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 ...

Demonstrations on the streets of Tehran, growing tensions between North and South on the Korean peninsula, and a policy shift by the leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, have one thread in common - they are all related to nuclear proliferation. The issue is near the top of the United Nations' agenda of threats to world peace, and shows little sign of dropping down it. The power struggle in Iran after ...

The pendulum eventually had to swing the other way. Since the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church has wrestled with the true significance of the common priesthood of the People of God based on Baptism. It rebalanced in many fundamental ways the relationship between priests and people. But in the process, the ordained priesthood has undergone a silent upheaval. Some reassertion of priestly identity was overdue, ...

Something of a consensus exists among church historians that, had the Vatican treated Martin Luther and his circles in a more conciliatory manner at the start of what became the Reformation, it might not have happened. Many of the theological points he was raising were subsequently found to be valid, not least his denunciation of the sale of indulgences. But the rough rebuttal he received led him to adopt positions ...

Catholic Ireland has suffered a series of moral earthquakes that have shaken it to its foundations. The latest shock arises from the publication of the Ryan Commission Report into the industrial school system that used to be run by religious orders, where appalling cruelty was endemic and institutionalised. Other reports are expected this summer into sexual abuse committed by priests and the efforts by church authorities ...