Book Description

Excerpt from A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church, Vol. 2: Confession and Absolution (Continued.) The first prerequisite to the enjoyment of the fruits of the sacra ment is a knowledge of the truths of religion, and we have just seen how the Lutherans insisted on this, and provided for it in the Verhoz'. It is the same in the Catholic Church, and confessors dealing with those not known to them are instructed always to begin with an examination into the soundness of the penitent's faith. Ignorance of the leading points of doctrine is a mortal sin, but it is not suffered to prove a serious obstacle in the confessional, for the penitent is not required to know the articles of the creed by heart, and it suffices for him to express his assent when asked such questions as Do you believe that there are three persons in the Trinity? 1 Only obsti nate disbelief can thus serve as a barrier. 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.