sideration your motives and opportunities. They do say that hell is
paved with good intentions; but these intentions are of the sort that
are satisfied with never coming to a state of realization.

But I shall lose my position, be disgraced, prosecuted and imprisoned.
This might happen if you were to write out a brief of your crime and
send the same, signed and sworn to, to your employer. But this is
superfluous. You might omit the details and signature, enclose the sum
and trust luck for the rest. Or you might consult your spiritual
adviser; he might have had some experience in this line of business.
The essential is not that you be found out, but that you refund.

It may happen that several are concerned in a theft. In this case, each
and every participant, in the measure of his guilt, is bound to make
restitution. Guilt is the object, restitution is the shadow; the
following is fatal. To order or advise the thing done; to influence
efficaciously its doing; to assist in the deed or to profit knowingly
thereby, to shield criminally the culprit, etc., this sort of
co-operation adds to the guilt of sin the burden of restitution. Silence
or inaction, when plain duty would call for words and deeds to prevent
crime, incriminates as well as active participation, and creates an
obligation to repair.

There is more. Conspiracy in committing an injustice adds an especial
feature to the burden of restitution. If the parties to the crime had
formed a preconcerted plan and worked together as a whole in its
accomplishment, every individual that furnished efficient energy to the
success of the undertaking is liable, in conscience, not for a share of
the loss, but for the sum total. This is what is called solidarity;
solidarity in crime begets solidarity in reparation. It means that the
injured party has a just claim for damages, for all damages sustained,
against any one of the culprits, each one of whom, in the event of his
making good the whole loss, has recourse against the others for their
share of the obligation. It may happen, and does, that one or several
abscond, and thus shirk their part of the obligation; the burden of
restitution may thus be unevenly distributed. But this is one of the
risks that conspirators in sin must take; the injured party must be
protected first and in preference to all others.

No Catholic can validly receive the sacrament of penance who refuses to
assume the responsibility of restitution for in