Also known as ‘Reconciliation of a Penitent’ or ‘Sacrament of Penance’

Confessing our sins to God to seek his forgiveness and cleansing, restoration, and the strength of the Spirit to help us live new lives is a regular part of every Christian’s life of repentance and faith. We confess our sins in private prayers to God (including in the Lord’s Prayer – ‘forgive us our trespasses’) and in our public prayers in church services together (this is called the ‘general confession’). This booklet is about the additional, optional spiritual discipline of confessing one’s sins one-on-one, privately, with a priest.

CONTENTS

1. Isn’t that a Roman Catholic thing? [Not exclusively]

2. Is it like it is shown in films and on TV? [Hardly at all]

3. Should I make a Confession? [Maybe]

4. How can I prepare? [Examine your conscience]

5. What is the Seal of the Confessional? [The priest’s vow of absolute secrecy regarding what is revealed in Confession]

6. Wait, what? So what happens if I confess to a serious crime? [The Seal will not be broken, but the priest may withhold absolution or encourage you to turn yourself in]

7. Alright, how can I try it? [Drop into Rev. Zac’s office Wednesdays between four and seven PM during Lent]

1. Isn’t that a Roman Catholic thing?

a. Not exclusively, no. It has always been part of the spiritual life and discipline of the whole Church of God, both East and West, both before and after the Reformation. You can find a rite of Confession in the Book of Common on page 447. The difference between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Tradition regarding Confession is twofold:

i. According to Roman Catholic teaching, believers must confess to a priest before first communion, before confirmation, and a minimum of once a year after that. In the Episcopal Church, no one ever has to – but it is always on offer.

ii. According to Roman Catholic teaching, Confession (sometimes called Penance) is a Sacrament of the Church (one of seven). This view is shared by many in the Anglican Tradition. Officially, however, the Episcopal Church believes only Baptism and the Holy Communion are ‘full sacraments’, though regards confession (and some other things like marriage, ordination, etc) as ‘sacramental’ without necessarily being formal sacraments. That’s one of the reasons why Confession isn’t obligatory in our tradition.

2. Is it like it is shown in films and on TV?

a. Hardly at all! In the first instance, it is extremely rare for Episcopal churches to have those wooden confessional booths with a grille – and increasingly rare in Roman Catholic settings also. Instead, you would be sat simply with the priest, talking privately face-to-face, somewhere discreetly – normally in church.

b. There are four stages to Confession – but one is done before you even sit down with the priest:

i. Contrition – this means being truly sorry for what you have thought, said, and done. This is what needs to have already happened before you sit down with the priest. Being truly sorry means wanting to be forgiven and to be helped to live a new life: so if you plan to keep doing such-and-such a sin, you are not yet contrite and not ready for the next stage in Confession.

ii. Confession – this is when you tell God, in the presence of a priest, the sins you can remember that are still on your conscience. You just say what you have done that you know is wrong without making excuses or evasions. Typically, there would be some specific things you’d want to get off your chest and a couple of more general areas or patterns that you know are displeasing to God and/or damaging to self and other people.

iii. Counsel – this is when the priest might ask one or two questions and offer some words of advice. Sometimes the counsel might involve the priest suggesting a specific action (such as giving back something you stole) or advising you to meditate upon a specific Psalm or learn a certain prayer as an act of thankfulness and rededication.

iv. Absolution – this is when the priest declares that your sins have been completely forgiven and washed entirely away, speaking in Christ’s name the words ‘I absolve you.’ Jesus gave power and authority to his Church to forgive sins (John 20:23): the Church has given that authority in turn to each priest in his ordination. In very rare circumstances (see Q6 below), absolution may be withheld until the penitent has done something specific to demonstrate true contrition and begin the path to true repentance.

c. All the words you need to say and directions about what happens when and how are in the prayer book starting on page 447. The part you are worried about (unnecessarily!) begins, “I confess to almighty God, before the whole company of heaven and before you…”

3. Should I make a confession?

a. The Anglican mantra about formal Confession is, ‘All may, none must, some should.’ Any baptised Christian may make a Confession to a priest and none must make their Confession out of fear or for any formal requirement. But some people probably should make use of this rite.

If you have a troubled conscience, and the general confession and absolution in regular Church services doesn’t fully soothe it, you should consider making your Confession to a priest.

b. You should do as soon as you can pluck up the courage – so that you can receive absolution and be freed of that burden. You will probably find that once you have done it once, you may wish to do so again a few months or a year later – such is the blessing you receive from it. You may feel such disquiet of conscience especially strongly if you are very ill or think you may die soon. The whole point of this ministry is to bring peace and assurance to the troubled soul, out of the infinite resources of Christ’s love and mercy being applied specifically to you.

c. The penitential seasons (Advent and Lent) are particular times when all Christians are encouraged to examine themselves – which is why many people make their confession at those times of year.

4. How can I prepare?

a. You could search for an ‘Examination of conscience’ exercise online or simply note down (discreetly!) or memorise the things that are on your conscience. Different ‘Examination of conscience’ exercises take different approaches – all aimed at helping us see where we have failed or fallen short and damaged our relationship with God, neighbour, and self.

b. No ‘checklist of sins’ could ever be exhaustive, but the sort of things you might ask yourself about can be boiled down to three categories:

i. Sins against God: e.g., being half-hearted about worship, being negligent to receive regularly Holy Communion, not reading the Bible, wilfully not living what you know to be God’s way, lacking in prayer, misusing God’s name, refusing to steward money and time to put God first, anxiety from lack of trust…

ii. Sins against neighbors: e.g. anger, jealousy, contempt, cruelty, selfishness, lying, acts of violence or abuse, unfaithfulness, prejudice, exploitation of other living beings, impatience…

iii. Sins against self: e.g. gluttony, greed, ingratitude and discontentedness, addiction, pride, self-loathing, laziness, living beyond your means, pornography use, cowardice in standing up for what you know is right, drunkenness, coarse language…

5. What is the ‘Seal of the Confessional’?

a. In order to have confidence to be completely honest, unguarded, and vulnerable before God in Confession, it is important for every would-be penitent to know that the priest isn’t going to tell anyone what has been shared. Part of a priest’s sacred oath and a formal part of Church (‘canon’) law is that whatever a penitent says in the context of formal Confession is kept absolutely secret forever, no matter what it is.

i. This absolute confidentiality has zero exceptions.

ii. The priest cannot mention to any other person in any context either who has seen him for confession nor what has been confessed by anyone.

iii. The priest is also formally forbidden from treating someone any differently after hearing their confession.

iv. This absolute requirement of confidentiality applies even after the person who made their confession has died.

v. If the ‘Seal of the Confessional’ is broken by the priest, the severest ecclesiastical discipline applies: the priest would likely lose his licence and perhaps even be stripped of his holy orders.

b. The whole point of Confession is that the penitent is confessing to God, and receiving Jesus Christ’s absolution, merely facilitated by a priest as by an instrument. The priest, in a sense, will hear nothing, Christ (through your priest) hears all – and absolves to bring you release and peace. If there were any possibility of anything being shared outside the Confession, it would destroy the gift that Confession provides to people with a tender conscience.

c. Ordinary pastoral conversations outside of the rite of Confession – even if held in church or privately with a clergyperson – are not automatically under the Seal just because you are talking to a priest: only the formal rite of Confession has this strict rule. Of course, the clergy are discreet with what is shared with him by parishioners all the time, including in regular pastoral conversations – but in certain circumstances (for instance, if someone is at risk of harm or if a disclosure of a safeguarding nature is made) the clergy might have to tell someone something shared in a regular pastoral conversation. But what is shared within the formal rite of Confession is always absolutely secret. You will always know when you are under the Seal of Confession: it will be part of a formally structured rite with a very clear beginning and very clear ending.

6. Wait, what? So what happens if I confess to a serious crime?

a. Of course, 99.9% of the time, the sins that people confess to are pretty ordinary – even if they are very serious sins like lying to ruin someone’s reputation or even a confession of adultery (it is worth mentioning that serious sins like this would not shock the priest!). Sometimes, people will bring up in Confession times that they have been a victim or survivor of serious wrongdoing – perhaps because they feel complicity or shame about it. The Seal of the Confessional provides an absolute ‘safe space’ for a completely confidential, spiritual conversation about it without any possibility of things running out of their own control. It is theoretically possible, however, that a penitent may confess to a serious crime. However, as stated above, the Seal of the Confessional is absolute even in these circumstances.

b. Does this enable people to escape justice? Not at all. Let’s consider a fictitious case study to see why. Bob comes to Confession and tells the priest he has murdered six people and buried their bodies under the patio. The priest cannot and will not inform the police. However, the priest will also not give Bob absolution (the declaration of God’s forgiveness in Christ). Instead, the priest would say something like, “Bob, thank you for coming to make your confession. In order to receive absolution, however, you will need to turn yourself in to the police. I can help you with that – if you wish, I shall personally accompany you to the station; or, if you wish, you can tell me the same things you’ve just told me but outside this setting of formal Confession so that I can inform the authorities and set things in motion. If you are truly repentant and demonstrate your contrition by a guilty plea in court and beginning your sentence, I will visit you in prison to give you the absolution you desire – for God forgives even murderers who turn to Christ in true repentance and faith (St Paul is an example of that). If you do not turn yourself in, however, you will not be absolved. Your sin remains, and one day you will face the awful justice of God.” At that point, the priest would end the Confession and it will be up to Bob what happens next: the priest will not tell another soul anything he has heard. Given that Bob would only come to Confession because his conscience has convicted him and he wants God’s forgiveness, the priest’s counsel, given in the context of the Seal of the Confessional, brings more moral pressure to bear on Bob to turn himself in than if there had been no Seal to begin with. Bob coming to the priest for Confession in the first place is a good sign that Bob is making the first small steps towards true repentance. Without the Seal, he may not ever be able to take that first step, being faced instead only with continued cover-up or despair.

c. The privilege of priest-penitent confidentiality is respected in law (no law court can require a priest to divulge anything heard in Confession).

7. Alright, how can I try it?

a. Rev. Zac will be in his office Wednesday evenings from 4-7pm. You can call ahead to make an appointment or just show up. Confession can be heard in Rev. Zac’s office or in the church if you would prefer. 

b. You can arrange a different time to make your confession by contacting Rev. Zac if that is more convenient.

c. You should feel confident to make your confession to your parish priest. However, if you can’t face doing so but want to give it a try with someone who doesn’t know you, other Episcopal clergy in the area are available.