Apr 15 Wed
Why do I have to go to confession? Can the Lord forgive my sins directly, in private?
During a 2011 visit to a prison, Pope Benedict XVI clearly explained why it is necessary to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Gianni, an inmate at Rome’s Rebibbia addressed the then-Pope, asking a question that many Catholics have asked themselves at some point:
My name is Gianni. Your Holiness, I was taught that the Lord sees and reads inside us. I wonder why absolution is delegated to priests? If I asked for it on my knees alone in my room, turning to the Lord, would He absolve me? Or would it be another kind of absolution? What would the difference be?
With empathy, Pope Benedict said he understood the prisoner’s doubts.
“First of all, we must keep in mind these two connections everyone has: the vertical one, with God, and the horizontal one, with the community of the Church and humanity."
“Naturally, if you kneel down and, with true love for God, pray that He forgives you, He will forgive you. It has always been the teaching of the Church that if a person, with true repentance — that is, not only to avoid punishment, difficulty, but for love of the good, for love of God — asks for forgiveness, he could be pardoned by God."
“Thus, if I honestly acknowledge that I have done evil, and if I love goodness, repentance is born within me for not having responded to God’s love. And I ask forgiveness from Him, who is the Good; He gives it to me."
Benedict XVI went deeper and explained why the act by itself is not enough: “But sin is not only a 'personal', individual thing between myself and God. Sin always also has a social dimension, a horizontal one. With my personal sin, even unaware of it, I have damaged the communion of the Church, I have damaged humanity.”
“This social, horizontal dimension of sin requires that it be absolved also at the level of the human community, by the community of the Church. Thus, this second dimension of sin, which is not only against God but concerns the community too, demands the Sacrament." So, the two dimensions cannot be separated.
“The Sacrament is the great gift in which, through confession, we can free ourselves from sins, and we can really receive forgiveness and full readmission into the community of the Church."
“And so, the necessary absolution by the priest, the Sacrament, is not an ‘imposition’ on the limits of God’s goodness, but, on the contrary, it is an expression of the goodness of God because He wants to show me, also concretely, that I have received pardon, back in the communion of the Church, and can start anew."
“Thus, hold on to these two dimensions: the vertical one, with God, and the horizontal one, with the community of the Church and humanity."
“The sacramental absolution of the priest is necessary to really absolve me of this link with evil, and to fully reintegrate me into the will of God, into the vision of God, into his Church, and to give me sacramental, almost bodily, certainty."
He concluded, “I think that we must learn how to understand the Sacrament of Penance in this sense: as a way of finding again, almost physically, the goodness of the Lord, the certainty of reconciliation."