History of the Sacrament of Reconciliation: Part 2

Private confession in the West became the only form of penance and no one questioned its validity until the time of the Reformation. According to Luther and Calvin, only Baptism and Eucharist were true Sacraments whose roots are in Scripture. Although Luther liked the dynamics of confession, because he felt that it might be good therapy for people to talk over their sins, he did not see this as a sacrament. Calvin did not like the notion of penance at all because it seemed to imply to him that one could attain justification by oneself. He feared that this bordered on semi-Pelagianism.  In the face of this crisis, the Council of Trent made it a point to define not only the Canon of Scripture but also the seven Sacraments as instituted by Christ.

It is the Council of Trent, which specifically requires auricular confession of all mortal sins to a priest.  Most theologians agree that this was a step taken by the council in order to defend the belief of the Church that Christ gave the “power of the Keys,” i.e., the power to forgive and retain sins, to Peter and his successors. Nevertheless, the “confessional” as we know it did not adorn every corner of the Church until the 17th century.  It was St. Charles Borromeo, the Bishop of Milano, who invented the confessional. This “booth” was to serve as the common space in which confessions took place. Prior to this, private confessions may have been in the sacristy, or in a corner of the Church but there was no “room” per se designated specifically for reconciliation.

From the Council of Trent up to the Second Vatican Council, no one, among Catholics, questioned the validity or fruitfulness of Penance. Unfortunately, after Vatican II diligently went back to the practice of the early Church, the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers, the council fathers revised the Rite of Penance. The problem with this revision is the way the Vatican distributed it among bishops and priests without any explanation. All of a sudden, there was no longer one rite, but three. As in the early Church, penitents could now sit with the priest and talk about their sins, or, in the style of Charles Borromeo, they could remain behind the screen. As in the early Church, confession could take place in a liturgical context, whence arose the Advent and Lenten Penance Services, or, in the Tridentine tradition, Catholics could show up for Confession on Saturdays. The most popular practice to priests and laity was the third rite, known as “general absolution.” Since the rites were distributed without explanation by bishops or pastors, most priests believed that any rite was allowed and, of course, if you were a priest in the early 1970s, with long lines of penitents, and few priests to help hear confessions, which rite would you administer?  Naturally, rite number three was also popular among the laity, especially those who could vividly recall those embarrassing moments when a priest chastised them or brought them to tears.  For both the priest and the penitent, the first rite, namely, individual confession and the second rite, a public Scripture service followed by individual confession were cumbersome.  May I use an analogy? Why wash the car with the hose and dry it with the towel when there is now the option of the automated car wash, which does everything quickly, efficiently and with little effort on our part?

All too often, the priest who conducted a general confession and absolution service failed to tell the faithful that they should be properly disposed.  They failed to inform the penitents should repent of his/her sins and resolve to turn away from the near occasion of sin. More importantly, they failed to spell out how serious sin required auricular confession individually, in the imminent future. In other words, the third rite required, though never explained, that anyone in mortal sin would still have to confess this grave sin, one-on-one with a priest, as soon as possible. In addition, when this rite was included in the compendium of rites, its primary purpose was to offer reconciliation in an emergency setting – for example, the boat is sinking or the plane is going to crash, or too many penitents showed for the Advent/Lenten Penance Service and there were not enough priests to hear their individual confessions. Needless to say, this rite would find more use on sinking boats and crashing planes than in the case of too many penitents and not enough priests – although my friends who are priests in the Northern Plains or in the Southwest often confront such situations.

Father Comandini is managing editor of “The Catholic Spirit.”