing toward it by making progress; they would already have attained it. But whatever degree of disposition is given suffices for the fruitful reception of baptism, for a person so disposed is called truly Christian, that is, fit to receive the sacrament of baptism, in which the profession of Christian faith is made. Thus in the preceding ch. 16, where the form of a certain prayer or address is given, the catechist congratulates the person who comes to baptism for the rest hoped for after this life, saying: “Thanks be to God, brother; I congratulate you greatly and rejoice on your account, because amid the world's many and very dangerous storms you have thought of true and certain security.” But unless the aforementioned disposition—which is a disposition of attrition—were sufficient for baptism, the person who came to baptism with it would not have thought of certain security. Therefore, since the reason is the same for the sacrament of penance as for baptism, because both are sacraments of the dead—baptism being a sacrament of regeneration, and penance a sacrament of resurrection and restoration—attrition, which is a sufficient disposition for receiving baptism properly, will likewise be sufficient for receiving the sacrament of penance truly and fruitfully.

Finally, this is proved by reason. First, every sacrament of the New Law can immediately effect by itself that for which it was instituted first and in itself, for it acts by the work performed. But the sacrament of penance was instituted in itself to cause first sanctifying grace in a person fallen through sin. Therefore it can produce first sanctifying grace in him. But if attrition did not suffice for that, the sacrament would never produce first grace. For since contrition by itself suffices to produce first grace outside the sacrament, if it were a necessary disposition for the sacrament of penance, grace would in reality have to be produced before that sacrament was received. Therefore, etc. Moreover, a sacrament of the dead, such as penance, does not presuppose in its recipient a formal principle of spiritual life, for it immediately effects that principle. But contrition made perfect by charity is the principle of spiritual life in a person. Therefore the sacrament of penance does not presuppose it as a necessary disposition. Moreover, the sacraments of the New Law are more efficacious than those of the Old Law and consequently require a lesser disposition in the recipient. But the sacraments of the Old Law necessarily required contrition in order to confer first grace on a person who had fallen after circumcision. Therefore penance, which is a sacrament of the New Law, does not presuppose it. It should be added that if perfect contrition were equally necessary in the New Law and the Old, it would follow that remission of sin is far more difficult in the New Law than in the Old. For in the Mosaic Law the act of contrition alone sufficed to obtain it; but in the Gospel Law, in addition to it, confession of all mortal sins according to number and kind would further be required, which certainly seems a very heavy burden. Therefore, so that pardon may appear easier to obtain through the sacraments of the New Law, contrition need not be presupposed for the sacraments of the dead.

All these arguments are confirmed by the censure of the Sacred Faculty of Paris, which it issued on the first of June and the first of July 1638 against certain propositions of Claude Séguenot, a priest of the Oratory, which he had written in his notes on St. Augustine's book On Holy Virginity. Most especially, he had asserted that attrition was not sufficient to obtain remission of sins in the sacrament of penance, but that contrition made perfect by charity was required; and consequently he had added that sacramental absolution was nothing other than a juridical declaration of sin already remitted. The Sacred Faculty noted these propositions in its censure: “The Faculty condemned what he taught concerning the insufficiency of attrition and the absolute necessity of contrition arising from perfect charity for receiving the sacrament of penance, and what he further added and approved concerning absolution, namely, that it is nothing other than a juridical declaration of sin already remitted; and it judged these propositions to be disturbers of the peace of souls, contrary to the common and entirely safe practice of the Church, subversive of the efficacy of the sacrament, and, in addition, rash and erroneous.”

YOU WILL OBJECT 1. True penance requires that the penitent turn to God with his whole heart in order to obtain pardon, and have a new heart. But attrition alone does not accomplish this. Therefore, etc. The major premise is established both from Deuteronomy 4: “When you seek the Lord, you will find him, if indeed you seek him with your whole heart and with all the anguish of your soul”; and from Ezekiel 18: “Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.” The minor premise is also clear: for one who is merely attrite does not seek God with his whole heart and with all the anguish of his soul; nor does attrition make a new heart and a new spirit, because it does not remove the spirit of the old Adam, namely, the inclination to sin, nor introduce the spirit of the new Adam, namely, charity. Therefore, etc. — I distinguish the minor premise: if attrition is without the sacrament, I grant it; if it is joined to the sacrament, I deny it. For the heart will be made new, and God will be sought profitably and sufficiently, when sanctifying grace is conferred on the person, through which he is renewed and recalled to fellowship, union, and friendship with God. As for the authorities from Scripture, I answer that they are to be understood of the penance of the Old Law, and also of the penance of the New Law that is sufficient to obtain remission of sin outside the sacrament. For in the New Law a person is sufficiently reconciled to God by the power of the sacrament of penance when he grieves for his sins and lays aside his will to sin; this indeed is accomplished through attrition, as was said above.

YOU WILL PRESS: The Council of Trent, sess. XIV, ch. 3, teaches that contrition is the matter of the sacrament of penance and that, by God's institution, it is required for remission of sins. In ch. 4 it says: “At every time this movement of contrition was necessary for obtaining pardon of sins.” And in ch. 6 it says that “one who has no contrition is not truly absolved by the sacrament of penance.” Therefore, in the Council's view, attrition does not suffice to obtain pardon of sins even with the sacrament. — I distinguish the antecedent: contrition is required in the general sense, insofar as it is abstracted from perfect and imperfect contrition, I grant it; perfect contrition is required, I deny it. For there the Council teaches that perfect contrition reconciles a person to God through charity before this sacrament is actually received; imperfect contrition, by itself, does not bring the sinner to justification, but only disposes him to obtain God's grace in the sacrament of penance. For the Council says that the contrition required is the kind it defines at the beginning of ch. 4, when it says that it is “sorrow of the mind and detestation of sin, with the purpose of not sinning thereafter.” There, however, contrition is defined in the generic sense, as abstracting from perfect and imperfect contrition, since that definition also applies to attrition, inasmuch as it is sorrow of the mind and detestation of sin, with the purpose of not sinning thereafter.

YOU WILL PRESS: The same Council, sess. VI, ch. 6, when listing the various dispositions presupposed for justification, asserts that a person is disposed toward righteousness not only through acts of faith, fear, and hope, but also through love, from which hatred of sin arises, through the purpose of a new life, and finally through observing the divine commandments. “They are raised to hope,” the Council says, “trusting that God will be propitious to them for Christ's sake; they begin to love him as the source of all righteousness, and are therefore moved against sins by some hatred and detestation—that is, by the penance which must be practiced before baptism; finally, while they purpose to receive baptism, to begin a new life, and to keep the divine commandments.” Here the Council requires incipient love for justification effected through baptism, as is clear from the words, “they begin to love him as the source of righteousness.” Hence, since no lesser disposition is required for justification through penance than for justification through baptism, the adversaries think it plainly follows from this testimony of Trent that incipient and imperfect charity is necessarily required for justification through penance. — I answer that in this passage the Council is speaking of justification effected outside the sacrament and through the mere vow and desire for baptism; hence it says expressly, “while they purpose to receive baptism,” etc. Certainly in that case we do not deny that love of God is necessary, as is also contrition formed by charity. But it is different with justification effected in the sacrament. For the same Council, sess. VI, ch. 6, speaking of penance in adult sinners as preceding baptism, says: “People are moved against sins by some hatred and detestation—that is, by the penance which must be practiced before baptism.” Yet contrition is not absolutely necessary for practicing this penance before baptism, as we said above from St. Augustine. Or I say that the Council is to be understood as speaking of that initial love which we said above belongs to the virtue of hope. This love is called initial because, for the most part, our justification begins from this love; and, as I said above, we are often led from this love to that perfect love which belongs to the virtue of charity.

YOU WILL PRESS: The initial love which the Council of Trent there requires as a disposition for justification is the love by which a sinner begins to love God “as the source of all righteousness.” But this love belongs to the virtue of charity, not to the virtue of hope. Therefore, etc. — I deny the minor premise: for the love of which the Council speaks there is love of God as the source of our righteousness, or justification, which we expect from him as promised through Christ. For that reason it says that God is to be loved not as righteousness in himself, but “as the source of righteousness,” namely, the righteousness he conveys to us. Thus it signifies that he is to be loved as one who is good to us and bestows good things on us. Nor should the word all trouble us. For by that word the Council of Trent means only that sinners begin to love God as the source of any justification whatsoever and of all supernatural dispositions toward justification, since no one can be justified except through God's grace, as is plainly clear from the preceding ch. of the Council of Trent and from our treatise On Grace.

YOU WILL INSIST: The love required by the Council in the passage just cited is a love that, joined to the sacrament of penance, can effect the sinner's conversion. But no love of God can effect this conversion unless it belongs to the virtue of charity. Therefore the love of which the Council speaks there belongs to the virtue of charity. — I answer by denying the minor premise; for love belonging to the virtue of hope suffices for this, and I assume it is joined to the aforementioned attrition, which we hold can effect this conversion, not by itself alone, but when it is joined to the sacrament of baptism or the sacrament of penance, as the cited Council of Trent teaches quite clearly, sess. XIV, ch. 4, where it expressly teaches: “Imperfect contrition, which is called attrition, and which is commonly conceived either from consideration of the ugliness of sin or from fear of hell and punishments, if it excludes the will to sin, together with hope of pardon, not only does not make a person a hypocrite or a greater sinner, but is also a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit; and although by itself, without the sacrament of penance, it cannot lead a sinner to justification, it nevertheless disposes him to obtain God's grace in the sacrament.” Note the expression that it “disposes him in the sacrament itself,” and indeed “to obtain grace”; for these words make it readily clear that through this attrition, as distinguished from contrition made perfect by charity, grace can be conferred if attrition is joined to the sacrament of penance.

YOU WILL INSIST AGAIN: The same Council, sess. XIV, ch. 6, speaking of the penitent, says: “He ought not to flatter himself so much on account of his faith that, even if he has no contrition, or the priest lacks the intention to act seriously and truly absolve, he should nevertheless think that on account of his faith alone he has truly been absolved before God.” Therefore perfect contrition is absolutely required for remission of sin, and attrition does not suffice even in the sacrament. — I deny the consequence. For there the Council intends only to refute the innovators of the last century, who taught that a person need not be prepared to obtain remission of sins by any movement of the will or by any sorrow or feeling of penance, but that faith alone—or rather, a sure trust and confidence that remission of sins had been obtained—suffices. Hence, after the words cited, the Council adds: “For faith without penance would not bring about any remission of sins.” But attrition is a kind of penance. Therefore the Council understands contrition there in the generic sense to be entirely necessary: one or the other of its two kinds must absolutely be present, either imperfect contrition, called attrition, or perfect contrition, simply and strictly so called. For outside the sacrament perfect contrition is required; in the sacrament imperfect contrition, called attrition, suffices.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. St. Augustine, who teaches in many places that the person who merely abstains from sins out of fear of punishment and penalty repents in vain, says, for example, in ep. 144, addressed to Anastasius: “He thinks in vain that he has conquered sin, who does not sin from fear of punishment. For even if the business of evil desire is not carried out outwardly, the evil desire itself is still within; and who is found innocent before God who wishes to do what is forbidden if what he fears were removed? Thus the one who wishes to do what is not permitted, but does not do it only because it cannot be done with impunity, is guilty in his very will. For, as far as he himself is concerned, he would rather there were no righteousness forbidding and punishing sins. And surely, if he would rather there were no righteousness, who would doubt that he would take it away if he could? But how is someone just if he is such an enemy of righteousness that, were he given the power, he would abolish it when it commands, so as not to endure it when it threatens or judges? Therefore he who does not sin from fear of punishment is an enemy of righteousness.” Similarly, in bk. On Nature and Grace, ch. 57, he says: “He is under the law who feels that he abstains from the act of sin out of fear of the punishment threatened by the law, not from love of righteousness; for he is not yet free, nor is he free from the will to sin: for in that very will he is guilty.” Further, in bk. I of Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, ch. 9, he says: “He sins inwardly in his very will who does not sin willingly, but out of fear.” And in bk. I, ch. 4: “He who does the commandments from fear of punishment undoubtedly does them unwillingly, and thus does not do them in his mind; and thus in his very will he is inwardly guilty, where he himself, who receives him, looks.” Finally, St. Augustine, in tract. 9 on the Letter of John, as we mentioned above, and also in Psalm 127, says that those who cease from sins out of fear of punishment or hell are like the adulterous woman who refrains from adultery only out of fear of her husband, lest she be discovered by him and severely punished, while always retaining the intention to commit adultery. Therefore, in St. Augustine's view, attrition insofar as it is fear arising from fear of hell does not remove the will to sin, and consequently is not sufficient with the sacrament to obtain remission of sins. — I distinguish the consequence: attrition arising from fear of hell, which moves someone merely to avoid sins because of fear of temporal evils alone and love of earthly goods, does not remove the will to sin, I grant; attrition conceived from fear of hell, by which a person fears being deprived of God and on account of this fear abstains from sin, I deny. For this fear of hell is ordered to God as the ultimate end, and as such it removes the will to sin, because it is ordered to an end contrary to the end of sin. For the one who fears in this way does not place his ultimate end in avoiding punishment itself, but in the deprivation and loss of God. Since God cannot be possessed by a sinner, one who abstains from sin out of this fear proposes to himself an ultimate end contrary to that of sin. But when the sinner regards avoidance of punishment in this way, he does not retain the will to sin. — Hence servile fear in one who ceases from sin through fear of punishment can be of two kinds. One is when the entire reason, both final and moving or motivating, for restraining oneself from sins is flight from punishment: that is, when a person is so disposed that he avoids evil solely because of the punishment intended for that evil of sin, and places his ultimate end in avoiding punishment or in the good contrary to that punishment. Many call this fear servilely serving, because it is characteristic of servants and slaves who abstain from what is forbidden out of no love for their master, but only from fear of punishment, so that they always have an inclination to do what is forbidden unless they would have to undergo punishment. Such fear always leaves in the will some formal or virtual effect of sinning. The other kind of servile fear is when the one who fears does not establish his ultimate end in avoiding such punishment, but freely tends toward an honorable good. Such is the fear of attrition: although it is directed immediately toward avoiding the punishment one fears, nevertheless mediately it tends toward a further end, namely, eternal beatitude and God as the supreme good. One who fears in this way does not wish to be deprived of God, but to enjoy him; consequently, one moved by this fear does not retain the will to sin. From these points one may infer that whenever St. Augustine says that those who cease from sin through fear remain guilty in their inclination and will, he is speaking of the fear that terrifies those who rest content in avoiding punishment and serve servilely and obey the divine commandments; this fear is indeed evil, because through it people rest in love of self as their ultimate end. He is not speaking of the fear that goes beyond avoidance of punishment and tends toward possession of God as the supreme good, whose loss one fears; such is the fear of attrition.

YOU WILL PRESS: St. Augustine also teaches in many places that no one can be justified without love of God. Thus in serm. 7, On Time: “No one does true penance unless there is hatred of sin and love of God”; and in bk. XXI of The City of God, ch. 27: “If they do not cease from sin by having charity, which does not act perversely, it profits them nothing.” Hence the author of On True and False Penance says: without love, no one ever found grace or obtained pardon. This is also confirmed by Scripture. For St. Paul expressly says in 1 Corinthians 13: “Without charity I am nothing; if I have not charity, it profits me nothing.” And in 1 John 3: “He who does not love remains in death.” Therefore, even with the sacrament, attrition conceived from fear of hell does not suffice for justification; rather, an affection and movement of charity are required. — I distinguish the antecedent: love of God, whether actual or habitual, accompanying or subsequent, is required, I grant; actual love alone, preceding justification, I deny. It is indeed true that a sinner cannot be justified without love of God and habitual charity, which is not distinct from sanctifying grace. But it is not absolutely required that actual and formal love of God precede justification itself when the sinner obtains it through the sacrament. Rather, habitual love of God, or charity, suffices; it is the form of this justification, through which the sinner becomes God's friend and acceptable to him. Thus the Doctor resolves these authorities in d. 14, q. 2, n. 20, where he says: “The statement that no one obtains pardon without the love of God may be understood there of pardon not merely as penance, but as the end of penance. And so we understand it when we say that pardon is acquired through penance: that pardon is when someone is accepted into divine friendship through grace.” Or I say that St. Augustine is speaking of love of God arising not from the affection of charity, but from the affection of hope. The fear of hell leads to this love of God. For no one truly attrite fears hell except insofar as it deprives one of the eternal possession of God; consequently, when a person grieves for sins because of fear of hell, that grief tends toward love of God. For he would not fear hell unless it deprived him of possession of God, nor would he grieve over such deprivation unless he loved God; for the grief of losing is as great as the love of possessing. Therefore true attrition always has joined to it love of God arising from the affection of hope, if not explicitly and formally, at least virtually and implicitly.

YOU WILL SAY 3: Since the Gospel Law is far superior to the Old Law, it also requires a more excellent remedy for obtaining remission of sin; for where the law is more perfect, the means for obtaining grace ought to be more excellent. But contrition strictly so called, which was the necessary means for obtaining grace in the Old Law, is a more excellent means than attrition, or imperfect contrition. Therefore this too is necessary in the New Law. — I distinguish the minor premise: perfect contrition is more excellent than attrition if considered according to its entity, I grant; if considered in its order and relation to the end and effect, and in the way it procures the end and effect in the sacrament of penance, I deny. For although the nature and power of contrition are more excellent and perfect than attrition when considered in itself—hence outside the sacrament contrition can lead to justification, which attrition cannot—nevertheless attrition joined to the sacrament can dispose or lead a person to righteousness and grace ultimately just as much as contrition itself can; that is, it can lead to the very grace which the sacrament of penance produces in penitents by the work performed. For this grace requires only that the obstacle of an evil will turned toward a creature be removed; attrition joined to the sacrament can accomplish this. Hence it is said to be equivalent to the ultimate disposition, although contrition strictly so called disposes more perfectly to the grace produced in the sacrament by the work of the one acting, because a person's merit is greater than attrition.

YOU WILL SAY 4: Most of the more eminent theologians, and especially the Seraphic Doctor and the Subtle Doctor, openly teach that attrition does not suffice, together with the sacrament, for the remission of sin, because it does not exclude the will to sin. For first, the Seraphic Doctor, in In III Sent., d. 34, p. 2, a. 1, says: It must be said that, without doubt, servile fear is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The reason is that, just as it is a gift of God to know, or to believe, future punishments, because there is in this a certain illumination and direction of the heart, so it is a gift of God to flee and fear those eternal punishments, because from such a gift come a certain softening of the heart, a restraint of the flow of concupiscence, and in this a certain rectification. And because of that fear a person ceases from committing sins, although he does not cease altogether from the will to sin. For he adds: The will to sin remains in habit and root, because the deformity is present in the one who fears. Likewise, the Subtle Doctor, in In IV Sent., d. 20, q. un., where he treats of penance that takes place only at life’s end and shows it to be doubtful, proves this by various arguments, but especially by the authority of St. Augustine, who says: One must not only fear the judge, but love him; for he seeks freedom of choice, so that one may grieve over the sins committed, not act under compulsion: charity, not fear. Therefore, according to their opinion, sorrow conceived from fear of hell does not suffice for the remission of sin. — I deny the antecedent, and concerning the Seraphic Doctor I say that by “the will to sin,” which he says remains in habit and root, he understands nothing other than habitual sin, that is, the stain that remains after a past actual sin and is not expelled by servile fear unless the sacrament is added; consequently, he says that it is removed by the sacrament rather than by that fear. For in q. 2 he says: “When I say ‘servile fear,’ I mean two things: namely, the very habit by which the soul is disposed to fear God as one who punishes those who transgress; and, further, the name ‘servitude’ conveys the deformity of sin. This deformity is joined to that habit in the same person, on account of which that person is called a slave of sin and the fear existing in him is called servile fear. In the same way, when I say that someone fears servilely, I mean two things: namely, both the act proceeding from that habit and the servitude or deformity of the will that accompanies it.

But it must be observed that this can be the case in two ways: either that deformity of the will accompanies the fear with respect to the habit; in this way someone may fear servilely and yet not sin by that movement. For if, from thinking of punishments, someone abhors offending God, this can occur without actual sin. But if the deformity accompanies the fear in the act, then, although fearing is not evil in itself, it is corrupted by reason of the deformity actually attached to it: as when someone fears punishments and, in fearing, grieves that such punishments are inflicted for guilt, yet in act also desires to sin if that punishment were absent. In this way, servile fear is sin and evil. But this is not always the case when someone is moved by servile fear; otherwise, by using that gift a person would distance himself from grace rather than be prepared for it, which is plainly false. So says the Seraphic Doctor, who therefore concludes: “And so it must be granted that the use of servile fear can be good, although it is not good with the goodness of merit, but rather with the goodness of preparing or directing one toward merit, which coexists with sin. Hence the arguments that show this must also be granted.” Accordingly, in answer to the first objection, he says that what is first objected on the other side—that in servile fear the will to sin lives, and that one grieves over what the law forbids—is to be understood as follows: Augustine’s statement does not mean that whenever someone fears, he always grieves in act, or likewise that the will to sin is always in act; rather, he says this because it remains in habit and root. Although the will has been deformed by sin and evil love reigns in it, it can nevertheless sometimes be moved to some good works in their general character, or by reason of a circumstance, through some freely given grace, without committing guilt, etc. Therefore, the Seraphic Doctor holds that sorrow for sin on account of fear of hell, or attrition, can exclude every actual affection and will to sin, although in itself it does not suffice to remove habitual sin—that is, the deformity and stain that remain in the sinner after the sinful act has passed—unless that attrition is joined to the sacrament of penance. — I answer the Subtle Doctor that first it can be said that he is treating chiefly of penance that suffices for salvation outside the sacrament, for which, without doubt, the love of God, or perfect contrition of charity, is required. Second, it can be said that, if the subject is penance, that is, sorrow of penance joined to the sacrament of penance, the words one must not only fear the judge, but love him signify not so much an affection of charity as one of hope, as can be gathered from what follows: Let the penitent, then, not fear punishment, but be anxious for glory. To be anxious for glory is nothing other than to fear the loss of the blessedness of the eternal inheritance, which is lost through sin and restored through penance. Moreover, this anxiety of the soul cannot arise from any other virtue than the virtue of hope; consequently, neither St. Augustine nor the Subtle Doctor understands by love anything other than an affection of hope. Attrition has this affection, since no one can fear hell through attrition without also having a voluntary displeasure at having sinned, because by sinning he lost his right to the inheritance promised to him. Such displeasure is directed toward God, at least mediately, since God is the objective beatitude that the penitent hopes to recover. That the Doctor is speaking of no other sorrow than attrition, when a penitent receives the sacrament of penance at life’s end, is clear from what he adds at n. 7, where from the foregoing he concludes: A sick person already brought to this point should be urged to labor, according to his ability, toward ordered penance: that is, notwithstanding his sorrow or fear, to use reason as far as he can, to strive to have voluntary displeasure for the proper end, namely, on account of God, and to resist the evil inclination of habit and present pleasures; and to labor to feel as much displeasure as he can, even if it is brief. And, lest he be cast into despair, God’s mercy must be raised up before him by proposing the example of that thief whose penance was late, but whose pardon was not late. By these words the Doctor would undoubtedly be setting out a true, though diminished and imperfect, account and teaching, unless he is to be understood as wishing that love of friendship, or perfect charity, is required for justification outside the sacrament, whereas with the sacrament love of desire, or a less perfect love, suffices. He proves that it is difficult for a sinner at life’s end to have such charity, or rather hope, because, as he said just before, He who until then was unrepentant does not seem then to draw a new displeasure from himself except through fear of the punishment at hand; for it is presumed, etc. And he rightly said “it is presumed,” because the contrary can occur. Nevertheless, it is greatly to be feared that such a sinner still retains an inward satisfaction in his past sins, as well as a conditional affection for sinning if the danger of death were not imminent, etc.

YOU WILL PRESS: For penance to be salutary, it must be voluntary without qualification. But, according to the Doctor in the same place, penance performed at life’s end from fear of hell alone is not voluntary without qualification. Therefore, etc. The major premise is established. The Doctor explains the minor premise as follows at n. 5: For displeasure to be effective and ordered, it must be duly qualified by its circumstances, and especially by the circumstance of its end and of its principal active source, so that it is voluntary on account of God. But it is difficult then to have an act qualified by these circumstances, because he who until then was unrepentant does not seem then to draw a new displeasure from himself except through fear of the punishment at hand. For it is presumed that if he were removed from the punishment, as before, he would not draw that displeasure from himself, just as he did not before. Moreover, something simply involuntary seems to be the cause of this displeasure, for the expectation of death seems to cause this displeasure, while that expectation is involuntary. And what is done only on the supposition of something involuntary is not voluntary without qualification, just as someone does not cast his goods into the sea entirely voluntarily if he does so only on the supposition of some danger that he does not wish to face. At least, what is done only in this way through something involuntary is not very pleasing to another, nor does it seem to have been done very much out of love for him. So says the Doctor. By this he signifies that penance conceived from fear of death is not voluntary or pleasing to God. Therefore penance conceived on account of fear of hell will be voluntary to a much lesser degree, because fear of hell is far greater than fear of death: hell brings a greater harm than natural death, and consequently inspires greater fear, further diminishing the element of voluntariness in someone who regrets having sinned for such a reason. — I answer that “involuntary” is said in three ways: first, of that which has nothing at all of the voluntary; second, of that which has more of the voluntary than of the involuntary; third, of that which is done independently of every circumstance that would impede the act. What is done from fear, even if it is not voluntary without qualification in the first sense, is nevertheless voluntary without qualification in the second sense. The Doctor, moreover, must be understood as speaking of the voluntary in the first sense, as can be gathered from the example he gives and repeats of the person who throws goods into the sea. For that throwing is voluntary without qualification, since it proceeds from an effective will to throw such goods, with sufficient knowledge of the circumstances, although a certain element of the involuntary is mixed into it, and it occurs against the ineffective inclination of that will, which would not want such danger to exist, so that the goods might remain safe and intact. Hence the throwing is voluntary without qualification on the part of the agent, although it is not voluntary without qualification on the part of the object, but is done only because of the circumstance of imminent danger. Therefore displeasure at sin out of fear of hell must also be called voluntary without qualification in this second sense; nevertheless, it is involuntary in a qualified sense, not because of a simple satisfaction in sins or an affection for sinning if the danger of hell were absent—for this conditional will would be sinful, because its object is evil. Rather, it is called involuntary in a qualified sense because of the rejection of that danger, which the penitent certainly would not want to be present. But simply and absolutely he is displeased by his sins, not only external but also internal; otherwise the sinner could not escape the imminent danger of hell. Hence there is a great difference between throwing goods into the sea and attrition. For someone to escape the imminent danger of shipwreck, it suffices to throw the goods overboard; but to escape hell, it is absolutely necessary to detest all sins, not only external ones but also internal ones. Hence someone can escape the danger of shipwreck even while having this conditional will not to throw the goods overboard unless danger presses. But a person with attrition cannot have this conditional affection of not detesting sins unless hell were imminent, because he cannot escape the danger of hell unless he excludes every affection for sin altogether. Nor is it an objection that in the same place the Doctor adds that such detestation, which has something involuntary mixed into it, is not very pleasing and acceptable to God. For I grant that attrition in itself, and apart from the sacrament, is not very acceptable to God and cannot restore the sinner to God’s grace. That this is the Doctor’s opinion is clear from what he teaches in d. 14, q. 4, n. 7, where, speaking of the remission of a sin committed after baptism through the sacrament and without the sacrament, he says that when someone is justified through the sacrament, he receives its effect, namely penitential grace: Not indeed by merit, he says, because the interior disposition was not sufficient by way of merit, but by virtue of God’s agreement to assist his sacrament toward the effect for which he instituted the sacrament. Otherwise it would not be clear how the sacrament of penance could be a second plank, if one could never recover through it, precisely as a sacrament, the second grace that had been lost, but only through attrition as a prior disposition and through contrition as a completing disposition. Therefore, in the Doctor’s view, attrition can suffice together with the sacrament for justification, even if in itself it is little acceptable and pleasing to God.

Corollaries. — From these points it follows first that, for attrition to suffice together with the sacrament for justification, it must be supernatural. For the Council of Trent defines it in this way, sess. XIV, ch. 4, where it says: Attrition not only does not make a person a hypocrite or a greater sinner, but is also a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit. Hence, in sess. VI, can. 3, it defines: If anyone says that a person can believe, hope, or repent, as is required in order that the grace of justification be conferred on him, without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his help, let him be anathema. The sacred oracles of Scripture also bear witness to this, since God attributes man’s penance to himself. Thus, in Ezekiel 36: I will take from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And in Lamentations 5: Turn us, O Lord, to yourself, and we shall be turned. Hence in Luke 22: The Lord turned and looked upon Peter.... and Peter went out and wept bitterly. St. Ambrose interprets these words as follows: “Those upon whom Jesus looks weep for their offense. Peter denied Christ and did not weep, because the Lord had not looked upon him; he denied him a second time and did not weep, because the Lord had not yet looked upon him; he denied him a third time, Jesus looked upon him, and he wept most bitterly.” Accordingly, the Second Council of Orange, can. 4, decrees that through the infusion and operation of the Holy Spirit it comes about in us not only that we are cleansed from sin, but also that we will to be cleansed. But the will to be cleansed from sin is attrition or contrition. Therefore it holds that attrition cannot be salutary unless it is conceived with God’s supernatural help.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Attrition conceived by the powers of nature, such as fear of the punishments of hell that we believe on divine faith, is supernatural, since it is conceived from a supernatural motive. But supernatural attrition suffices for the remission of sin. Therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major premise: supernatural objectively only, and materially, as is the faith by which heretics believe the divine Trinity and the Incarnation of the Word, I grant; formally, by reason of its formal object, and efficiently, through the influx of the cause producing attrition, of the kind required for the grace that remits sin, I deny.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Absolute detestation of sins, not merely hypothetical and ineffective detestation, suffices for the remission of sin. But attrition conceived by the powers of nature can be an effective and absolute detestation of sins. Therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major premise: if it comes from God’s grace, I grant; from nature, I deny. For according to the Second Council of Orange, can. 7: Whoever affirms that by the rigor of nature a person can choose anything pertaining to salvation without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit is deceived by a heretical spirit, not understanding the voice of God in the Gospel, who says: “Without me you can do nothing.”

YOU WILL SAY 3: The Subtle Doctor, in In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 2, n. 14, expressly teaches that sorrow for sins conceived by the powers of nature suffices to obtain remission of sin. Therefore, he does not hold that attrition must necessarily be supernatural. The antecedent is evident: for, treating of sorrow that precedes the remission of sin as a necessary disposition, he says: “For understanding this, it must be known that a sinner living in sins can, in the way stated in the preceding question, a. 1, concerning sin’s remaining after the act, by natural powers with the common influx consider the sin committed as an offense against God, as against the divine law, as turning one away from God, as preventing one from obtaining reward, and as bringing punishment upon one, and under many such aspects. The will can detest that sin, thus considered, under one or several of those aspects, and that movement can continue and intensify before the infusion of grace. This detestation can also be fully qualified by the morally required circumstances. For it is not plausible that, because of this sin that remains, every act concerning the sin committed must be deficient in some moral circumstance. This movement is called attrition, and it is a disposition, or a merit of congruity, toward the deletion of mortal sin, which follows at the last instant of some period during which this attrition has lasted.” So says the Doctor. From this it is clear that he wishes the will, by its own powers and without any special help of God, to be able to elicit an act of penance that is ultimately dispositive for grace. — I deny the antecedent, as well as the two consequences. Concerning the Doctor’s authority, I say that by “by natural powers with the common influx” he does not mean an act elicited by the powers of nature themselves and without any supernatural help, but an unformed act—that is, one not informed by charity and habitual grace. For there the Doctor is asking whether a prior unformed disposition suffices for the remission of sins. He says at n. 13: “Concerning the second main point, namely, whether repentance as an act of virtue is required for the deletion of sin, I say: first, not as the act of one determinate virtue; second, not as the act of just any generated virtue, whichever one; and third, if it is required as an act simply and perfectly qualified by its circumstances, is it required as formed, or does an unformed act suffice?” To this last question he answers: “Concerning the third point, I say that the requirement of some human act for the deletion of sin can be understood in two ways: either as a prior disposition or as a concomitant one. In the first way, an unformed act suffices; indeed it is always unformed, because a disposition prior to the deletion of sin is always without grace and charity, and only through the inherence and inclination of charity toward the act is the act called formed. In the second way, I say that a formed act is required, for at the instant in which sin is deleted, charity is present; and consequently, if an act is required as concomitant, it is required as formed.” This is the Doctor’s statement. From this it is clear that when he says at the following n. 14 that the intellect can consider sin as an offense against God by natural powers with the common influx, and that the will can detest sin considered in this way, by “by natural powers” he excludes only habitual grace, not prevenient and concomitant actual grace, which elsewhere he asserts to be necessary for true penance and justification—especially in In I Sent., d. 44, n. 1, where he says that every sinner can be saved: Because, he says, God can anticipate him with his grace, etc. And in d. 20, q. un., he says that it is the work of God to inspire a person with fruitful penance. And in d. 22, a. 2, he says that God gives grace sooner for rising again on account of extinguished merits, etc. Indeed, in this very d. 14, q. 2, n. 20, the Doctor makes this same point quite plainly. For, answering the authorities he had himself raised—that charity is necessary for the remission of sin—he says: All these authorities have one answer, because penance, whether an act or a virtue (that is, a habit), is not true with respect to attaining the end (extrinsic) of penance without charity; and this is what the second authority says concerning fruitful penance. For penance, taken absolutely, can indeed arise from the natural powers of a person, but it is not fruitful—that is, it does not bear fruit—until it is fruitful at the last instant. The Doctor would contradict himself if at n. 14 he asserted that fruitful penance can arise from natural powers. Therefore it is not plausible that by “by natural powers” he excludes the help of actual or concomitant grace; he means only that, for true attrition, insofar as it is the necessary disposition together with the sacrament of penance for receiving justification, it is not required that the act proceed from habitual sanctifying grace.

COLLECT SECOND: Attrition, when the power of the sacrament is added, can become contrition equivalently, since it obtains the same effect that contrition would have outside the sacrament. In this sense the Doctor, d. 4³, q. 2, n. 15, teaches that attrition can become contrition without a change, when grace comes, for he says: “Although the same movement against sin remains in its natural and moral being, which was previously attrition, at that instant it becomes contrition, because at that instant it is concomitant with grace, and thus is a formed act, since it has charity with it, which is the form of the act, as we are speaking here. Nevertheless, one must distinguish the aspects of nature between the act as such in its natural and moral being, charity, and the act as formed. For in the first aspect of nature there is an act of this kind; in the second, charity; and in the third, an act formed by charity, which now inclines and inheres. Thus attrition becomes contrition without any real change in the act itself.” That is, an unformed act becomes a formed act. For the Doctor does not mean that attrition, which is detestation of sin from the motive of hope, can become contrition, or detestation of sin from the motive of charity. Hence it is easy to understand what the same Doctor intends in In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 4, n. 9, when he says: “I grant that before a worthy reception of penance, one must be raised up either simply, in which case sin is not deleted through the sacrament of penance, but the grace that was present is increased; or raised up in a qualified way, namely, so as to have some displeasure for sins and a purpose of avoiding them thereafter, and to be willing to receive the sacrament of penance, in which attrition becomes contrition. That is, in which, or through which, that imperfect or partial displeasure confers sanctifying grace, which perfect contrition of charity would have conferred without the sacrament. Attrition, then, becomes contrition in the sacrament equivalently, or with respect to its effect, not with respect to its entity.”

COLLECT THIRD: Attrition must extend to absolutely all mortal sins, because one mortal sin cannot be remitted without another. Consequently, since attrition is necessary for the remission of mortal sin, it is also necessary that the attrition required for this sacrament be directed toward all mortal sins, without exception; and that the penitent, who is disposing himself in this sacrament so as to obtain pardon, detest all mortal sins at least in a general and virtual way, and reject every affection for them.

Whether attrition must also be directed toward all venial sins is not agreed among theologians: many affirm this, while the others deny it. The negative opinion nevertheless seems more probable to me, both because a penitent need not be sorry for those sins that he is not required to confess; but to obtain pardon in the sacrament of penance it is not necessary to confess venial sins, as the Council of Trent teaches, sess. XIV, ch. 5. After saying that all mortal sins that come to mind must necessarily be confessed, it adds: Not venial sins, by which we are not excluded from the grace of God and into which we fall more frequently, although it is right and useful to mention them in confession, without any presumption, as the practice of devout people shows. Yet they can be omitted without guilt and expiated by many other remedies. And secondly, because one venial sin can be remitted without another, and consequently it is not necessary for someone to form attrition for each one; rather, it suffices to grieve over some of them, so that this sorrow is the necessary matter for the celebration of this sacrament.

YOU WILL SAY 1: Someone who is not sorry for all the venial sins he has confessed is proposing as matter for the sacrament of penance something that truly cannot be its matter. Therefore, far from being able to obtain pardon, he instead commits a new sin. The antecedent is evident: for that is the matter of the sacrament of penance which must be loosed by priestly absolution, just as that is the matter of the sacrament of the Eucharist which must be consecrated by the words of consecration. Therefore, just as someone would sin gravely by presenting a paper host together with wheat hosts to be consecrated, so too someone would sin gravely by mentioning in confession some venial sins for which he is not sorry, because for want of sorrow he would present as matter something that truly cannot be its matter. — I deny the antecedent: for someone who discloses in confession some venial sins for which he is not sorry does not propose them as matter for the sacrament of penance. He merely sets out such venial sins along with those for which he is sorry, either to have greater humility and shame as a result, or to give his confessor a clearer knowledge of his conscience, just as he is accustomed to disclose vicious habits, occasions of sinning, and temptations that arise. Hence, in proving the antecedent I deny the parity. The reason for the difference is that a paper host cannot be presented at Mass together with wheat hosts except to be consecrated and as matter capable of transubstantiation, which it is not. But it is not necessary to propose as matter for the sacrament all the venial sins that we disclose in confession. We are not required to confess them; rather, we mention them for our own humility and shame and to disclose more fully to the priest knowledge of our condition, in order to receive counsel. In the same way, we praiseworthily disclose in confession to the priest our natural inclinations, occasions, temptations, and the like, which are not sins.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Someone who is not contrite for all the venial sins he discloses in confession makes the form of absolution false and the sacrament partly null and false, insofar as he deprives it of suitable matter for absolution and its proper effect. Therefore, he sins most gravely. — I deny the antecedent: for the meaning of this form, I absolve you from your sins, is “from those that you confessed with sorrow and a due purpose.” Therefore the sacrament is not partly null, because nothing necessary for its validity and fruit is lacking if the penitent has confessed one venial sin, even though it does not have as great an effect as it could have if he were sorry for each one. Hence the penitent should be advised, when he makes an examination of conscience in preparation for confession and recalls each sin he has committed, to elicit sorrow and detestation upon recalling each one as well, so that he may be disposed more effectively and better to receive the effect of the sacrament.

COLLECT FOURTH: It is most salutary for the sorrow that ordinarily comes through attrition to precede confession. For someone who is contrite for his sins declares them far more clearly and carefully, and also with greater devotion of soul and preparation for grace and sacramental absolution. Nevertheless, it is not absolutely necessary for that movement and affection of sorrow to precede confession, as is clear from the common practice of the faithful, who consider that they have duly received sacramental absolution, provided that they have attrition before receiving it. Hence, after hearing the penitents’ sins, confessors exhort them to be sorry for them, with a purpose not to sin again in the future. But this would be useless, and this practice would tend to the penitent’s own harm and to irreverence toward the sacrament, if this sorrow had necessarily to precede the confession being made. Therefore, etc.

Nevertheless, it is necessary that the sorrow of attrition itself come before sacramental absolution. For sacramental absolution is given in the form of a judicial sentence, and such a sentence necessarily presupposes the accused person’s accusation. But because that accusation is voluntary, it must be accompanied—or at least followed—by sorrow on the penitent’s part, as a prior disposition. Therefore the priest cannot absolve the penitent unless the penitent has first declared his sins by confession and has grieved over those sins. This is especially so because the sentence reconciles the sinner with God; consequently, the penitent must be ready and disposed to return to God’s grace. But that return cannot take place unless the sinner is engaged with, and detests, those very things that had been the cause of his turning away from God. This detestation occurs by way of contrition or attrition. Therefore that movement and affection of sorrow must necessarily come before sacramental absolution. From this it follows that whenever anyone confesses sins without such sorrow, absolution is given invalidly, and that person must confess those sins again.

COLLECT FINALLY: Attrition can be defined as follows: Attrition is sorrow and detestation of the soul for sins committed, with a purpose not to sin thereafter, and with hope for and a petition for pardon, conceived from a supernatural motive, either from fear of hell or from the ugliness of sin, together with some love of God belonging to the virtue of hope. All the parts of this definition, or description, are established by what has been said. First, it says sorrow and detestation of the soul for sins committed, with a purpose not to sin thereafter. In these features attrition agrees with perfect contrition, which likewise has the same characteristics. It adds with hope for and a petition for pardon: for someone who is duly contrite hopes to obtain pardon from God and entreats him for it. It then says conceived from a supernatural motive: for someone who grieved over sins for a purely natural motive would not have a sufficient disposition to obtain pardon and sanctifying grace. The remaining words are added to distinguish attrition itself from perfect contrition, which likewise has hope of obtaining pardon and is conceived from a supernatural motive, but solely from the affection of charity and the love of God for his own sake.