Part 6678

s. Therefore if it can loose, it can bind.

* I answer that, * The operation of the priest in using the keys, is conformed to God's operation, Whose minister he is. Now God's operation extends both to guilt and to punishment; to the guilt indeed, so as to loose it directly. but to bind it indirectly, in so far as He is said to harden, when He withholds His grace; whereas His operation extends to punishment directly, in both respects, because He both spares and inflicts it. In like manner, therefore, although the priest, in absolving, exercises an operation ordained to the remission of guilt, in the way mentioned above (A[1]), nevertheless, in binding, he exercises no operation on the guilt; (unless he be said to bind by not absolving the penitent and by declaring him to be bound), but he has the power both of binding and of loosing with regard to the punishment. For he looses from the punishment which he remits, while he binds as to the punishment which remains. This he does in two ways---first as regards the quantity of the punishment considered in general, and thus he does not bind save by not loosing, and declaring the penitent to be bound, secondly, as regards this or that particular punishment, and thus he binds to punishment by imposing it.

* Reply to Objection 1: * The remainder of the punishment to which the priest binds the penitent, is the medicine which cleanses the latter from the blemish of sin.

* Reply to Objection 2: * Not only sin, but also punishment is an obstacle to heaven: and how the latter is enjoined by the priest, has been said in the article.

* Reply to Objection 3: * Even the Passion of Christ binds us to some punishment whereby we are conformed to Him.

* Objection 1: * It seems that the priest can bind and loose according to his own judgment. For Jerome [*Cf. Can. 86, Mensuram, De Poenit. Dist. i] says: "The canons do not fix the length of time for doing penance so precise