Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV: WHETHER PENANCE IS A SACRAMENT
Is penance a sacrament?
§ 19. It is not unusual for Lombard and the Scholastics to define “penance” [poenitentia]1 (that is, exterior repentance, for they say in reference to inner repentance that it is a virtue of the mind) as a sacrament. The Council of Trent (session 14, ch. 1, can. 1) claims that this opinion must be embraced under the [threat of the] thunderbolt of an anathema: “If anyone says that in the Catholic Church penance [poenitentia] is not truly and properly a sacrament for the benefit of the faithful as often as they fall into sins after Baptism, and that it has been instituted by Christ that they may be reconciled to God Himself, let him be anathema.” Bellarmine (De poenit., 1, ch. 8) explains the sentence of the council in this way: “True repentance can either consist solely of a conversion of the mind and internal hatred of sin, or it can also reveal itself with external signs, as grief, tears, confession, affliction of the body. Although the turning of the mind toward God has always been necessary for reconciliation and is not an insignificant virtue, nevertheless it cannot be called a sacrament without having external signs connected to it.” From this he finally forms the following statement of the controversy: is repentance manifested by outward signs and accompanied by the word of absolution a sacrament of the new Law properly so called? He writes that this is affirmed by his own party but denied by us.