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THE CONFESSOR's AUTHORITY the Catholic Church Meets

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THE CONFESSOR's AUTHORITY the Catholic Church Meets CHAPTER THREE THE CONFESSOR'S AUTHORITY The Catholic Church meets people's need for authority and abso­ lution with its doctrine on the penance sacrament and its teaching that the priest possesses divine qualities to administer the sacrament and exercise moral authority. During the ceremony of ordination, God Himself has made a priest the instrument of His power in this world. Thus, the priest is endowed with a character indelebilis which distinguishes him from all secular persons and qualifies him to carry out his mission as intercessor between God and Man, indeed even to deputize for God among mortals. A Catholic writer has said that the priest shows his extraordinary qualities as director of souls by his "apostolic zeal, knowledge of God's ways and supernatural wisdom". 1 But those gifts are not enough for a priest when he officiates in the penance sacrament. They could have their effect also outside that sacrament. As administrator of the sacrament he possesses a special and divine instinct: this shows him the way when he instructs penitents on remedies for their sins and gives them guidance on their future conduct. 2 Such an image of the priest's high office is inculcated in Catholics by their creed itself. A good Catholic accepts a priest's authority; consequently he is prepared in advance to follow confessional advice and to comply in all matters with directions as to his way of life. 3 This maintenance of clerical authority has an integral place in the structure of Roman Catholic doctrine. It is connected there both with the concept of the Church as a whole and with teaching on the sacraments. While in the Protestant domain the clergyman's authority does not receive the same support from a dogmatic outlook, when confession comes into question it is affirmed by other means. True, 1 F. D. Joret, op. cit.; p. 227. 2 J bid. ; p. 229. 3 Officials of the Church require that each and every adherent shall place himself under a priest's direction. A teacher of the Church, Vincent Ferrier, went so far as to claim that God does not accord His grace to those who have the opportunity of putting themselves under priestly guidance-thus to advance on the road to sanctity-but fail to do so. (Joret, op. cit.; p. 224.) 26 A PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHRISTIAN CONFESSION in some areas of Protestantism an approach is made towards Catholic institutionalism; but in others we may observe how a preacher's authority stems from the position accorded to him as the leader of a revival or as a religious personage. There is often no very clear distinc­ tion between the esteem which a churchman enjoys through being a man of the church and that deriving from his qualities as a person. In a subsequent chapter we shall see that even in the Catholic Church, where institutionalism is fundamental, the confessor's personal attri­ butes may be of crucial importance in the effect exerted by confession and the consequence of this for the penitent's spiritual renewal. It was in line with the High Church and institutional character of the Oxford Movement that members there should have stressed as we have seen they did the clergyman's authority as confessor and spiritual guide. In 1873 the leading "Oxonians" issued a declaration on confession and absolution : they summarized their views about the clergyman's powers where those matters were concerned. 4 Here they made reference to ordination in the Anglican Church, during which the words of Jesus to His disciples (John 20: 22-23) are enounced to each of those consecrated: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost : Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained". In this connection the authors of that declaration were not thinking of the general absolution during divine service : what they had in mind was individual absolution as this is authorized by the Book of Common Prayer for use when a clergy­ man makes a sick-call on a person who is afflicted by his sins and who should therefore be encouraged to confess them. According to the prevailing dispensation, such a person was to be absolved with a distinct and unconditional pronouncement of absolution.5 The Oxford Movement extended this dispensation so that it applied not only to the sick but to all other people afflicted by their sins. They too should be urged to confess, and when they had done so should be absolved with the pronouncement approved by the church. Members of the movement had no wish to make confession compulsory. They simply wanted to encourage practice of it, and thus open the way for a 4 Liddon, op. cit.; p. 266 ff. 5 "Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all they sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen". (Ibid.; p. 267 f.) .
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