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Show Butte, Mont., Oct. 23, 1899. Editor Intermountain Catholic: I was asked the other day: "Who is it that- forgives sins in Confession, Almighty Al-mighty God or the priest?" Please answer an-swer this question in your query column, col-umn, which is one of the most interesting inter-esting departments of your splendid newspaper. M. J. O'B. As a companion question, we ask: "Who pardons a criminal condemned to death, the governor or the .people whose agent he is?" Is it not correct to 6ay that the governor, using his own judgment as to propriety of it, pardons the criminal, when he exercises a power which by the will of the people belongs to the office he holds? Is it not the act of the governor that saves the criminal crim-inal from the executioner? Is it not by his act that the will of those who empowered him becomes known and of force? We say the governor pardons, and we mean" precisely that, for the act is his act; not his personally, but his officially for before he held the office he could not pardon. Mr. Roosevelt, the private citizen, cannot pardon a criminal, but "Governor" Roosevelt can. The pardon then is his official act, and his authority author-ity to grant it comes from the people. But the fact that the general pardoning pardon-ing power comes from the people does not make a particular pardon any the less the act of the governor. It depends entirely on his will and judgment, as i he can grant or refuse it, as he deems proper under the circumstances. To say then that the governor pardons the criminal is an exact expression of the truth, and no one knows It better than I the criminal himself. If the governor were commanded by the people to pardon in a particular case he would be merely an irresponsible irresponsi-ble instrument and the act would not be strictly speaking his act. But he ia not commanded in any case; he is simply sim-ply authorized to his own judgment when and on whom he deems proper, i In this case the act when done is truly his. Now in the light of these considerations considera-tions let us come back to the original question. Is it God or the priest that forgives sins in confession? The priest, as a minister of the Church of Christ, acts as an agent commissioned to pardon under certain conditions he being the judge in each particular case whether those condi tions are present. These conditions are the proper disposition of the sinner, etc. The priest being of the ministry of the Church acts under the following commission given to that ministry: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whosoever sins ye shall forgive they are forgiven them; and whose sins ye shall retain they are retained." John xx-2,1. The members of the ministry of the Church to whonv this power of pardon was given, are, like the governor, left to their own judgment and sense of duty as to where and on whom the power should be. exercised. The act under a general commission, as the governor does, but each particular act of pardon is their own act, determined by their own will and judgment. The fact that they exercise a commissioned power does not make their acts any the less their own. The act one is free to place or not to place is one's own act. The power of pardoning comes from God to His commissioned agent, the act of pardoning is that of the agent. To say, therefore, that the priest forgives for-gives sin in confession is an exact expression ex-pression of the truth. In doing so he exercises a power entrusted by Jesus Christ to the ministry of His Church. Then is it the priest and not God who forgives? This question brings to light a fallacy that lurks in the original question. It is the implication that if God forgives the priest does not, or if the priest forgives God does not. A very simple principle blows this dust away. It is this: the act of a commissioned commis-sioned agent is the Avill of the principal who commissioned him to do it. The sender and the sent are corelative and cannot be separated. |