Liguori, the most authoritative moralist of modern times, inclines to the laxist view-not wholly, but in many of the debatable cases. He follows the laxist system in construing strictly the words of the papal decrees and limiting them to the letter, not developing their spirit. The effort to subject the crime to the Inquisition, since all other jurisdictions had failed to curb it, rendered necessary the figment of suspicion of heresy arising out of flagrant contempt for the sacrament. Thus, even in lands where there was no Inquisition and since the Inquisition has been abolished, the sacrament came to be the one thing vital; the relation between confessor and penitent and the morals involved were lost to sight. Any vileness might be committed unless it could be proved that the sacrament was made the direct instrument of seduction. This is Liguori's guide, and the only difference between him and the extreme laxists is that he sometimes brushes aside the flimsy casuistry by which they sought to justify the unjustifiable.1 All this discussion is not merely academic; it is of the utmost practical importance in guiding the confessor in granting or refusing absolution to a woman who has been solicited, if she declines to denounce the offender, and the net result is to prove that solicitation is a purely technical offence, which has nothing to do with morals.

Another source of perplexity in this matter, arising from the indispensable confidences of the confessional, is the difficulty of determining the limits of indecency

1 S. Alph. de Ligorio Theol. Moral. Lib. VI. n. 676–91.

It is true that Berardi (op. cit. pp. 21-5) controverts Liguori's tendency to laxity, but nevertheless he remains the chief authority relied upon by the congregation of the Inquisition. Thus, in answer to a request for a definition as to the degree of guilt which would bring a confessor absolving his partner in guilt under the constitutions of Benedict XIV., it replied, 15 September, 1859, to consult approved authors and especially Liguori (Il Consulenti ecclesiastico, IV. 19, Romæ, 1899). In fact, his canonisation and elevation to the dignity of a Doctor of the Church imply that his writings have been closely scrutinised and found to be flawless.

permissible to a confessor with his penitent, so long as he abstains from positive acts about which there can be no doubt. Suggestive questions and ribald talk might be merely for the delectation which the moralists tell us holy men experience in discussing these matters, or they might be for the purpose of insidiously inflaming the passions and corrupting a prospective victim, or again they might come within the scope allowed to the confessor of acquainting himself accurately with the spiritual and moral condition of the penitent. Where the line is to be drawn is incapable of practical definition. It is for the confessor to decide how far his conscience or his brutality may lead him, and, if the penitent complains, each case has to be settled on its own merits. This was not always by any means easy. In 1786 a nun of the Convent of Santa Clara of Játiva complained of Fray Vicente González, and reported a number of irregularly indecent and wholly irrelevant questions which he repeatedly put to her in confession. Under the advice of the definitor of his Order, she empowered him to denounce González to the Inquisition, whereupon the ordinary confessor of the Council intervened and persuaded the definitor to write a letter withdrawing the charges. The licence which some confessors permitted to themselves was shown in the case of Fray Vicente Sarria, in 1773, in which his interrogations were brutally indecent and completely superfluous, and in that of Maestro Diego de Agumanes, in 1742, who used to discourse at length, with a young nun, on sexual matters in a manner most provocative of passion.1 In fact, the details of some of these trials would be incredible if they were not matters of judicial record, with every evidence of authenticity, and it is difficult to estimate the

1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 365, n. 46, fol. 26, 31; Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo 227, n. 7.

That this sort of instruction in the confessional was not unknown in Italy may be gathered from Cardinal Cozza's Dubia selecta, Dub. 30.

7

filthy contagion which such men spread in the confessional.

Gregory XV., in his bull of 1622, endeavoured to overcome the greatest obstacle to the punishment of offenders-the difficulty of inducing solicited penitents to denounce their seducers. It was the only mode by which the crime could be known, while the reluctance of the woman was almost insuperable. In Spain, as we have seen, the Inquisition sought to accomplish this by the Edict of Faith, excommunicating those who failed to do so, and by ordering confessors to admonish their penitents as to their duty, when, as sometimes happened, the woman would include her sin in making another confession. There were authorities who denied that she was under this obligation, arguing that no one is obliged to denounce an accomplice when it may involve his own infamy,1 and it required the severest pressure to compel performance. Gregory essayed this in a clause ordering all confessors, who learn that a penitent has been solicited, to admonish her to denounce the culprit; any who should neglect this or teach their penitents that soliciting confessors were not to be denounced, were to be duly punished by the inquisitors or ordinaries. The Spanish Inquisition, accordingly, in 1629, granted faculties to inquisitors to punish all confessors who taught such erroneous doctrine,' and Urban VIII. issued an encyclical ordering that when episcopal approbations were issued to confessors, they should be instructed to require denunciation by all penitents who had been solicited." It illustrates the independence of the Gallican Church that it flatly contradicted these papal utterances. In 1707, with the support of the Faculty of Douai, the Sorbonne pronounced it to be a

1 Biblioteca nacional, Seccion de MSS. B. 1159, fol. 161.-Sayri Clavis Regio Sacerd., Lib. XII. cap. xiv. n. 26, 32.

2 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 1, Libro 6, fol. 274. 3 Summa Diana, s. v. Denuntiare, n. 9.

mortal sin for a confessor to oblige a penitent to denounce a priest who had seduced her in the confessional.1

In Spain, the woman who failed to denounce incurred excommunication, and consequently was incapable of absolution until she did so, a rule enforced there as early as 1571, and at a later period elsewhere. That it proved effective to some extent is seen in the fact that a large portion of the cases tried by the Spanish Inquisition derived from it their origin. Even the Edict of Faith was less productive in overcoming the deep-seated repugnance of women to expose their weakness, but, at some time or other, in making a general confession, they would chance to mention a slip of this kind, when denial of absolution would compel them to act. Yet that at best this was uncertain, is shown by the long interval which frequently occurred between the crime and its denunciation-in some cases twelve, fifteen, and even eighteen years.3

It was doubtless with the object of overcoming the repugnance of women to expose their shame that the Roman Inquisition, by a decree of 25 July, 1624, ordered that neither the penitent nor the confessor was to be questioned as to her consent, and that, if either of them volunteered the information, it was not to be entered on the record. The casuists, indeed, agreed that the woman, if interrogated, could deny, using the mental reservation that she had not so consented as to reveal it to the examiner. Be this as it may, the wholesome rule of the Roman Inquisition was long in winning its way in Spain, where the reports of the trials show that the unfortunate witness was spared nothing. Indeed, as late as 1750,

1 Lochon, Traité du Secret de la Confession, pp. 197 sqq.

2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 107.-Trimarchi, op. cit. pp. 95, 100, 104.

• Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 365, fol. 10, 18, 35. 4 Cozza Dubia selecta, Dub. XIV.

5 Trimarchi, op. cit. p. 119.

instructions to commissioners appointed to take depositions in these cases require them to ascertain and record all details with the utmost minuteness, no matter how obscene they may be.' Towards the close of its career, however, the Spanish Inquisition learned mercy, and instructions issued in 1816 require the examiner to warn the witness that she is not required to state whether she consented, and if she says that she did so, it is to be omitted from the record. It is likely, however, that this received scant respect, for, in 1819, the Supreme Council, in ordering the arrest of Fray Juan Montes, feels it necessary to call special attention to the rule."

There was one thing which greatly reduced the pressure on the consciences of women, thus seduced, to denounce the delinquents-the habitual practice of the latter in granting them absolution for the sin committed. This destroyed the sin so effectually that it no longer counted before God or man; it need not be recited in any subsequent confession, and it could be denied without sin for it no longer existed.3 This was an old custom both with the concubinary priesthood and soliciting confessors, and, though it was deprecated by the schoolmen, the absolution was universally conceded to be valid as, indeed, it necessarily must be under the doctrine that the sacraments are not vitiated in polluted hands. In every way the practice was scandalous and demoralising; it gave the tempter an enormous advantage in overcoming the virtue

1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 299.—“Á las quales procurara satisfazer con la mayor individuacion y claridad, declarando formalmente las palabras y acciones que intervinieron, por obsenas que sean."

2 Cartilla de Comisarios, §§ 9, 10 (Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 1473). Ibidem, Libro 890.

3 Herzig, Manuale Confessarii, P. II. n. 52.-Gury, Casus Conscientiæ, I. 418; II. 872. Cf. S. Alphonsum de Ligorio, Theol. Moral. Lib. III. n. 162.

4 S. Th. Aquinat. Summæ Supplem. Q. xx. Art. ii. ad. 1.-Astesarri Summæ, Lib. v. Tit. xxxix. Q. 4.—Summa Sylvestrina s.v. Confessio sacramentalis, I. § 17; III. § 9.