The Pastor, Vol. 6

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Excerpt from The Pastor, Vol. 6: A Monthly Journal for Priests Confession is the best safeguard of the young. Synods and councils make the confession of children a frequent subject of legislation, instruction, direction, suggestion. Among other things they insist on the duty of pastors preparing children betimes for their first confession, and seeing to it that the children thence-forward approach the sacred tribunal at regular intervals. The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (n. 442) enjoins on pastors of souls to get the children of the parish who have not made their first communion together, at least four times a year, for instruction, say, during the Ember weeks, and get those who have reached the age of seven to go to confession. This age of seven years, however, is not to be taken mathematically. The legislation proceeds de communiter contingentibus. "There can be no doubt that the law regarding confession was made and promulgated by Christ himself. But at what age and at what periods that law is to be complied with, is determined by the canon of Lateran Omnis utriusque. From that canon we learn that, before attaining that age in which comes the use of reason, no one is bound to confess. But the age at which the use of reason is acquired cannot be fixed at any certain number of years, but is to be determined in general." - Catechismus Cone. Trid. Parte ii. c. v. n. 44. And the Catechism adds: "ab eo tempore confessionem puero indictam esse quum inter bonum et malum discernendi vim habet, in ejusque mentem dolus cadere potest." This age of discretion may be reached by some children before, by others not till well after the age of seven. As a rule seven is set down, and as a rule it is safer for pastors to be beforehand than behind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.