From the editor’s desk

The empty confessionals

Karl Rahner, the Jesuit theologian, once said that he found it astonishing that people living in an era of TV talk shows should question the merits of confession. Twenty-five years after Rahner's death, confessional TV and magazine interviews are even more the norm, as are the greater use of the therapist's skills. Yet confession - the original way of unburdening one's soul - continues to decline in popularity. Pope Benedict, in his letter to mark the start of the Year for Priests, spoke of "the apparent indifference of the faithful to this sacrament". That indifference is measured in a survey recently cited by Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary. A third of Catholics, he said, regard confession as pointless, while 10 per cent think it an impediment to direct dialogue with God and 20 per cent find it difficult to talk to someone else about their sins.

The flight from the confessional has occurred at the same time as the queues for Communion have lengthened. The laity has taken to heart Vatican II teaching that they need spiritual nourishing through frequent visits to the Lord's table. And that Vatican II teaching has also encouraged Catholics to believe that they need only go to confession if they have committed a serious sin.

But the contemporary understanding of sin is where the paths of the laity and church leaders divide. While some adults remain infantilised, sticking to their childhood lists of misdemeanours, other practising Catholics see no sinfulness in contravening church teaching on, say, using contraception.

In recent years bishops have endeavoured to help people develop a more mature understanding of sin. The emphasis now is on encouraging people to be honest, in contrast to the human temptation to disguise and hide away from failings, and to become more Christ-centred in relationships with others. Indeed, the sacrament of penance is today more usually known as reconciliation, suggesting that a relationship is repaired through grace, rather than confession being about mechanically listing faults. And in recent years, the Church has also encouraged people to consider the problem of social sin: communal wrongdoings by society such as racism, and exploitation of the developing world. But as John Paul II indicated in his apostolic exhortation "Reconciliatio et Paenitentia", social sin does not preclude individual responsibility: "At the heart of every situation of sin are to be found sinful people".

Today the admission of personal culpability is increasingly rare. While the TV chat show, or the therapist's consulting room, may encourage admissions of guilt or responsibility, these are all too often accompanied by justifications and excuses.

Pope Benedict is calling on priests, in the spirit of St John Vianney, to encourage the faithful to return to the sacrament of penance. It will not be easy; it will require imaginative thinking to encourage spiritual maturity. Young people, ready to accept the idea of reconciliation from school chaplains and catechists, will be deterred if their parents don't set an example.

People once looked up to their confessors for spiritual guidance. In the wake of the abuse scandals, the Church will have to consider how to approach people in penitence and humility before they will approach the confessional in the same good heart.