Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
April 11, 2001
Widespread decline in confession reversed during Jubilee year
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope John Paul II said Catholics should not think they can do without the sacrament of penance simply by confessing their sins to God.
The pope said Christ established the sacrament and told his apostles to forgive sins in his name, so it would be ``illusory and sinister to pretend to settle one's own accounts with God, leaving aside the church and the sacramental economy.''
The pope made his comments in a speech March 31 to participants in a course on matters of conscience sponsored by the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican agency that deals with issues involving the sacrament of penance and indulgences.
The practice of confession has suffered a widespread decline over the last several decades. But the pope said he was encouraged that many Catholics — including young people — returned to the sacrament during the Jubilee Year 2000. He called it an ``encouraging message'' and said it gives the church something to build on.
What penitents are seeking in confession is a sense of reconciliation and a return to grace, along with a certain ``inner peace,'' the pope said. The sacrament can have emotional effects, but is much more than a psychological tool, he said.
``One should not confuse the sacrament of reconciliation with a psychotherapy technique. Psychological practices cannot replace the sacrament of penance, and even less can they be imposed in its place,'' he said.
The pope said that as a confessor, a priest is called upon to be ``a judge, a doctor and a teacher on behalf of the church.'' The priest cannot propose his own personal morality or his own opinions in the confessional, but the authentic teachings of the church, he said.
He said priests have a duty to make time for those seeking confession and to hear confessions with patience. The idea is not simply to help the penitent revisit the past, but to promote a sense of humility and trust in God's mercy, he said.
The pope emphasized that priests cannot divulge things told them in the sacrament of penance and should be prepared to protect this seal of the confessional ``even at the cost, if necessary, of their own lives.''
He reminded confessors that they are to use only the appropriately prescribed formulas in granting absolution and said the use of general absolution should follow the strict guidelines laid out in church law.
