MARTIAL LAW !!! WHAT CAN THE GOVERNMENT DO !!!

From the days, therefore, of Calixtus the power to absolve sins committed after baptism is recognized as vested in the priests of the Church in virtue of the command of Christ to bind and loose, and of the power of the keys. At first this power is timidly asserted against the rigorist party; afterwards stoutly maintained. At first the sinner is given one opportunity for pardon, and gradually this indulgence is extended; true, some doctors thought certain sins unpardonable, save by God alone, but this was because they considered that the existing discipline marked the limits of the power granted by Christ. After the middle of the fourth century, the universal practice of public penance precludes any denial of a belief in the Church's power to pardon the sinner, though the doctrine and the practice of penance were destined to have a still further expansion. Later patristic age Following the golden age of the Fathers, the assertion of the right to absolve and the extension of the power of the keys are even more marked. The ancient sacramentaries — Leonine, Gelasian, Gregorian, the "Missale Francorum" — witness this especially in the ordination service; then the bishop prays that "whatever they bind, shall be bound" etc. (Duchesne, Christian Worship, 360, 361). The missionaries sent from Rome to England in the seventh century did not establish a public form of penance, but the affirmation of the priest's power is clear from the "Pœnitentiale Theodori", and from the legislation on the Continent, which was enacted by the monks who came from England and Ireland (Council of Reims, can. xxxi, Harduin). The false decretals (about 850) accentuated the right of absolution; and in a sermon of the same century, attributed perhaps wrongly to St. Eligius, a fully developed doctrine is found. The Saint is speaking of the reconciliation of penitents and warns them to be sure of their dispositions, their sorrow, their purpose of amendment; for "we are powerless," he says, "to grant pardon, unless you put off the old man; but if by sincererepentance you put off the old man with his works, then know that you are reconciled to God by Christ, yea and by us, to whom He gave the ministry of reconciliation." And this ministry of reconciliation which he claims for the priesthood is that ministry and that power granted to the Apostles by Christ when He said, "Whatsoever you bind upon earth, shall be bound in heaven" (P.L., LXXXVII, 609, 610). The theologians of the medieval period, from Alcuin to St. Bernard, insist that the right to absolve from sin was given to the bishops and priests who succeeded to the apostolic office (Alcuin, P.L., CI, 652-656; Benedict Levita, P.L., C, 357; Jonas of Orléans, P.L., CVI, 152; Pseudo-Egbert, P.L., LXXXIX, 415; Haymo of Halberstadt, P.L., CXVIII, 762 sqq.). Following the theologians, the canonists, such as Regino of Prüm, Burchard of Worms, Ivo of Chartres, furnish us with fuller proofs of the same power, and Harduin (Councils, VI, i, 544) cites the fifteenth canon of the Council of Troslé (909), which states expressly that penance through the ministry of Christ's priests is "fruitful unto the remission of sins". This epoch closes with St. Bernard, who takes Peter Abelard to task for daring to assert that Christ gave the power to forgive sins only to His disciples, and consequently that the successors of the Apostles do not enjoy the same privileges (P.L., CLXXXII, 1054). But while Bernard insists that the power of the keys given to the Apostles is lodged in the bishop and in the priests, he with equal stress insists that such power be not exercised unless the penitent make a full confession of wrong committed (ibid., 938). When the great scholastic epoch began, the doctrine which obtained was a power to absolve sins and this power distinctly recognized, in virtue of the power granted by Christ to His Apostles. On the part of the penitent, sorrow and a promise of better life were necessary, and also a declaration of sin made to him whom Christ had appointed judge.