a priest who has knowledge of the crime can privately
warn the secret sinner, or warn all openly in public, from
approaching the Lord's table, until they have repented of their sins
and have been reconciled to the Church; because after repentance and
reconciliation, Communion must not be refused even to public sinners,
especially in the hour of death. Hence in the (3rd) Council of
Carthage (Can. xxxv) we read: "Reconciliation is not to be denied to
stage-players or actors, or others of the sort, or to apostates,
after their conversion to God."

Reply Obj. 1: Holy things are forbidden to be given to dogs, that is,
to notorious sinners: whereas hidden deeds may not be published, but
are to be left to the Divine judgment.

Reply Obj. 2: Although it is worse for the secret sinner to sin
mortally in taking the body of Christ, rather than be defamed,
nevertheless for the priest administering the body of Christ it is
worse to commit mortal sin by unjustly defaming the hidden sinner
than that the sinner should sin mortally; because no one ought to
commit mortal sin in order to keep another out of mortal sin. Hence
Augustine says (Quaest. super Gen. 42): "It is a most dangerous
exchange, for us to do evil lest another perpetrate a greater evil."
But the secret sinner ought rather to prefer infamy than approach the
Lord's table unworthily.

Yet by no means should an unconsecrated host be given in place of a
consecrated one; because the priest by so doing, so far as he is
concerned, makes others, either the bystanders or the communicant,
commit idolatry by believing that it is a consecrated host; because,
as Augustine says on Ps. 98:5: "Let no one eat Christ's flesh, except
he first adore it." Hence in the Decretals (Extra, De Celeb. Miss.,
Ch. De Homine) it is said: "Although he who reputes himself unworthy
of the Sacrament, through consciousness of his sin, sins gravely, if
he receive; still he seems to offend more deeply who deceitfully has
presumed to simulate it."

Reply Obj. 3: Those decrees were abolished by contrary enactments of
Roman Pontiffs: because Pope Stephen V writes as follows: "The Sacred
Canons do not allow of a confession being extorted from any person by
trial made by burning iron or boiling water; it belongs to our
government to judge of public crimes committed, and that by means of
confession made spontaneously, or by proof of witnesses: but private
and unknown crimes are to be left to Him Who alone kn