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Confession of Sins​—Is Something Amiss?

“CONFESSION is a spiritual cleansing, a way to start again, a way to wipe the slate clean. I love going to Confession, telling the priest my sins, having him forgive me and the euphoria that follows.” So says one devout Catholic.​—Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned.

According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, “to the priest alone Christ gave or deputed the power of binding and loosing, of forgiving and retaining” sins. The same reference work says that regular confession is meant “to restore the holiness of life forfeited by grievous sin and . . . to purify one’s conscience.” Yet, the moral climate in many lands shows that regular confession does not cause many who practice it to “turn away from what is bad, and do what is good.” (Psalm 34:14) So is something amiss?

Just a Ritual?

Confession may begin as a mere ritual. In Ireland, first confession comes immediately before first Communion. And is it any surprise that a seven-year-old girl would think more about the pretty, miniature bride’s dress she will wear than about ‘restoring the holiness of life forfeited by grievous sin’?

“The thing that excited me the most was the dress, besides getting money from my relatives,” admits Ramona, who made her first confession when she was seven. “Among all the girls I knew,” she goes on, “there was no spiritual feeling. None of us even thought about God at the time.”

In fact, obliging young children to confess sins regularly can lead to mechanical recitation. “I just used the same lines over and over again,” says Michael, who also began the practice of confession as a seven-year-old.

Comments of some Catholics quoted in the book Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned show that confession had little spiritual value for them even after they got older. “Confession teaches you to lie, because there are some things you just can’t bring yourself to tell the priest,” admitted one person. Lack of consistency among priests might be exploited for minimum penance. Some searched for a “good” confessor to get the counsel they wanted to hear. “After shopping around for three months, I found my confessor. I see him every month, face-to-face in the reconciliation room, and he’s terrific,” said one young woman. “If you were smart, you found a priest who was deaf and spoke no English except the words ‘three Hail Marys,’” said another Catholic.

Evidently, then, something is amiss with confession as practiced by certain people. But the Bible indicates that there is a need to confess sins, for it says: “No one who conceals his sins will prosper, whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.”​—Proverbs 28:13, The New Jerusalem Bible.

Does this mean that a Christian should confess all his sins? If so, to whom? The next article will examine these questions.