Folia Theologica et Canonica 11. 33/25 (2022)

Ius canonicum

MANDATORY REPORTING LEGISLATION AND THE SEAL OF CONFESSION... 135

integral part of the penitential system,40 which was undertaken for especially grave sins (such as capital sins and other grave violations of the commandments of the Decalogue), the work of many prominent Catholic scholars as Morin,41 Petau,42 Poschmann,43 Galtier,44 Adam and D’Ales,45 Palmer,46 Grotz,47 Kurtscheid,48 Riga, Rahner49 and other have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the fundamental structure of the sacrament of penance remains essentially the same today as it was in the early centuries of the Church.50 Regardless of the changes in the form, the Church exercised her power to forgive sins (the power of “binding and loosing”), preserving the same fundamental structure of the ecclesiastical penitential discipline - as mapped out in Matthew 18, 15-18 - in virtue of the power of the Church to make correctio fraterna or fraternal correction in order to achieve the effort of the penitent’s improvement. In the case of grave offenses, there is exclusion from the communion (and Holy Communion), and at the end there is readmission through absolution (reconciliation).51

This fundamental structure today is the same and contains on the one hand, the acts of the man, who undergoes conversion through the action of the Holy Spirit, namely: contrition, confession and satisfaction; on the other, God’s action through the intervention of the bishops and priests of the Church, who determine the manner of satisfaction and reconcile the penitent (absolution).52

40 Except in the administration of the sacrament to the dying person.

41 His famous study Commentarius Historicus de Disciplina in Administrations Poenitentiae, Tredecim Primis Saeculis in Ecclesia Occidentali et Hucusque in Orientali Observata, Paris 1651.

42 Petau, D., De Poenitentia Publica et Preparatione ad Communione (Dogmata Theologia), Paris 1876.

43 His works such Die Abendländische Kirchenbusse in Früher Mittelalter, Breslau 1930 (repr. Freiburg im Breisgau 1951); Poenitentia Secunda, Bonn 1950; and Penance and Anointing of the Sick.

44 Aux Origines du Sacrément de Pénitence, Roma 1951; De Poenitentia Tractatus Dogmatico Historicus, Roma 1950; L Église et la Remission des Péchés aux Premiers Siécles, Paris 1952.

45 For example his famous L’Edit de Calliste, Paris 1913.

46 See his Sources of Christian Theology, Sacrament and Forgiveness, II. Westminster 1959.

47 See his German work Die Entwicklung des Bußstufenwesens in der vornicänischen Kirche, Freiburg im Breslau 1959.

48 His work is especially important fo the history of the seal of confession, i.e. Das Beichtsiegel in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung, Freiburg im Breslau 1912.

49 Rahner, K., Penance in the Early Church (Theological Investigations, XV) [transl. Swain, L.], New York 1982.; Rahner, K., Sämtliche Werke, VI: Depaenitentia: Dogmatische Vorlesungen zum Busssakrament, Freiburg im Breslau 2007 und 2009.

50 See Riga, P., Sin and Penance, 78-79.

51 See Grotz, J., Die Entwicklung des Bußstufenwesens in der vornicänischen Kirche, Freiburg im Breslau 1955. 437.

52 Confession can be seen as to imply the contrition (sorrow for sins) as it was seen in in the earlier form of penance: the public penance. The contrition today is mentioned rather separately as an essential element of penance.