A Thread on Confession, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation:

In Roman Catholicism, my religious tradition, the Sacrament of Penance is form of reconciliation where a penitent receives forgiveness when they, 1st, perform a heartfelt examination of conscience alone,...

...2nd, confess their sin by name specifically before a priest, 3rd, make an act of contrition before a priest, and 4th, make penance as instructed and accept all temporal punishment which their now-forgiven sins entail, often to their secular community.

(NB: “Temporal punishment” means that if I steal, and bring that sin to the confessional, I am spiritually forgiven, but I must still return what I stole and accept any charges from civil authorities.)

I do not mean to suggest that secular society ought to adopt the specific religious practices of my faith. I do mean to suggest that there are concrete and longstanding practices of reconciliation that are spiritually immediate and unconditional while still...

... retaining their temporal reality and sense of secular responsibility. We should not pretend that real forgiveness and absolution of sin is mutually exclusive from responsibility and just consequence.

There is a folk phenomenology to this catechetical Catholic note. When I forgive my child for a real offence, I also have to hold them accountable for it. I can forgive them immediately for petty vandalism, but I also need to make them make amends for that through word and deed.

The forgiveness I offer my child as their father does not withhold love from them, but that same love they receive as forgiveness is reconciled through their *responsibility,* their ability to respond to those whom they have wronged. This is true love.

Conversely, the parent who in the name of “love” forgives their child individualistically and by word alone, without holding them in harsh light of active communal responsibility, perverts their love for understandably strong reasons, but bad and false reasons all the same.

Allow me to return to the Sacrament of Penance and clarify further that *theologically* we are forgiven by God through free grace which perfect nature. Our intent and desire is all it takes. But the Roman Church has prescribed and ritualized a formula for this to express itself.

This crucial theological gap between unmerited and unconditional free grace—amazing grace!—and the prescribed sacramental form and ritual by my Church is another place we can find a serious sense in which forgiveness can have a sacred and secular dimension without conflict.

These examples and notes here, small and limited as they may be, are, for me, truer and deeper notions of unity and reconciliation—which means to come back into council again, to return to the table—that guide my understanding and may be worth considering today.

For Roman Catholics who name themselves as catechists, apologists, or evangelists, I would hope and pray that their contributions to these discussions would reflect even these most basic and, admittedly, elementary aspects of the Roman Catholic faith we profess in common.