The Catholic Church must find “more humane” ways for members to confess their sins, a leading moral theologian has said.
“We have to figure out more humane ways of confessing our sinfulness,” Professor James Keenan SJ, Canisius Professor of Theology of Boston College, told The Tablet following his lecture, “Pathways to Holiness: Ethics and Early Christianity” at Trinity College Dublin.
Speaking at the Loyola Institute, he called for a new theology around the sacrament.
“Let’s not have confession as an end but as a means for being a good disciple of Christ. Go to confession if you want to become a better disciple,” the Jesuit said.
Any promotion of confession should not bring people back to the way they used to confess.
“I don’t want us to go back to the way we used to confess sins nor the sins that we were confessing – we were not confessing what we did to the world, we weren’t confessing a lot about sexism, racism or the way that we oppressed one another,” he said.
Instead the focus was on finding sin by “looking at peccadillos or talking about those three times we had meat on Fridays”.
He said: “We have to look at sin in a social context and we have to see it as done by collectively.”
Professor Keenan spoke about the ancient Irish penitentials which he said were about people wanting to be good disciples of Christ. “They were not worried about the state of their sinfulness. They were wondering if they could become better disciples.”
“By looking at the world in which we live and seeing how much of a mess there is, let’s own up to being part of the problem by the way I eat, the way I dress, the way I purchase – all this has a deep impact on my neighbour and the world,” he said.
“But let’s not think that by confessing my sin, I am suddenly going to become well.” Instead, he said sinners must realise that Christ frees them to follow him and to practice mercy.
“We will see communities figuring out how they want to confess collectively and repent if they have been sexist or had rules against women or against homosexuals.”
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