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CONFESSION AND SCRUPULOSITY
adviser. He repeatedly enquires whether this or that is permis- ,
sible although his questions about it have already been answered |
time after time. He broods over circumstances attending an
action that have no relevance to its moral aspects and to which |
normal people would pay no attention. He is continually |
anxious lest his confession be invalid despite his confessor’s |
assurances, even when a detailed repetition of the confession
has been made.
A spiritual adviser seldom becomes aware immediately that
he is dealing with a scrupulous patient. If his suspicions are
aroused, he must carefully confirm them before taking any
action. It is just as dangerous to confuse a normal person with a
scrupulous one as to treat a scrupulous one by normal methods.
A penitent himself sometimes confuses scrupulosity with a
sensitive conscience and relies on his adviser’s judgment about
the matter. Some penitents are scrupulous on one point and
normal on others.
To satisfy the need of some scrupulous people to talk about
themselves an interview would have to continue for months on
end. Their theme is always the same; their ideas are always the
same. Nothing changes but their grammar and phraseology.
Fénélon well understood the condition when he said that
scrupulosity is a weakness, not a sign of grace. One should
humble oneself before God about it. It is a state of mind that
results in one’s actions being determined by a weak and
uncertain presumption, while at the same time one takes it for
granted that one has a right to be anxious without reason.
Such ideas are opposed to good judgment. They are
weaknesses that should, by right, be accounted among the gravest
dangers a soul can be subjected to, he says.
Another devout teacher, Gerson, has said that a scrupulous
conscience often causes more evil than a slumbering one, in so
far as it leads a person along a way that is not his true direction
but only causes weariness, despondency, and often desperation.
Treatment
The aim of treatment should be to bring these people down
to earth and reality; as it should be also in cases where ‘through
a one-sided religious education the illness has developed in a
G 97
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