The Pneumatological Dimension of Xiberta’s Clavis Ecclesiae

Abstract

Xiberta’s thesis is that the reality which is brought about by the actual celebration of the Sacrament of Penance is ‘reconciliation with  the Church, granted in its name by its ministers’, which is the cause of the remission of that sin. Such reconciliation constitutes the  personal impact of priestly absolution on the penitent and, quoting Jean Morin, Xiberta took for granted that the ‘proper and innate  effect of the priestly absolution in the soul is a new assistance of the Holy Spirit.’ This paper reviews how Xiberta presented what  Scripture, Tradition and the Scholastic Doctors tell us about the role played by the Holy Spirit in Sacramental Penance before sketching  the implicit Pneumatology of Clavis Ecclesia, and locating that Pneumatology in the context of the then-dominant ‘Body of  Christ’ approach, and the later, more explicitly Trinitarian, approach of the Second Vatican Council.