The Poison Chalice
No, it’s not the latest Harry Potter book, it’s the age-old question posed by devout Catholics to priests and seminarians.
What if a person confesses that he’s poisoned the wine in the chalice before Mass?
Well, I was reading today a certain book by your friend and mine (ICEL translation: “our friend”*), one Felix Cappello, whom I’ve quoted before and I came across this example. Now, I never did end up mentioning that I did get a copy of some of his books for a very reasonable price (ten dollars per volume). My gamble also paid off, they’re not in French (as the description indicated) but in Latin as I had thought that they would be. Anyway, Volume II, De Poenitentia, was mis-bound such that the tops of many pages were not separated. So, today I finally decided to go through and cut the pages apart in the sections I wanted to read.
From Tractatus Canonico-Moralis de Sacramentis by Felix M. Cappello:
Item quaeritur de sacerdote, qui ex confessione noverit insidias sibi parari, aut venenum esse in vino quo debet Missam celebrare, etc., utrum possit vitare insidias sibi paratas aut Missam omittere.
Lugo ita respondet: << Non est dubium, quando illa actio vel omissio (scil. fugere insidias sibi paratas, vel omittere Missam propter notitiam veneni) non ostenderet aliis notitiam peccati nec ullum damnum poenitenti affert, quod confessionem redderet odiosam ac gravem, tunc utique posse alio praetextu fugere vel Sacrum omittere >>
At quaestio gravior est, an liceat id ipsum si, deficiente alio praetextu, ex fuga vel omissione alii, qui sunt conscii criminis, coniicerent poenitentem esse confessum illud peccatum, ita ut indirecta sigilli revelatio haberetur.
Quidam concedunt, confessarium posse nihilominus fugere vel Missam omittere.
Alii negant, ob indirectam revelationem. Quae sententia, si revera adsit revelatio indirecta, certa omnino est.
My translation:
Likewise one might ask about the priest, who knows from confession that an attack is planned against him, or that there is poison in the wine with which he should celebrate the Mass, etc. whether he can avoid the attack planned against him or omit the Mass.
Lugo responds thus: “There is not a doubt, when that action or omission (namely to flee the attack planned against oneself, or to omit the Mass on account of knowledge of poison) would not show to others knowledge of the sin nor cause some other injury to the penitent, which would render confession hateful and burdensome, that he can certainly, therefore, on another pretext flee or to omit the Sacred.”
But the more serious question is whether it is permitted if, lacking another pretext, those who are conscious of the crime would infer from flight or from the omission of something that the penitent confessed that sin, such that this would be held to be an indirect revelation of the seal.
Some concede that the confessor can nevertheless flee or omit the Mass.
Others deny this, on account of the indirect revelation. This opinion, if in reality indirect revelation is present, is altogether certain.
* The current ICEL translation of “sacrificium meum ac vestrum” (my sacrifice and yours) is “our sacrifice” which does not accurately represent the different modes of offering the sacrifice which the priest and the faithful have. See also, for example, Christ’s repeated references in the Gospel to “my Father and yours” indicating the difference in the type of sonship (e.g., John 20:17).
