Manifestation of conscience is a practice, in religious orders, of making one's superior, such as an

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

or prior, aware of the state of one's conscience. This is so the superior may know them intimately, and thus further their spiritual progress.

Overview

Manifestation of conscience is not a form of

Confession A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...

and therefore the superior need not be a priest. As in Confession, however, the secret must, however, be kept inviolably, and hence a subject may object to any external use whatever of the revelations he has made to the superior. The knowledge of the state of soul acquired by manifestation of conscience enables the superior to determine the expediency of the frequency of communion, what spiritual reading is to be selected, what penances to be practised, what counsel to be given concerning doubts, difficulties, and temptations. By the decree "Quemadmodum", of 17 December 1890, Pope Leo XIII forbade both mandatory manifestation of conscience and the practice of superiors inducing their subjects to make such manifestations.

External links

* Religious (Catholicism) Catholic canon law of religious Catholic liturgy {{RC-canon-law-stub