Confession Of Sin and Sharing Of Personal Issues

[Presbyterian Continuist]

One thing that I have been impressed with while watching the English TV series Father Brown is, aside from his crime solving ability, is the love for his church and what it stands for, especially the confessional. If I ever decided to turn Catholic, I think I would love to have a parish priest like him. I know it is a fictional series based on the novels by G. K. Chesterton, but it does have some good principles.

What I want to discuss is the Confessional. Although I believe that we should confess our sins and shortcomings to God and receive forgiveness and cleansing from Him, there is a place for confessing out faults to someone we trust. That person cannot absolve us from our sins as a Catholic priest believes, but there is assurance and comfort in sharing our shortcomings and faults with another brother or sister in Christ.

The thing I am impressed about the Catholic Confessional is that it is totally confidential. Not even a court of law can compel a priest to violate the Confessional. In one episode a murderer confessed to a murder to Father Brown, but the Father could not turn him into the police because of the sanctity of the Confessional. In this case it was a wife who was the victim of serious domestic violence and she was in fear of her life. She escaped the country and the priest couldn't (and didn't want to) stop her. If it was shared outside of the Confessional, the priest would know that it was his duty to report her to the police.

I think the principles of the Confessional need to be learned by other churches, pastors and elders who counsel their members in what are supposed to be confidential sessions. Many good counsellors respect the privacy of their clients and secrets are kept permanently. But others don't, sometimes gossiping to others, or by accident.

I was in a church where members were being counselled for personal problems by the elders (it was an elder-run church, that I attended in the 1970s). Many complained that their personal problems which they had shared in confidence were becoming widely known among the congregation. When I sought to find out why, I discovered how many of these confidences were betrayed. What would happen was an elder would counsel a member, say, about his sexual desires. Then the elder would engaged in "pillow talk" with his wife and share what happened during his day, and part of that would share that he had counselled a young man (named) about his personal problem, What the wife would do would be to attend the mid-week prayer meeting, and pray out loud, "We pray for Jack so that he could get the victory over his sinful sexual desires", and maybe giving more details for clarity. Maybe the elder's wife had sincere intentions, but unfortunately there were women in that prayer group who were inclined to gossip, and they would go from the prayer meeting and have morning tea with others "sisters in the Lord" and would say, "Do you know what I heard about Jack? He has a serious sexual sin problem". Often the Chinese Whisper syndrome where details get exaggerated with the retelling, before long, Jack would have the reputation among the women in the church that he is involved in sexual sin and the young ladies of the church should be wary of him because if they get into a relationship with him, it will end up being a sexual one. This is just one example of how a confidential counselling session can be spread around the church, especially in a church community which is close and everyone knew each other as close friends. In many churches this is how innocent persons private lives can be made public when it should not be.

I guess the Confessional is relatively safe because Catholic priests are celebate, and don't have wives to share things with, so that temptation is removed from them. But this is a good item for discussion, and fruitful discussion would be welcome.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I've got to watch that show and see if I'd be interested to follow it.

Orthodox are very similar to Catholic in many ways regarding confession. (We do confess to Christ and the priest is there as a witness, though.) Our priests are often married, and still there is essentially no risk of anything being shared. I don't know exactly what the canons of the Church say, but it goes far back - the priest is under serious obligation to God and to the Church not to break the sanctity of Confession. It is also a Sacrament for us, so it is VERY serious business. If I'm not mistaken, just one disclosure could cause a priest to be defrocked and he would be seriously liable before God, as the shepherd of his flock, damaging it in this way.

But it has nothing to do with temptation or wives (for Orthodox or Catholic priests). Rather it is the extreme seriousness with which priests are bound by the canons of the early Church.

If there is pastoral counseling or accountability partnerships or whatever going on within a church, in my opinion the people who participate should be made aware of the seriousness of keeping confidentiality, both in their responsibility to persons and especially before God. If any are not mature or stable enough to handle such a responsibility, they shouldn't be given it.

I too have heard prayers made out loud that were essentially gossip or else castigation, and it left a very bad impression of the person who would use prayer as a medium to do that. Those things ought to prayed privately or else not mentioned in such detail in shared prayer.

 

[Dave-W]

Point 1: I like Fr Brown as well. He is a very unique character.

Point 2: I have seen the same thing in independent pastor led congregations. What is confessed and prayed for (assumed in confidence) becomes the basis for next week's sermon. (without names) But usually enough details are given that anyone who knows their fellow congregants well can easily figure it out.

 

[com7fy8]

Although I believe that we should confess our sins and shortcomings to God and receive forgiveness and cleansing from Him, there is a place for confessing out faults to someone we trust.

"Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." (James 5:16)

In my confessing experience, I only told the priest what I did. But there was not praying for me to be "healed" of the character which made me able to sin, and "healed" instead together with God in His love. It was only a forgiveness and absolution and penance thing.

In one episode a murderer confessed to a murder to Father Brown, but the Father could not turn him into the police because of the sanctity of the Confessional.

I was told, while being taught Catholicism, that a priest would need to tell the person to turn oneself in, and if the person did not promise to turn oneself in, then the priest would not close the confession with absolution; and because the priest did not close confession with absolution the person was still bound about one's sin and the priest could go to the police.

It would be a mortal sin if the person confessing did not obey the directives of the priest during the confession. The murderer would be required to turn oneself in to the police.

So, what you have seen on TV might be inaccurate but, though, entertaining.

In this case it was a wife who was the victim of serious domestic violence and she was in fear of her life. She escaped the country and the priest couldn't (and didn't want to) stop her. If it was shared outside of the Confessional, the priest would know that it was his duty to report her to the police.

This could make for interesting discussion . . . as to whether killing him could be argued to be somehow in self defense.

I think the principles of the Confessional need to be learned by other churches, pastors and elders who counsel their members in what are supposed to be confidential sessions. Many good counsellors respect the privacy of their clients and secrets are kept permanently. But others don't, sometimes gossiping to others, or by accident.

If I tell someone something, I am trusting the person; so the person is free to talk with anyone the person needs to share with about what I said. If I do not so trust a person, then I do not need to tell the person.

The person I am trusting might have one's mentors and special resource people who the person needs to talk to. So, I do not want to interfere with that trust, by limiting the person about being able to talk about what I have said. And I trust Jesus to take care of what happens; certainly the trusted person is not perfect; so he or she might say the wrong thing to someone and then there could come a problem; but I trust Jesus about this, being ready to turn the other cheek and forgive my trusted people if and when they might mess up.

So, I am of the opinion that if leaders turn out to be loose lips to loose-lipped people, the problem is not with being willing to trust people, but the problem is with if those leaders are qualified to lead. And if I am a Christian I can make sure with God about whom I trust; so if I trust someone who turns out to be wrong, this first is my own fault that I have not been submitting to God and how He guides me about whom He approves for me to trust.

Even so, it is wrong to betray trust. But, like I say, with Jesus we can hear His voice and know whom He approves and how He has called each person to be trusted.

By the way, our secret sinning does have consequences. And the spirit of our secret stuff can spread to make others the same way, even if they don't know about our secret stuff > it is like how you can have tuberculosis and hide it, but your coughing and sneezing and even laughing can project TB germs into the air where others can breathe them in and become infected.

 

[~Anastasia~]

"Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." (James 5:16)

By the way, our secret sinning does have consequences. And the spirit of our secret stuff can spread to make others the same way, even if they don't know about our secret stuff > it is like how you can have tuberculosis and hide it, but your coughing and sneezing and even laughing can project TB germs into the air where others can breathe them in and become infected.

That's a very good point that rarely gets mentioned and might not be widely understood. It's important though.




As to the rest, I didn't quote yours because I'm not really responding to it, because we are somewhat different in Orthodoxy I think. But a thought I had is that I couldn't imagine confessing to someone in an ecclesiastical situation if I didn't know I could trust them not to reveal things. A real relationship with a Confessor requires trust (we don't do anonymous Confession in Orthodoxy) and that takes a little time to develop. If I wasn't sure they might not need to talk to someone else about it, I might be hesitant to share. Spiritual guidance is part of Confession for us (Greeks specifically), but if it happens that the one hearing the Confession doesn't know how to advise, they would refer them to someone else to get whatever help they need (which might not involve any further Confession, just discussion). But they would never take what was shared in confidence to someone else. If they are in that roles they should already be prepared. (Again, a Greek thing, but newly ordained priests do not hear confessions - it is usually some years before they receive a blessing to do so.)

 

[Dave-W]

By the way, our secret sinning does have consequences. And the spirit of our secret stuff can spread to make others the same way, even if they don't know about our secret stuff > it is like how you can have tuberculosis and hide it, but your coughing and sneezing and even laughing can project TB germs into the air where others can breathe them in and become infected.

Very true.