tails are left to
his tact. We will agree that there is a difference between the Canada
of the last century, a new and primitive country, and the Europe of
the present day. But I maintain: First, that the confessor does not
content himself with listening to what the penitents of both sexes
tell him, but that it is his duty to interrogate them; secondly, that
a celibate Catholic person, extremely serious and virtuous, to whom I
put the question unawares, informed me that not only are sexual
matters dealt with at the confessional, but that they play the
principal role. And, as it is a question of warning the penitents
against so-called sins, mortal or not, or of absolving them, I fail to
see how the priest can avoid speaking of them, when the detailed
precepts of which we have spoken exist.

I reproduce here the original Latin text. It deals with questions
which have been treated in Chapter VIII, so that I shall dispense with
giving a translation.

The confessor puts the following questions to his penitents:

1. _Peccant uxores, quae susceptum viri semen ejiciunt, vel ejicere
conantur_ (Dens, vol. VII, p. 147).

2. _Peccant conjuges mortaliter, si, copula incepta, prohibeant
seminationem._

3. _Si vir jam seminaverit, dubium fit an femina lethaliter peccat,
si se retrahat a seminando; aut peccat lethaliter vir non expectando
seminationem uxoris_ (p. 153).

4. _Peccant conjuges inter se circa actum conjugalem. Debet servari
modus, sive situs; uno ut non servetur debitum vas, sed copula
habeatur in vase praepostero, aliquoque non naturali. Si fiat
accedendo a postero, a latere, stando, sedendo, vel si vir sit
succumbus_ (p. 166).

5. _Impotentia. Est incapacitas perficiendi copulam carnalem perfectam
cum seminatione viri in vase se debito, seu, de se, aptam generationi.
Vel, ut si mulier sit nimis arcta respectu unius non respectu
alterius_ (p. 273).

6. _Notatur quod pollutio, in mulieribus possit perfici, ita ut semen
earum non effluat extra membrum genitale. Indicium istius allegat
Billuart, si scilicet mulier sensiat seminis resolutionem cum magno
voluptatis sensu, qua completa, passio satiatur_ (vol. IV, p. 168).

7. _Uxor se accusans, in confessione, quod negaverit debitum,
interrogatur an ex pleno rigore juris sui id petiverit_ (vol. VII, p.
168).

8. _Confessarius poenitentem, qui confitetur se peccasse cum
sacerdote, vel solicitatem ab eo ad turpia, potest interrogare utrum
ille sacerdos sit ejus con