Reviving The Practice Of Confession
Editorial FAITH Magazine September 1996 by Tim Finigan
The sacrament of Confession is the first sacrament that people lapse from. Long before someone stops going to Mass, they stop going to confession. The sacrament therefore has a special place in the revival of Catholic life. It certainly seems possible for many people to continue a lukewarm Catholic life without the sacrament of Penance. Obviously, many people in our parishes come to Holy Communion every week without every going to confession. A minority go once or twice a year, at Easter and/or Christmas. A tiny proportion go regularly once a month. Yet these absentees from Confession do keep up a Christian life in many cases. Often, on the occasion of some particular mission or event, people will ask how to go to confession again. They go to Mass every week and have got as far as attending a special event but without going to confession.
Perhaps because this is possible, the problem of the virtual extinction of the practice of confession in many places is not seen as serious. It is possible to keep up appearances, to operate all the normal machinery of parish and diocesan life without confession. Perhaps it would be helpful to look at the matter the other way round. What would the spiritual life of our parishes be like if the majority of people came to confession once a month? Some weary priests might groan inwardly at the prospect of several hours per week in the confessional. But most would know that hearing confessions is one of the most genuinely priestly tasks of their life. It is somehow right to be giving apologies for meetings in order to hear confessions.
The impact of such a revival would be enormous. It may be possible to live a lukewarm Catholic spiritual life without going to confession. But it would be relatively difficult to live a lukewarm Catholic life when going to confession every month. There would be a much greater motivation to give the Lord more than a trip down to Church one week in three. It would be harder to accept a slide into secularity that is such a temptation in our part of the world. It would be easier to move from simple weekly practice of the faith into a more devout life with daily Mass. And it would be a guarantee that more than lip-service would be paid to the promises made at Baptism or implied in enrolment at the Catholic school or at the time of first Communion.
Whatever view one takes of the alleged apparitions at Medjugorge, there is an evident revival in the practice of regular confession. Even if the apparitions themselves were not supernatural, it would be quite possible for the Holy Spirit to make use of the genuine devotion shown by the pilgrims and devotees. As has been said more than once by the previous editor of Faith by way of colloquial translation of Acts 10.34, “God is not a snob”. It might be suggested with tongue in cheek that the Church has become so dependent upon extraordinary ministers that God has used his own to get through to us. In this case, of course, the situation would genuinely be one of necessity.
In places where there is a lack of priestly and religious vocations, it is important to ask whether there is a genuine desire for such vocations. Where there is not, or where the lack is attributed by some convoluted logic to the action of the Holy Spirit, it is the will that must be revived first. The same could be said of the sacrament of penance. A complacent attitude which suggests that in fact there is not really a crisis in the use of the sacrament but simply a “deeper appreciation” of it or a more enlightened way of using it. This stage of gnosis naturally requires a less frequent use of the sacrament. However, even that is an almost wilful self-deception when there are so many Mass-going Catholics who evidently never use the sacrament of penance.
The crisis over confession may also run further into the Church’s life. In the life of the Catholic school, there is often a distinct lack of support for regular confessions and where the support is readily forthcoming, it is often because the Catholic staff themselves use the sacrament readily. The disillusionment among priests too may sometimes be accompanied by an uncertainty over the value of confession in their own spiritual life.
A further factor which in many places has devastated the practice of confession is the introduction of General Absolution. Sometimes this has been officially sanctioned, often it is made clear that no action will be taken provided that certain unwritten policies are adhered to to avoid public embarrassment at disobedience to Rome. The effect of introducing General Absolution in a parish is virtually to wipe out the practice of confession. For most adults, going to confession requires an effort, it is difficult, a demanding task, one that is easily put off. To give an officially sanctioned excuse such as General Absolution has the psychological effect of blunting the will to receive the sacrament. As such, it is hard to see it as anything except a stumbling-block to the faithful in practice whatever the intention in theory.
In the parish, it will be necessary to revive an apologetics for the sacrament. This was the purpose of providing, for teachers and catechists, the worksheet in the July issue of Faith which dealt with the question of why one should go to confession. In the case of General Absolution, perhaps a historical perspective might cut through some of the canonical fog. It is the defined doctrine of the Council of Trent that there are three acts required of the penitent essential elements of the sacrament: confession, contrition and satisfaction. In the early Church, all three were accomplished before absolution was granted. In the normal practice current now, confession and contrition take place before absolution and then the penance or satisfaction is completed afterwards. General Absolution could be thought of simply as introducing a change in the order of the acts of the penitent so that, in the extreme circumstances provided for in the Church’s law, the absolution is given after the sign of contrition only. The confession is not dispensed but delayed. This can make sense of the requirement of canon law that the faithful must have the intention of individually confessing any grave sins. (CIC 962 § 1) To explain General Absolution as a change in the order of the penitent’s acts will remove the misunderstanding that it can be used to circumvent confession in some way.
It is instructive to see the conditions that are laid down for General Absolution. The Catechism states that it is intended for cases such as those in which there is danger of death or where
… given the number of penitents, there are not enough confessors to hear individual confessions properly in a reasonable time, so that the penitents through no fault of their own would be deprived of sacramental grace or Holy Communion for a long time. (Catechism 1483)
In all honesty, most priests would have to affirm that for one thing the number of penitents is unlikely to be great except at Christmas and Easter (and the use of such major feasts as a reason for General Absolution is expressly ruled out in the Catechism 1483 and in canon 961 §1.2.) Furthermore, among those under 40, it is very unlikely that General Absolution will solve any scruples of conscience about receiving Holy Communion. The idea that you may not receive Holy Communion in a state of grave sin is not well publicised and publication of the fact would be somewhat futile without explaining clearly what is the nature of grave sin and such concepts as “full consent”. In this area as in so many others, the bloated middle-management of the Church fail to realise that the catechetics of the past 25 years have left most of the present generation of Catholic parents with little knowledge of the basics of the faith.
Pastorally speaking, it would be more realistic to attempt a gentle reminder that there are circumstances in which one is not entitled to receive Holy Communion and to offer a basic catechesis on the nature of sin and the difference between mortal and venial sin. Apart from anything else it would give our people some armour against the sneering derision of the media.
Similarly, we need to offer reasons for the confession of devotion where it is not strictly required because of grave sin. The practice of the saints of the counter-reformation was full of genuine pastoral wisdom. They knew their people and, what was more important, they practised what they preached in regard to the spiritual life. Regular confession of devotion, together with attendance at daily Mass are the basic ingredients of the devout life. Both have been undermined; daily Mass is now threatened in many places by the lay-led “eucharistic service” without any clear catechesis on why it in not and can never be a substitute for the Mass itself.
A clear appreciation (preferable from personal experience) of the value of a confession of devotion is necessary in order to give a convincing answer to the question of why it is better than a simple private act of contrition. The lived experience of joy in Christ from receiving the sacrament will have an impact where the discussion of the distinction of sacramental grace will not.
From the history of Penance in the Church, it seems as though there is a kind of development of mercy or of pastoral compassion in the life of the Church. Just as God has acted according to the simple unified law of his own wisdom in the teaching of the Church, so also in her pastoral practice, where this is a universal development, we can discern a similar development. From a time when Cornelius and Cyprian fought the diehards who would not allow a return to the sacraments ever for those who had given in under persecution, the Church saw the development of the penitentials of the irish monks. Then as now, the Celtic clergy tended to know their people well and their pastoral effectiveness was enhanced with solid wisdom. In the post-reformation period, regular devotional use of the sacrament of confession has been the powerhouse of the spiritual life of many a saint and hero of the faith. We have all but abandoned this
Editorial FAITH Magazine September 1996 by Tim Finigan
The sacrament of Confession is the first sacrament that people lapse from. Long before someone stops going to Mass, they stop going to confession. The sacrament therefore has a special place in the revival of Catholic life. It certainly seems possible for many people to continue a lukewarm Catholic life without the sacrament of Penance. Obviously, many people in our parishes come to Holy Communion every week without every going to confession. A minority go once or twice a year, at Easter and/or Christmas. A tiny proportion go regularly once a month. Yet these absentees from Confession do keep up a Christian life in many cases. Often, on the occasion of some particular mission or event, people will ask how to go to confession again. They go to Mass every week and have got as far as attending a special event but without going to confession.
Perhaps because this is possible, the problem of the virtual extinction of the practice of confession in many places is not seen as serious. It is possible to keep up appearances, to operate all the normal machinery of parish and diocesan life without confession. Perhaps it would be helpful to look at the matter the other way round. What would the spiritual life of our parishes be like if the majority of people came to confession once a month? Some weary priests might groan inwardly at the prospect of several hours per week in the confessional. But most would know that hearing confessions is one of the most genuinely priestly tasks of their life. It is somehow right to be giving apologies for meetings in order to hear confessions.
The impact of such a revival would be enormous. It may be possible to live a lukewarm Catholic spiritual life without going to confession. But it would be relatively difficult to live a lukewarm Catholic life when going to confession every month. There would be a much greater motivation to give the Lord more than a trip down to Church one week in three. It would be harder to accept a slide into secularity that is such a temptation in our part of the world. It would be easier to move from simple weekly practice of the faith into a more devout life with daily Mass. And it would be a guarantee that more than lip-service would be paid to the promises made at Baptism or implied in enrolment at the Catholic school or at the time of first Communion.
Whatever view one takes of the alleged apparitions at Medjugorge, there is an evident revival in the practice of regular confession. Even if the apparitions themselves were not supernatural, it would be quite possible for the Holy Spirit to make use of the genuine devotion shown by the pilgrims and devotees. As has been said more than once by the previous editor of Faith by way of colloquial translation of Acts 10.34, “God is not a snob”. It might be suggested with tongue in cheek that the Church has become so dependent upon extraordinary ministers that God has used his own to get through to us. In this case, of course, the situation would genuinely be one of necessity.
In places where there is a lack of priestly and religious vocations, it is important to ask whether there is a genuine desire for such vocations. Where there is not, or where the lack is attributed by some convoluted logic to the action of the Holy Spirit, it is the will that must be revived first. The same could be said of the sacrament of penance. A complacent attitude which suggests that in fact there is not really a crisis in the use of the sacrament but simply a “deeper appreciation” of it or a more enlightened way of using it. This stage of gnosis naturally requires a less frequent use of the sacrament. However, even that is an almost wilful self-deception when there are so many Mass-going Catholics who evidently never use the sacrament of penance.
The crisis over confession may also run further into the Church’s life. In the life of the Catholic school, there is often a distinct lack of support for regular confessions and where the support is readily forthcoming, it is often because the Catholic staff themselves use the sacrament readily. The disillusionment among priests too may sometimes be accompanied by an uncertainty over the value of confession in their own spiritual life.
A further factor which in many places has devastated the practice of confession is the introduction of General Absolution. Sometimes this has been officially sanctioned, often it is made clear that no action will be taken provided that certain unwritten policies are adhered to to avoid public embarrassment at disobedience to Rome. The effect of introducing General Absolution in a parish is virtually to wipe out the practice of confession. For most adults, going to confession requires an effort, it is difficult, a demanding task, one that is easily put off. To give an officially sanctioned excuse such as General Absolution has the psychological effect of blunting the will to receive the sacrament. As such, it is hard to see it as anything except a stumbling-block to the faithful in practice whatever the intention in theory.
In the parish, it will be necessary to revive an apologetics for the sacrament. This was the purpose of providing, for teachers and catechists, the worksheet in the July issue of Faith which dealt with the question of why one should go to confession. In the case of General Absolution, perhaps a historical perspective might cut through some of the canonical fog. It is the defined doctrine of the Council of Trent that there are three acts required of the penitent essential elements of the sacrament: confession, contrition and satisfaction. In the early Church, all three were accomplished before absolution was granted. In the normal practice current now, confession and contrition take place before absolution and then the penance or satisfaction is completed afterwards. General Absolution could be thought of simply as introducing a change in the order of the acts of the penitent so that, in the extreme circumstances provided for in the Church’s law, the absolution is given after the sign of contrition only. The confession is not dispensed but delayed. This can make sense of the requirement of canon law that the faithful must have the intention of individually confessing any grave sins. (CIC 962 § 1) To explain General Absolution as a change in the order of the penitent’s acts will remove the misunderstanding that it can be used to circumvent confession in some way.
It is instructive to see the conditions that are laid down for General Absolution. The Catechism states that it is intended for cases such as those in which there is danger of death or where
… given the number of penitents, there are not enough confessors to hear individual confessions properly in a reasonable time, so that the penitents through no fault of their own would be deprived of sacramental grace or Holy Communion for a long time. (Catechism 1483)
In all honesty, most priests would have to affirm that for one thing the number of penitents is unlikely to be great except at Christmas and Easter (and the use of such major feasts as a reason for General Absolution is expressly ruled out in the Catechism 1483 and in canon 961 §1.2.) Furthermore, among those under 40, it is very unlikely that General Absolution will solve any scruples of conscience about receiving Holy Communion. The idea that you may not receive Holy Communion in a state of grave sin is not well publicised and publication of the fact would be somewhat futile without explaining clearly what is the nature of grave sin and such concepts as “full consent”. In this area as in so many others, the bloated middle-management of the Church fail to realise that the catechetics of the past 25 years have left most of the present generation of Catholic parents with little knowledge of the basics of the faith.
Pastorally speaking, it would be more realistic to attempt a gentle reminder that there are circumstances in which one is not entitled to receive Holy Communion and to offer a basic catechesis on the nature of sin and the difference between mortal and venial sin. Apart from anything else it would give our people some armour against the sneering derision of the media.
Similarly, we need to offer reasons for the confession of devotion where it is not strictly required because of grave sin. The practice of the saints of the counter-reformation was full of genuine pastoral wisdom. They knew their people and, what was more important, they practised what they preached in regard to the spiritual life. Regular confession of devotion, together with attendance at daily Mass are the basic ingredients of the devout life. Both have been undermined; daily Mass is now threatened in many places by the lay-led “eucharistic service” without any clear catechesis on why it in not and can never be a substitute for the Mass itself.
A clear appreciation (preferable from personal experience) of the value of a confession of devotion is necessary in order to give a convincing answer to the question of why it is better than a simple private act of contrition. The lived experience of joy in Christ from receiving the sacrament will have an impact where the discussion of the distinction of sacramental grace will not.
From the history of Penance in the Church, it seems as though there is a kind of development of mercy or of pastoral compassion in the life of the Church. Just as God has acted according to the simple unified law of his own wisdom in the teaching of the Church, so also in her pastoral practice, where this is a universal development, we can discern a similar development. From a time when Cornelius and Cyprian fought the diehards who would not allow a return to the sacraments ever for those who had given in under persecution, the Church saw the development of the penitentials of the irish monks. Then as now, the Celtic clergy tended to know their people well and their pastoral effectiveness was enhanced with solid wisdom. In the post-reformation period, regular devotional use of the sacrament of confession has been the powerhouse of the spiritual life of many a saint and hero of the faith. We have all but abandoned this