“The Myth of Post-Conciliar Decentralization” - A New Video from Unam Sanctam Catholicam

Our friend Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, has just put up a new video on his YouTube channel, titled “The Myth of Post-Conciliar Decentralization,” which is very much worth your time. His point is that the common telling that the Church was decentralized by the reforms enacted after the most recent ecumenical council is just that, a myth - not in the sense made famous by JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, but in the more vulgar sense of a flat-out falsehood. The reality is that the Church has never been more centralized and authoritarian. And, as he rightly notes, one of the most significant areas in which we see this is the liturgy and the post-Conciliar reform. What could be more thoroughly authoritarian than to impose a rapidly created and pastorally untested new rite on the whole of the Latin Church, while (in the words of Pope Benedict XVI) “simultaneously declar(ing) that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden, and mak(ing) the longing for it seem downright indecent” ?

In this sense, the only pope who actually decentralized anything in the Church in recent decades was the very same Pope Benedict, who wisely allowed both the laity and the clergy to choose which form of the liturgy they wanted, without requiring any special permission from authority. And it is, frankly, not a coincidence that the same pope who tried to take that choice away from them also invented a new way of pretending to further decentralize the Church, while doing the opposite. As the Church now tries to figure out what to do with that legacy, the results will certainly have an impact not just on the future liberty of the traditional Roman Rite, but efforts to reform the post-Conciliar Rite as well, and it is important to have a clear-headed assessment of this before trying to move forward. Our thanks to Mr Campbell for another worthy contribution to that assessment; do our man a favor and subscribe to his channel!

A New Edition of The Tripartite Life of St Patrick

Just in time for the feast of St Patrick next Tuesday, we are very glad to share this announcement from Mr Phillip Campbell and Cruachan Hill Press.

Some of the most popular publishing projects I’ve been involved with over the last several years have been my reprints of the lives of St. Brigid of Kildare and St. Columba of Iona, two of the best-known saints of Ireland’s golden age. I have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic reception these works have elicited, which testifies to the growing interest among Catholics in rediscovering the vast heritage of Catholic Ireland. I am therefore very happy to announce, after two years of labor, the addition of a third title to the collection: The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick and Other Works (Cruachan Hill Press, 2026).

Composed between the 8th and 11th centuries, The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick is the most popular biography of the great founder of the Irish church. Originally written in both Gaelic and Latin, it was meant to be read in three parts over the three successive days of Patrick’s festival. It is from this text that we get many of the most notable stories of his life: his contest with the druids of King Laoghaire at Tara, the establishment of his church at Armagh, his miraculous escape from his persecutors under the guise of a deer, and his famed Lent on Cruachan-Aighle, where he won the extraordinary grace of judging the Irish himself on the Judgment Day. Whatever Patrick story you’re thinking of, chances are it can be found in the Tripartite Life. This is, therefore, an indispensable resource for anyone who loves the great patron saint of Eíre.

But that’s not all! I have also included both of Patrick’s known works, his Confession and Epistle to Coroticus in their entirety, along with the earliest hagiography on the saint, The Metrical Life of St Patrick by St. Fiacc. You may not be familiar with Fiacc, but he is one of the most important eyewitnesses to Patrick’s life and ministry. As the son of the Chief Bard of Ireland and himself a druid in the service of King Laoghaire, Fiacc witnessed Patrick’s showdown with the druids firsthand and became one of the saint’s earliest converts. Written in old Irish, the Metrical Life is arranged in quatrains of thirty-four stanzas. A good deal of the poem reiterates material from the Confession, but we also see the introduction of other episodes that would go on to become integral to Patrick’s hagiographical tradition, like Brittany as the place where Patrick fled to after escaping slavery, and his schooling with St. Germanus of Auxerre.

The Confession and Epistle to Coroticus are the versions found in The Most Ancient Lives of St. Patrick, edited by Fr. James O’Leary and published in New York in 1904. St. Fiacc’s Metrical Life is an original translation from the Old Irish made by Fr. O’Leary. The Tripartite Life is given in the translation by Whitley Stokes (1830–1909), a renowned Victorian-era Irish lawyer, scholar and antiquarian. The whole book is 176 pages, 6 x 9 paperback.

Now perhaps the reader is thinking, “A quick Amazon search reveals several other editions of The Tripartite Life, as well as these other works. Why should I choose this one?”

For one thing, this work is not a cheap OCR reprint like most of the schlocky editions floating around on Amazon. This is a completely original edition, lovingly worked through line by line, chapter by chapter, with the help of a whole team of people. Phrases left in Latin by Whitley Stokes have been translated, and some of the Victorian grammar has been cleaned up for ease of reading. So you’re getting a lot better product for your money than you would with some crummy OCR scan.

Furthermore, there is substantial original content in this edition you won’t find anywhere else, most notably a 26-page introductory essay covering Patrick’s life and legacy, with a discussion of the various source texts and historical background. In addition, the text has been enriched with a generous number of explanatory endnotes, elaborating on the history, geography, and etymology of the names and places mentioned in the text.

Finally, another reason to consider this edition is because there are two different ways you can save when you do! From now through the end of Easter week, you can get 15% off if you purchase from the Cruachan Hill webpage using the promo code PATRICK15 at checkout. Alternately, if you want to bundle The Tripartite Life with the lives of Brigid and Columba, you can choose the Irish Saints Collection and get all three books at a generously discounted price.

We also have two other texts that readers with an interest in Catholic Ireland may want to take note of: The St. John Ogilvie Prayer Book, a prayer book in the Gaelic tradition with an original introduction by His Excellency Athanasius Schneider, and The Saga of Ireland: A Concise History of the Emerald Isle by Phillip Campbell (me), a 480-page history of Ireland peppered with historical fiction vignettes, laid out beautifully by Michael Schrauzer and illustrated by the lovely artwork of Chris Lewis of Baritus, which you can see below.

I have always been deeply moved by the story of St. Patrick. That one man can accomplish so much in God’s service is truly an enduring testament to the mighty works that grace is capable of affecting in a willing soul. I am sure that you, too, will be both edified and educated by this new edition of Patrick’s best-known and beloved vitae. May St. Patrick bless this humble work, and may all the saints of Erin remember us before the throne of God.

Concilium’s Attack on Confession (Part 4.2): Mortal Sins Before Communion? No Problem!

This is the second part of an article which we published on Tuesday, Mr Phillip Campbell’s investigation into what the writers of the “progressive” theological journal Concilium were saying about reform of the sacrament of Confession in the years which immediately followed the most recent ecumenical council. This installment is a detailed consideration of the particularly perverse work of a theologian named Jean-Marie Tillard. Once again, our thanks to Mr Campbell for sharing his highly interesting and useful work with us.

The End Game: Abolition of the Sacrament of Penance

The end game should be fairly obvious at this point: if any sinner can obtain forgiveness by receiving the Eucharist, there is no need for an individual sacrament of penance. Tillard concludes his argument by questioning the teaching of Trent that Catholics guilty of mortal sin must go to confession before receiving communion:

Why, if what I have said is correct, must one hold that “those whose conscience is weighed down by mortal sin must first go to sacramental confession if they can find a confessor”, before they approach the Eucharistic table? Does this not improperly diminish the value of full participation in the Paschal meal? [20]

In typical sophist fashion, Tillard phrases his proposition rhetorically, but the implication is clear—if the Eucharist is the sacrament of reconciliation, we do not need a separate sacrament to deal with grave sins committed after baptism.

The Prodigal Son Not Doing Anything Particularly Wrong Because He Wasn’t Acting from Deliberate Malice, by the Austrian painter Franz Christoph Janneck (1703-61). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

But what about the Church’s teaching that only venial sins can be wiped out by the Eucharist, but not mortal? Tillard side steps this by denigrating the very distinction between mortal and venial sin, complaining that “these categories are awkward” [21], and preferring that

in the present-day context, one would distinguish between sins of real malice in which bad will is evident, and sins which are possibly serious in terms of matter but which imply a capitulation of the will (if, indeed, it has occurred at all) apart from the “pressure of meditated and relished malice”. These distinctions, especially the latter, are illuminating: reception of the Eucharist is enough to efface all sins where no real malice is apparent. [22]

If the sinner can be forgiven merely by approaching the Eucharist with good faith, there is no longer any need for a distinct sacrament of penance. Tillard’s conclusion makes this point crystal clear:

In strict theological terms, the presence of this contrition (and the votum guaranteeing it) suffices for the sinner—whatever the gravity of his sin—to be able in truth to eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus, and not unto his own damnation (1 Cor. 11, 27-30)… Provided that the votum exists, even though he has sinned gravely, the Christian can receive the body and blood of the Lord without previous sacramental confession, and can obtain his reconciliation from that body: one might say that God “anticipates” the confession which will make explicit a reality already essentially present in its eucharistic source. [23]

Tillard’s Canards

Where does one begin to dismantle this nonsense? Tillard is quite right that the source of the Church’s reconciliatory power flows from the Eucharist, as the Eucharist is the sacramental representation of Cavalry, the sacrifice of Christ to God the Father which is the source of all grace. Nor is he wrong to say that baptism and confession both derive their efficacy from Christ’s sacrifice, and hence these sacraments have what we might call a “eucharistic orientation” to them. From this, however, he makes several extraordinary leaps that are completely unjustified.

Tillard’s biggest problem is his conflation between sacramental grace ex opere operato and ex opere operantis, that is, the power inherent in the sacrament objectively versus what is able to be appropriated by the particular recipient due to his disposition. While Tillard is quite right to note that the Eucharist contains the grace to forgive all sins, he errs grievously about the conditions under which this can be appropriated by the recipient. The Church acknowledges that this can happen in cases of perfect contrition, but we have seen that Tillard drastically reinterprets perfect contrition to be an almost meaningless gesture. Since every sinner is able to receive full forgiveness of even the gravest sins by simply showing up, Tillard’s theology reduces the concept of ex opere operantis to an almost meaningless placeholder.

His equation of the “well-intentioned” act of the grave sinner coming to Communion with the votum by which a child is brought to the font of baptism is ridiculous. An infant is incapable of expressing mature faith at the font. An adult sinner is fully capable of repenting and going to confession before Communion. Tillard’s comparison completely ignores this fundamental distinction.

His misapplication of Aquinas is damning. Tillard frequently cites from the Summa, Tertia Pars, Q. 79, Art. 3 to argue that persons culpable of mortal sin can normatively have their sins expunged by receiving the Eucharist. But Article 3 asks “Whether forgiveness of mortal sin is an effect of this sacrament?”, to which St. Thomas responds in the negative, rightly citing 1 Corinthians 11. We have already seen how Tillard twists Thomas’ meaning of “not sufficiently contrite,” which is bad enough, but even more astonishing is how he uses Question 79 to argue in favor of the very thing Aquinas is denying in Question 79. His conclusion that coming to the Eucharist in a state of grave sin is the very act by which one is forgiven seems downright satanic—an appellation I do not use lightly!

Tillard’s proposal to do away with classifying sins as mortal and venial in preference for those of “malice” versus those where “no bad will is evident” is far too subjective to be useful. All men desire to be happy, which is plain to “all who use their brains” as St. Augustine says. [23] All men act from a desire to be happy, either rightly or wrongly. Most sins are not due to willing the bad but willing some good in a disordered way. Those who sin do so because, in a perverse way, they think it will make them happy. Even the man who hates his circumstances so much as to kill himself does so because, in a certain sense, he believes he will be “happier” dead than alive. The vast majority of us do not sin through “bad will.” Even sins like adultery often proceed from lofty—albeit drastically misplaced—motives that are in themselves positive. In other words, asking sinners to reflect on whether they have sinned through pure malice would functionally eliminate the concept of grave sin from Catholicism altogether.

Finally, Tillard completely misses a fundamental sacramental principle many Catholic children used to learn in catechism—the distinction between the sacraments of the dead and sacraments of the living. If the Eucharist is the source of all grace, why does God so ordain that we have other sacraments, such as baptism and confession? The Eucharist is a sacrament of the living; that is, it is ordered towards nourishing grace in the lives of Christians who are already alive to God. Baptism and confession are sacraments of the dead; that is, they are ordered towards bringing spiritual life to those who are dead. In III, Q. 79, so frequently cited by Tillard, Aquinas makes the common-sense observation that the signification of the Eucharist (bread and wine) pertains to those who are alive, as only the living can eat and drink. Tillard either does not understand or does not admit that sacramental grace must be dispensed differently depending on whether one is in a state of grace or not.

St Thomas Aquinas Triumphing Over Heretics, 1471, by the Florentine painter Benozzo Gozzoli (1421-97.) Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Having spent the better part of a year reading these Concilium essays, I am consistently shocked at the disdain which the authors have for basic Catholic truths, as well as the complexity they introduce into theological questions which are fairly cut and dry. In conclusion, let us cleanse our palette of Tillard’s convoluted nonsense with a citation from Aquinas, who in two sentences speaks with greater truth and clarity than anything in Tillard’s tedious essay:

It is written, “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself”: and a gloss of the same passage makes the following commentary: “He eats and drinks unworthily who is in the state of sin, or who handles (the sacrament) irreverently; and such a one eats and drinks judgment, i.e. damnation, unto himself.” Therefore, he that is in mortal sin, by taking the sacrament heaps sin upon sin, rather than obtains forgiveness of his sin. [25]

NOTES (numbered continuing from previous article):

[20] Tillard, 51

[21] Ibid., 52

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., 54

[24] St. Augustine, City of God, Book X, Chap. 1

[25] STh, III, Q. 79, Art. 3

Concilium’s Attack on Confession (Part 4.1): Mortal Sins Before Communion? No Problem!

On Shrove Tuesday of last year, we began a series which Mr Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, has very kindly shared with NLM. It is the result of his investigation into what the writers of the “progressive” theological journal Concilium were saying about reform of the sacrament of Confession in the years which immediately followed the most recent ecumenical council. This newest installment, a detailed consideration of the particularly perverse work of a theologian named Jean-Marie Tillard, is fairly lengthy, and will be presented in two parts. Once again, our thanks to Mr Campbell for sharing his highly interesting and useful work with us. 

The year 1971 was a time of heady exhilaration for the liturgical progressives. Their destructive work in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II had borne fruit in the implementation of Paul VI’s Novus Ordo Missae the previous year, and with the successful deconstruction of the ancient liturgy there was the sense that anything was possible. Having razed the bastions of the traditional Mass, the progressives turned their sights towards the sacrament of penance, long a target of liberal antagonism. To this end, Dominican arch-progressive Edward Schillebeeckx published a collection of essays in 1971’s Volume 61 of Concilium, the preeminent organ of liberal theology. I have documented the contents of these essays in previous installments in this series (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). Today we will continue this exploration of early 70’s progressivism with a dissection of an essay entitled “The Bread and Cup of Reconciliation” by French Canadian Dominican Jean-Marie Tillard (1927-2000).

Fr Tillard wearing the updated habit of a Dominican Doctor of Theology, on the cover of the French edition of his book titled, “I believe, despite everything.” Ça dit tout...

The Bread and Cup of Reconciliation

Jean-Marie Tillard was a theologian of considerable weight in the post-Conciliar world. He had served as a Canadian peritus at the Second Vatican Council and was a member of the International Theological Commission. He spent much of his life as a professor of dogmatics at the Faculty of Theology at the Dominican University College in Ottawa, but continued to hold numerous prestigious positions on various committees, especially those centered on ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.

His essay “The Bread and Cup of Reconciliation” argues that the requirement to confess all known mortal sins before receiving the Eucharist is theologically incoherent because, ultimately, the Eucharist itself contains all power necessary to remit sin. There is, therefore, no justification for retaining auricular confession of mortal sins in the sacrament of penance as a precondition for reception of Holy Communion. [1] Let us unpack how Tillard arrives at this startling and blasphemous claim.

He begins by noting that Christianity is fundamentally about reconciliation, expanding upon St. Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor. 5, 17-21 (“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…all this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ,” etc.) [2] But what new reality does the reconciliation of man with God introduce? The state of being reconciled with God is the state of communion, koinonia. This communion is total, not only a reconciliation of man with God, but also man with his fellow men, as well as the restoration the integrity of man within himself. Reconciliation and communion are two sides of the same coin. As Tillard says, “reconciliation and koinonia must go together in God’s realistic plan for men.” [3] The source of this act of reconciliation-communion is Jesus’ death on the cross, where our Lord’s body is offered as a propitiation for the sins of men (cf. Rom. 3, 25, 1 John 2, 2, 4, 10).

This singular act of redemption is mediated to us through the Eucharist, which is the sacrament of reconciliation par excellence. In partaking of Christ’s blood shed for the forgiveness of sins, we are made sons and daughters of God by sharing in Christ’s flesh and blood. Tillard explains:

Admittedly, this reconciliation was accomplished once and for all (ephapax) in the event of the death-and-resurrection of Christ, but once again it is applied to the Church hic et nunc, in its sinful situation, by virtue of the sacramental character of the celebration and meal. By one and the same action the Church is freed from its sin and enters into more authentic koinonia. [4]

Setting aside Tillard’s cringe characterization of the Eucharist as “celebration and meal,” we are on solid ground thus far. Now let’s see what sort of implications he will draw from this.

Young People™ gather in Woodstock, New York, in August 1969 for a celebration of the Eucharist in the ritus Tillardensis. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Derek Redmond and Paul Campbell (no relation) CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Real Eucharist is the Friends You Made Along the Way

Tillard proceeds to a discussion of baptism, the sacrament by which Christ’s salvation is mediated to us. If the Eucharist is the sacrament of reconciliation par excellence, how does baptism remit sin? Is this a reconciliation distinct from the Eucharist? Drawing on Aquinas, Tillard argues that the reconciliatory power of the Eucharist is operative through baptism, which is ordered towards the Eucharist. [5] Baptism’s power works in reference to the Eucharist, which is the source of all reconciliatory power in the Church. Tillard says:

Theologians speak of a kind of objective desire (votum), implicit in the very nature of baptism and not only in the believer’s intention to be baptized. Aquinas wrote that without the votum of the Eucharist there would be no salvation for man, since no one could attain grace without this aspiration to full eucharistic reconciliation—a form of desire already objectively implied in the structure of baptism and which must pass into the consciousness of the baptized person when mature. The reconciliatory efficacy of baptism depends essentially on the ordination pf baptism at the Lord’s Supper. [6]

In other words, he who desires baptism implicitly desires the Eucharist, since baptism is ordered to the Eucharist.

This line of reasoning is not incorrect, but Tillard will deduce much more from the connection between these two sacraments than is warranted. Having demonstrated the connection of baptism and Eucharist, he turns to the sacred cow of liturgical progressivism—the “communal” nature of the Eucharist. If baptism derives its reconciliatory power from the Eucharist, and if the Eucharist is essentially communal, it follows that reconciliation must also be communal to have a truly Eucharistic orientation.

The very experience of eating together, in an atmosphere of celebration, is redolent of a meeting in love, a mutual opening-forth, an advance beyond mere intrinsic individual existence, and therefore (in consideration of what men actually are) what counts is less the fact of eating than of eating together while sharing the same existential blessing. [7]

According to Tillard, then, the real Eucharist is the friends you made along the way. This is no exaggeration of his position, for he will extend the centrality of human encounter to the very matter of the sacrament itself. If the human fraternity brought about by the Eucharist is what truly matters, then this fraternity is essential to the signification of the sacrament:

The sign that Jesus made the matter of his sacrament is not the bread and wine in their static existence, or even merely in their power to sustain life. It is the bread and the cup already involved in the symbolic act of human encounter and unity. In this way, the reconciliation bestowed is signified in all its fullness: communion with God is recognized here and now in the communion of human brothers. A sign of human brotherhood encloses the mystery of reconciliation. [8]

The matter of the Eucharist is not bread and wine, but bread and wine shared with the community. With this attitude, one must wonder whether Tillard would even admit the validity of a pre-conciliar private Mass!

All this jargon is a way of suggesting that since the Eucharist is a communal act, and since all reconciliation flows from the Eucharist, should we not consider reconciliation to be communal as well?

A Monumental Bait and Switch

Tillard says that the redemption of mankind on the cross and the reconciliation of man with his brothers are both aspects of the Eucharist, such that they cannot be separated without sophistry. “This is one, indivisible sacramental mystery,” he says. [9] At this point, it should not be difficult for the discerning reader to see where he is taking us. If the Eucharist is the sacrament of forgiveness, then receiving the Eucharist is sufficient to wipe out all sin:

In taking the bread and the cup of expiation, the believer participates in the propitiatory power of the cross. His sins are also wiped out…In the most realistic sense of the term, the Eucharist is the sacrament of forgiveness, because is the sacramental presence and communication of the act which remits sins. [10]

You may wonder, perhaps we are being unfair to Tillard here. After all, the Eucharist remits venial sins to those who receive it properly disposed. [11] Perhaps this is what he means? He goes on to explain:

[T]he eucharistic “sacrifice” does not offer another crucifixion but applies the virtue of the cross. But this application relates to all sins, even the most serious, committed after baptism. [12]

But how can this be? Tillard bristles at the idea of the Eucharist effecting forgiveness in a “mechanical” way. Clearly the disposition of the receiver matters. But what specific dispositions could allow for the Eucharist to remit “all sins, even the most serious”? Pay attention, for we are about to witness some remarkable sleight of hand.

Tillard observes that, in order to benefit from this eucharistic forgiveness, a Christian in serious sin must be perfectly disposed, that is, possessed of “a true heart, an unsullied faith, and unmistakable penitence.” [13] Essentially, he is speaking of the obligation to possess perfect contrition before receiving the Eucharist unconfessed. The Code of Canon Law says:

A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass or receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible. [14]

The “grave reason” mentioned in the Code is typically taken to mean danger of death or something of similar gravitas. [15] Tillard, however, opines that this principle should apply normatively for any sinner approaching the Eucharist in general. But one of the characteristics of an act of perfect contrition is that it is rare. While persons of great sanctity are capable of perfect contrition due to their intense charity, for the average schlub in the pews, perfect contrition is usually elicited from the “grave reasons” which make it acceptable before God in place of sacramental absolution. While any decent Catholic facing death may certainly have the wherewithal to be perfectly contrite in such a moment, can we presume he could be so contrite absent such circumstances? And do so regularly?

Tillard recognizes how unlikely such routinized perfect contrition would be, and hence we will see him swap out the concept of “unmistakable penitence” for what might call “good enough” penitence.

As far as the sinner is concerned, the essential expression of this love [of God] is contrition. Through the power of the memorial of the propitiatory sacrifice of the Passover, in the fullness of the communal celebration, God grants the seriously guilty though well-intentioned Christian the grace which allows his contrition to develop and thus permits him to actually receive, together with his brothers, the bread and the cup of reconciliation. [16]

What a monumental bait and switch! We have gone from “unmistakable penitence” to “seriously guilty though well-intentioned.” The traditional concept of perfect contrition has been swapped out for good vibes. Notice how Tillard has also inverted cause and effect: it is not perfect contrition (cause) which enables a sinner to approach Communion (effect); rather, the “well-intentioned” sinner approaches the Eucharist (cause) and God gives him the grace of perfect contrition (effect). How can this be? ~ Tillard sees perfect contrition as implicit in imperfect (“well-intentioned”) contrition. Contrition itself is a gift of God, so if a man is contrite at all, it is a sign that God is calling him to reconciliation. By acting on this impulse and approaching Holy Communion, the sinner responds to grace, and God rewards him by maturing his imperfect sorrow into perfect contrition. This happens in and through the celebration of the Eucharist:

[T]hrough contrition, God already invites man into the full reception of His love…Through the power of the memorial, God moulds [sic] the believer who is well disposed even though culpable of grave sin, and who is taking part in the celebration, in order to make him able truly to eat the bread of salvation and truly drink the cup of the covenant… It is possible for the two moments to be attained in the same act of sacramental manducation. As is known, this is Thomist theory: if the insufficiently contrite sinner approaches the Lord’s table in quite good faith and reverently, together with the body and blood of the Passover, he will receive the charity that inspires his contrition and hence opens him to the friendship of God. [17]

Let us step back to appreciate how truly diabolical this assertion is, for Tillard is teaching that the act of approaching the Eucharist “even though culpable of grave sin” is the very act by which grace “opens him to the friendship of God”! This is nothing less than a devilish inversion of 1 Cor. 11:27-32, a passage which, by the way, is not referenced anywhere in Tillard’s seventeen page essay except once to deny its applicability.

So how much contrition is sufficient? Barely any. Tillard goes on to say that even the lack of contrition suffices so long as the recipient intends to be contrite at some future point. Here he draws a parallel between the votum mentioned above with relation to baptism and the implicit desire for union with God in reception of the Eucharist:

If, at the moment when he approaches the bread and the cup of reconciliation, the sinner has not already taken this step [i.e., mustering up an attitude of contrition] before presenting himself at the banquet of friendship (which, in a sacramental perspective in which the laws of grace are one with the rhythms of human psychology, is the usual attitude), he must then at least have the firm desire (votum) and sincere resolution to take it eventually. There can be no true reconciliation without at least this votum, which is the manifest expression and guarantee of the existence of authentic contrition… [18]

Just like a child brought to the baptismal font has an implicit votum for God that is entirely undefined because of his physical immaturity, the sinner who comes to the Eucharist has an implicit votum for God despite his impenitence that is expressed merely by showing up and intending—at some point in the future—to be contrite and go to confession.

Before we move on, we must challenge Tillard’s assertion that it is “Thomist theory” that an “insufficiently contrite sinner” can approach the Eucharist “in quite good faith” and receive the graces of the sacrament. Tillard cites Aquinas’ respondeo in Summa III, Q. 79, Art. 3 for this assertion. Aquinas is here replying to the assertion that the forgiveness of mortal sins is one of the effects of the sacrament. After reaffirming the general teaching that those in mortal sin cannot benefit from the grace of the Eucharist, Aquinas notes two exceptions:

Nevertheless this sacrament can effect the forgiveness of sin in two ways. First of all, by being received, not actually, but in desire; as when a man is first justified from sin. Secondly, when received by one in mortal sin of which he is not conscious, and for which he has no attachment; since possibly he was not sufficiently contrite at first, but by approaching this sacrament devoutly and reverently he obtains the grace of charity, which will perfect his contrition and bring forgiveness of sin. [19]

St. Thomas does indeed say that one who is “not sufficiently contrite” can receive the grace of charity in the Eucharist but notice that Thomas defines “not sufficiently contrite” with one who is “in mortal sin of which he is not conscious.” This is clearly not what Tillard means by “insufficiently contrite.” Tillard is speaking of Catholics who know they are in grave sin, are “insufficiently contrite” and “culpable” but “well-intentioned,” and who choose to receive Holy Communion anyway. Tillard does violence to Aquinas by wrenching his comment out of context and using it to justify something St. Thomas would never have countenanced.

NOTES:

[1] Jean-Marie Tillard, “The Bread and Cup of Reconciliation,” Concilium: Sacramental Reconciliation, Vol. 61, ed. Edward Schillebeeckx (New York: Herder & Herder, 1971).

[2] 1 Cor. 5, 17-27, RSVCE

[3] Tillard, 39

[4] Ibid., 40

[5] STh III, Q. 80, Art. 2, 6

[6] Tillard., 43

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., 44

[9] Ibid., 45

[10] Ibid., 46-47

[11] “As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins.” (CCC 1394)

[12] Tillard, 47. The author tries to lend credibility to this theory by noting it was discussed at Trent, but grudgingly admits it was not the majority opinion. He also cites Aquinas on this point (STh III, Q. 79, Art. 3), but this is a non sequitur. Aquinas affirms that the Eucharist in itself contains the power to remit all sin, but it does not therefore follow that this grace will be efficaciously applied to all or even most who approach the sacrament. Aquinas is speaking of what the Eucharist is capable of effecting in se, not what the individual Christian experiences in concreto.

[13] Ibid., 48. Italics in original.

[14] CIC 916

[15] See New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, 1111. 

[16] Tillard., 48-49

[17] Ibid., 49

[18] Ibid., 53

[19] STh, III, Q. 79, Art. 3

Catholic Folk Piety - A Defense by Philip Campbell

I think our readers will find this video by the ever-wise Phillip Campbell of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam very interesting (like all his work). It is a defense of Catholic folk piety, which is to say, devotional customs and practices which have arisen spontaneously among the people, and not from the Church’s official rites. He makes a very good point when he repeats an observation of Chesterton (who also had a lot of wisdom to offer on this matter), regarding the attitude of modernism and modernity to such customs. People like to say that all religions look different, but in essence teach the same thing, but the truth is exactly the opposite: all religions look alike, but teach different things, and this in turn provides a very useful way of understanding how folk piety relates to the Church’s liturgical life. I also found useful Mr Campbell’s explanation of why attempts to incorporate such practices into the liturgy in the name of inculturation are so often such an embarrassing failure. 

By the way, Mr Campbell informs me that his ongoing series about the attacks on the sacrament of Confession in the journal Consilium will likely resume shortly. (See the already published parts at these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)  

Concilium’s Attack on Confession (Part 3): Reconciliation as Socio-Political Struggle

This is third part of an article which Mr Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, has very kindly shared with us, his investigation into what the “progressive” theological journal Concilium was saying about reform of the sacrament of Confession in the years which immediately followed the most recent ecumenical council. The first part was published in February, and the second in March. Once again, we are very grateful to him for sharing his work with us.

A confessional in the cathedral of St Stephen in Toulouse, France. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0. 

In our previous installments in this series on the journal Concilium’s 1971 attack on Confession, we have documented the progressives’ attempts to frame the traditional administration of the sacrament as in a state of crisis (Part 1), and their subsequent call for a redefinition of guilt as a social construct (Part 2). Today we continue with a study of their attempt to recontextualize the nature of reconciliation in order to undermine the foundation of private penance.

Christian Duquoc’s “Repugnance” to the Sacrament of Penance

We have already had occasion to mention the French Dominican Christian Duquoc (1926-2008) in our previous essays. He was a prominent voice in French progressive circles, with over forty-five titles to his credit from 1942 to 2006; his writings appeared in French, English and Spanish language journals. 

Fr Duquoc wearing the updated habit of a Dominican Doctor of Theology.

In the pages of Concilium he stands out as the most vitriolic critic of the traditional sacramental forms, sometimes devolving into downright scorn. In the 1971 issue titled “Sacramental Reconciliation,” he published a scathing criticism of traditional forms of confession, which he castigated as “useless” and “meaningless.” [1] Entitled “Real Reconciliation and Sacramental Reconciliation,” Duquoc’s piece argued that sacramental reconciliation—as experienced by most Catholic penitents in 1971—was insufficiently authentic. He called for a radical reconsideration of the meaning of reconciliation, grounding it not so much in the cleansing of one’s conscience through reconciliation with God, but in communitarian reconciliation grounded in socio-political struggle. As we shall see, Duquoc will ultimately call for sweeping changes to the form of the rite in order to reflect these new priorities.

Like the other Concilium authors, he begins his essay by pointing to a crisis in the sacrament of confession. He frames the situation thus:

Yet reconciliation is an object of suspicion owing to the forms it assumes in the Catholic Church, and notably owing to the celebration of penance… The sacrament of penance, as it is practiced today in the Catholic Church, gives rise to many reservations. There are fervent Christians, including priests and religious, who are unable to overcome their repugnance to its method of administration. There are many facile explanations of their allergy: the loss of a sense of sin, forgetfulness of God, distaste for prayer. But these explanations are unfortunately of too universal a kind to throw light upon this particular phenomenon—for they would apply just as much to lukewarm believers who nevertheless experience no distaste for the existing forms of the sacrament of penance and often have recourse to them. It is precisely where Christianity is taken most seriously that repugnance to the sacrament of penance is most apparent. [2]

As we have repeatedly seen with other progressives, Duquoc takes the crisis of confession as axiomatic; it is assumed, never justified with data. The traditional form of confession is the object of “suspicion” and “repugnance”; it elicits an “allergy” from “fervent Christians.” Duquoc offhandedly dismisses any possibility that this is related to modernity’s eclipse of the sense of God, as spoken of by John Paul II. [3] Instead, he invokes a No True Scotsman fallacy to argue that the problem is the ritual itself, which is said to be universally disdained “precisely where Christianity is taken most seriously.”

Penance: A Superfluous Obstacle

Duquoc argues that the traditional manner of confession is either superfluous or an obstacle to Christian growth.

In the first place, he claims the rite’s redundancy by an appeal to the Eucharist, the ultimate sacrament of reconciliation. For the Eucharist, “through the sharing of bread, symbolizes not only the reconciliation to come, but offers thanksgiving for reconciliation already received.” [4] And if the Eucharist both effects and foreshadows man’s ultimate reconciliation, then is not the sacrament of penance, in the words of Duquoc, “superfluous, if reconciliation is already achieved”? [5]

He also argues that penance is an obstacle to Christian growth because it is ineffective. Like other critics of the sacrament, Duquoc views penance as a form of dry ritualism that does not offer men the transformative power that authentic reconciliation should make available. At best, it is a mechanical “process of guilt-shedding… without accession to responsibility”; at worst it engenders an “unhealthy and inward-looking return to the past” that he characterizes as reflecting a “neurotic character”, especially when it comes to sexual sins. [6] For this reason, Duqouc says penance has a “fictive nature,” an empty formalism that yields no meaningful outcomes for those who frequent it. [7]

For now we shall pass over his first objection that the Eucharist makes penance superfluous — although it should be noted that this argument frequently shows up in progressive literature on the subject. [8] Duquoc’s second point deserves further consideration, for, we might ask, how can he possibly argue that penance is an obstacle to Christian growth? Many Catholics have the experience of going to confession for the same sin repeatedly, but we do not find this formulaic; rather, we find in it an expression of the boundless mercy of Christ. Is not “guilt-shedding” one of the reasons why we frequent the sacrament, so that our conscience may be purified through absolution of sin? Pope Pius XII encourage the frequent confession of even venial sins:

As you well know, Venerable Brethren, it is true that venial sins may be expiated in many ways which are to be highly commended. But to ensure more rapid progress day by day in the path of virtue, for a constant and speedy advancement in the path of virtue, we highly recommend the pious practice of frequent confession, introduced by the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; for by this means we grow in a true knowledge of ourselves and in Christian humility, bad habits are uprooted, spiritual negligence and apathy are prevented, the conscience is purified and the will strengthened, salutary spiritual direction is obtained, and grace is increased by the efficacy of the sacrament itself. Let those, therefore, among the younger clergy who make light of or lessen esteem for frequent confession realize that what they are doing is alien to the Spirit of Christ and disastrous for the Mystical Body of our Savior. [9]

Duquoc’s view is diametrically opposed to the sensibility expressed by Pius XII, for he absolutely repudiates the notion that confession is about personal reconciliation with God through private confession of fault and purification of conscience. What, then, is confession ultimately about?

“Historical Reconciliation”; i.e., Marxism

For Duquoc, reconciliation is about what he terms historical reconciliation; that is, not a private reconciliation with God through confession of faults, but a social reconciliation with our fellow men through rectifying historic injustices. He writes:

The current emphasis in Christianity on the dynamic and future character of reconciliation [i.e., concern for the Last Judgment] robs forgiveness of its historicism, reduces it to a private dimension, in short, devalues it. Struggle, as the active and committed form of reconciliation, has pride of place. Forgiveness, seen as obsessed with the past, is an obstacle to the freedom required for political struggle. The shift in emphasis in reconciliation makes the sacrament of penance meaningless; the social import of forgiveness is underestimated. [10]

Duquoc’s argument against penance therefore is analogous to Marx’s critique of Christianity as a whole: by compelling men to think about eschatological rewards or punishments, it distracts them from political struggle against injustice here and now. Some further quotations should demonstrate how seriously he stresses this point:

Here and now we are immersed in the class-war and injustice. Brotherhood, transparency, peace are no more than hopes; whenever they have a germ of reality, the reality is regional… Today, in the Churches, small spontaneous groups, deeply committed and politically like-minded, are fighting for a Church to their image, purified of hierarchical and anonymous relations, a place of free expression. These communities are revolutionary in aims and status… believers most sensitive to collective phenomenon and social injustices are also the most hostile to the existing forms of penance. Militant Christians engaged in trade-unions or political activities, or involved in the class-war, are the first to be infected by the allergy to sacramentality as it exists in the Church today. There is no question at all of indifference to God or to the Gospel of Christ, but in their daily fight for the setting up of a less inhuman society, and in their political projects, the sacrament of reconciliation strikes them as either meaningless or ineffectual. A serious attitude to reconciliation as something to be effected here and now empties of its meaning reconciliation symbolized in the sacramental act. [11]

Given his idealization of “militant Christians” forming “communities revolutionary in aims” focused on “political projects” and social justice “to be effected here and now” — and his condemnation of any celebration of penance which distracts from this — it does not seem an exaggeration to label Duquoc’s analysis as positively Marxist.

We can summarize Duquoc’s view as follows: for reconciliation to have meaning, it must be present-oriented, focused on correcting injustices here and now. The traditional method, however, is the opposite of this; traditionally, we are contrite for actions committed in the past and confess in hopes of attaining heaven in the future. For Duquoc, traditional confession seems a Janus-headed monster that focuses attention everywhere but where it ought to be pointed: historical reconciliation in the present.

The Reform of the Rite

Given these ideas, how can the rite of penance be reformed to reflect his proposed emphases?

Duquoc begins his analysis of the rite by affirming that any ritual, to be effective, must adequately convey its supporting theology through the symbolic actions of the rite itself, for “we cannot take refuge in appeasing theological meaning so long as this meaning does not become apparent in the rite.” [12] Contemporary traditionalist readers will find this ironic, as the entire drama of the post-Conciliar reform is specifically that the reformed rites do not reflect the Church’s traditional theology. Duquoc, of course sees the problem in reverse: it is the traditional rite doesn’t reflect his new theology. “Current uneasiness regarding the sacrament of penance,” he says, “derives from the dichotomy between the manner of celebration and the meaning of sacramental reconciliation.” [13] In other words, there is a disconnect between the lex orandi and the lex credendi. But unlike traditionalists — who would argue that the lex orandi should be brought into conformity with the lex credendi — Duquoc will simply argue that the traditional lex credendi is wrong. Regarding traditional forms of confession, he says:

The existing form, inherited from Irish missionary monasticism, robs sacramental penance of its social character and implies that forgiveness and reconciliation belong to an inner conscience. Moreover, it encourages the sentiment already too prevalent in our society that religion is a private affair. So the form of a sacrament does influence its meaning; and as things are now it obscures its true significance. The reform of rites is thus not an undertaking of secondary importance — it is the very condition of understanding what Christianity is about. [14]

This is a slippery series of propositions. Historically, the claim that the traditional rite of penance was created by Irish monastics is an exaggeration. The contributions of the Irish were more particular; at most we can credit them with the system of specialized penances for specific sins as evidenced in the famous Irish penitentials, as well as the custom of bringing even sinful thoughts to sacramental confession. [15] But to claim the entire rite was their creation is inaccurate, though it is often repeated in an attempt to push the creation of the traditional practice much later into the Middle Ages that it might be shorn of its antiquity. (Incidentally, even if the traditional rite was entirely a creation of the Irish monastics, I’d much rather follow the precedent of an emaciated, wild-eyed 7th century Celtic hermit living on a rock than entrust my spiritual formation to a Concilium author from the 1970s).

Regarding Duquoc’s second claim, that the traditional rite is in danger of making penance a private affair, we have to ask: a private affair in contrast to what? Because it is certainly true that, strictly speaking, there is no “private” sin. Every sin at least involves a broken relationship with God; “Against you and you alone have I sinned, O God,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 50, 6). In addition, every sin wounds the Body of Christ collectively, even in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. And there can certainly be “structures of sin,” as the Catechism says [16], institutionalized expressions of personal sin which perpetuate cycles of evil. But is this what Duquoc means?

No. Duquoc is contrasting confession as a “private affair” with his view of historical reconciliation — that is, reconciliation as a tool of socio-economic justice:

The purpose [of reforming the sacrament] is clear; it is provided by the necessary link between forgiveness and reconciliation at the level of true history. The sacramental symbol should make clear that forgiveness is a social function necessary to our history as it makes its way toward reconciliation. [17]

There we have it. The sacrament of penance to be transformed into “a social function” necessary to bring about socio-economic justice in our current day.

Duquoc’s Recommendations for a New Rite

Duquoc concludes his essay with a blistering criticism of the traditional form, which he decries as being too focused on personal sin. He phrases his criticism as a series of hypotheticals, presumably to maintain plausible deniability that he is actually asserting such things, but his disdain rises to the surface easily enough:

Does this private form of penance represent a concession to a mediocre form of Christian life? Is it a sacred therapy to appease consciences that are incapable of making their own the evangelical demands? Or does it illustrate an obsession with legalism in our relations with God? Is the institution of confession for faults that do not stop the forward-march of the community ascribable to an unhealthy desire for purity? It is difficult to answer these questions. [18]

But for those who have been reading attentively, Duquoc has already answered all of these questions in the affirmative. He goes on to complain that the traditional rite “tends to remain silent on political and economic matters” and suggests a reform of penance should adopt an aggressively communitarian perspective. [19] He does not give any concrete rubrical recommendations, but we may presume he envisions something akin to what his fellow Concilium author Franz Heggen proposed in his 1971 fabricated ritual for First Confessions, which was specifically designed to reflect a more communitarian emphasis. [20] Duquoc does argue, however, that whatever new form is adopted, it should encapsulate a symbolic repudiation of the theology underlying the traditional form. His conclusion merits being quoted at length:

The reconciliation celebrated in the sacrament of penance [i.e., the traditional form] is first and foremost reconciliation with oneself, which becomes the sign of reconciliation with God—this is a far cry indeed from the symbol advocated by the early Church, reconciliation with one’s brother as the sign of reconciliation with God. The form of the administration of the sacrament is not harmless; it favors one aspect of reconciliation. The private form favors reconciliation with oneself in the interior of one’s conscience, sole seat of authentic relationship with God. Other human realities, and notably economic and political relationships, escape all interference from Christianity …

… This situation invites us to a great creative effort in the liturgical domain — otherwise the seeming discrepancy between our history and the symbolic celebration of reconciliation will grow; sacramental reconciliation will be seen as factitious, and be abandoned, or it will appear politically as a structure upholding the status quo. Hence the urgency of discovering new forms of celebration … The rites passed on by our history were imposed on it without sufficient attention being paid to local forms of possible signs of reconciliation. Certainly efforts are being made today to extricate Christian sacramentality from the situation in which it finds itself. Up till now these efforts have not amounted to much — they have combined a public penitential liturgy with private confession [i.e., the penance services of the Novus Ordo]. The gap between reconciliation with oneself and reconciliation with mankind, sign of reconciliation with God, is far from being overcome at the level of symbol. Confession still seems too bound up with an abstract law.

Yet I do not think we need despair. The current criticism of the insignificance of the sacrament of reconciliation spurs us on to new discoveries. The Church cannot for long do without an effective symbolization of the social, historical and collective function of forgiveness. [21]

What could go wrong? (Victims of a struggle session in occupied Tibet during the Chinese cultural revolution. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

Conclusion: A Wrongness So Big

The first time I read Duquoc’s essay, I was overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of his errors: a web of bad theological premises and faulty history, tied up with a bow of historical determinism with some logical fallacies sprinkled on top. Its wrongness was so big it was difficult to zero in on where, specifically, his wrongness lay. But upon further readings, I think I can pinpoint a few things that merit special critique:

First, Duquoc is simply incorrect about his history. While the sacrament of penance did undergo development over the centuries — and while it is true that penance in the early Church included more communitarian elements — it is simply wrong to posit a dichotomy between some primitive public penance focused on communal reconciliation and private confession focused on reconciliation with God. Both elements have always been present in the Church’s practice. It has always been understood that a sin against our brother damages our communion with God and that we must be reconciled with our neighbor; likewise, it has always been acknowledged that clearing our conscience of all known sins is an integral part of reconciliation with God. St. Paul said he strove to “live in good conscience before God” and affirmed “I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward God and toward men” (Acts 23,1, 24, 16).

Furthermore, contrary to Duquoc’s assertions, private confession was certainly practiced in the early Church. There are many testimonies to its existence, but a particularly poignant text comes from Pope St. Leo the Great, who, in a letter to the bishops of Campania in the year 459, said the following:

I have recently heard that some have unlawfully presumed to act contrary to a rule of Apostolic origin. And I hereby decree that the unlawful practice be completely stopped. It is with regard to the reception of penance. An abuse has crept in which requires that the faithful write out their individual sins in a little book which is then to be read out loud to the public.

All that is necessary, however, is for the sinner to manifest his conscience in a secret confession to the priests alone... It is sufficient, therefore, to have first offered one’s confession to God, and then also to the priest, who acts as an intercessor for the transgressions of the penitents. [22]

Like many post-Conciliar reformers, Duquoc is simping for a fantastical antiquarian history that never existed.

Duquoc’s Marxist analysis of the needs of the modern Church should be self-refuting in light of five decades of the abject failure of this hermeneutic. While Christians should certainly never turn a blind eye to social injustices or “structures of sin”, as the Catechism calls them, there is no reason such social issues cannot be addressed within the traditional forms. It is mystifying that Duquoc thinks the Church of his day had been silent on economic and political matters; one wonders if he had ever read the writings of Leo XIII or Pius XI—or, for that matter, texts like Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, published four years before he authored his essay. If Populorum Progressio was “silent on political and economic matters,” then one wonders what constitutes “political and economic matters” for Duquoc.

We should also note how brazenly he affirms that the post-Conciliar Church is operating under a fundamentally new theology. He does not say this explicitly, but it is at the heart of his argument for sacramental reform: the rite should symbolically express the theology it is meant to encapsulate. But the old rite of the Church does not express Duquoc’s new theology. Therefore, the rite must change: the evolving lex credendi must be reflected in a reformed lex orandi. We see therefore in Duquoc’s argument the underlying assumption of so many reformers that was recently made plain by Cardinal Roche — “the theology of the Church has changed.” [23]

Finally, Duquoc argued that the Eucharist, as the source of reconciliation, gave the sacrament of penance a kind of redundancy; if the Eucharist both effects and signifies our reconciliation with God and man, what is the point of sacramental confession apart from the Eucharistic liturgy? We will take up this point in our next installment when we consider the work of Jean-Marie Tillard, O.P., a peer of Duquoc who argued that the general absolution at the Mass could replace the sacrament of penance.

NOTES

[1] Christian Duquoc, “Real Reconciliation and Sacramental Reconciliation,” Concilium: Sacramental Reconciliation, Vol. 61, ed. Edward Schillebeeckx (New York: Herder & Herder, 1961), p. 28-29

[2] Ibid., 27-28

[3] John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, § 21 (1995)

[4] Duquoc, 27

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 30

[7] Ibid., 31

[8] In the same issue of Concilium, author Jean-Marie Tillard devotes an entire essay to arguing that the Eucharist is the only sacrament we need for forgiveness of sins. See Jean-Marie Tillard, “The Bread and Cup of Reconciliation,” op. cit., 38-54

[9] Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, 88

[10] Duquoc, 29

[11] Ibid., 30, 28

[12] Ibid., 34

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid., 35

[15] See Chris Antenucci, “A history of the use of the sacrament of reconciliation in the early church,” Mar. 28, 2018, available online at https://medium.com/@chrisantenucci/a-history-of-the-use-of-the-sacrament-of-reconciliation-in-the-early-church-8d0eaf275faf. See also, Phillip Campbell, The Saga of Ireland (Cruachan Hill Press: Grass Lake, MI., 2024), pp. 90-92 for a discussion of the contributions of St. Finnian to the development of Irish penitential practices.

[16] CCC 1869

[17] Duquoc, 35

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid., 36

[20] See Phillip Campbell, “A 1971 Proposal for a New Form of First Confession for Children,” Unam Sanctam Catholicam, Oct. 16, 2023. Available online at https://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-1971-proposal-for-revised-childrens.html

[21] Duquoc, 37

[22] Pope Leo the Great, Magna Indignatione, March 6, 459. Letter 168. PL 54, 1210=Ballerini 1753: 1430. Available online at http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1817

[23] See Joseph Shaw, “Cardinal Roche on the Vatican II Rupture,” One Peter Five, Mar. 4, 2023. Available online at https://onepeterfive.com/cardinal-roche-vatican-ii-rupture/

How Is Your Reeducation Going?

Since the Catholic media world is abuzz with rumors of soon-to-be-issued further restrictions on the celebration of the traditional Roman Rite, and the third anniversary of Traditionis Custodes approaches, I thought it would be a good idea to share this video from the ever-wise Phillip Campbell of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, and do a little polling.

TC ordered the world’s bishops to establish a new inquisition to root out the supposed false conversos of the liturgical reform. In their new role as branch managers of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, Their Excellencies are now being saddled with the equally unenviable task of explaining the “spiritual depth and richness of the renewed Missal” to the faithful. (This is quoted from a recent letter of the DDW to an arch-branch-manager, a letter which informed him that the words of the letter accompanying TC, “It is up to you to authorize in your Churches, as local Ordinaries, the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962”, do not extend to how His Grace runs his own cathedral.)

Mr Campbell is quite correct to speak of this in his video with the classic Soviet term “re-education”, and this got me to thinking: what exactly, if anything, is being done to re-educate the faithful, and convince them of the depth and richness of the post-Conciliar Rite as the Roman Rite is taken away from them? So I would invite our readers to watch the video, and leave comments as to: A. whether they disagree with anything that it says, and if so, why; B. what, if anything, is being done in their parish or diocese to teach people that the new rite is an improvement over the old; and C. whether they found it convincing; if so, why; if not, why not.

Things and times being what they are, I hasten to add that no names of bishops, dioceses, or churches should be used, nor should any personal comments be made, much less, of course, personal attacks.

On the Liturgical Wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI

Following up on what I wrote yesterday about the latest Grillo-gallop against the traditional Roman Rite, two more things have come up which I think are worth sharing. First, this simple observation by Mr Phillip Campbell at his blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam is very much worth noting.

“...if Pope Benedict was capable of making such a ‘completely wrong judgment’ about something as integral as the Church’s relationship to its liturgical heritage, there is no necessary reason why Pope Francis isn’t equally as capable of getting it wrong. If a theologian of the caliber of Joseph Ratzinger can operate for years from a premise that is ‘not theologically sound,’ are we supposed to have confidence that Francis will do better? Grillo’s argument that Benedict got the liturgy completely wrong only serves to establish that popes can be very wrong on their approach to the liturgy (my emphasis)—and is Francis a more or less trustworthy theologian and liturgist than Ratzinger?”

Indeed. Nor is it difficult to discern in the harshness of Prof Grillo’s rash judgments an awareness that recent official pronouncements on the liturgy have nothing to offer in place of Pope Benedict’s historical clarity, theological acumen and pastoral charity, and will remain influential long after the former have been repealed.

Second, and simili pacto, Dom Alcuin Reid has written a tour-de-force response to the Grillo-gallop for Rorate Caeli; as was the case with his response to the infamous Cavadini-Healy-Weinandy articles, no summary can do it justice, and I strongly encourage all of our readers to read the full article at https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/06/exclusive-dom-alcuin-reids-response-to.html.

“...it is difficult to accept the pure positivism that underlines Professor Grillo’s idolising the post conciliar reforms. The previous liturgical forms were ‘sacred and great’ and can most certainly be ‘sacred and great’ today also. The fact that this terrifies those who have staked their reputations and careers on a questionable act of papal positivism (the imposition of new rites that are not that for which the Council called and that are not in organic continuity with liturgical tradition developed over the centuries) and that they are fueling the opportunistic imposition of their ideology whilst they have the political capacity to do so does not change the truth that whilst Tradition does indeed develop, it does so organically, by enrichment, not by root and branch reform or substitution.

Otherwise, nothing is true, nothing has value—everything is simply a matter of political expediency. That is why Pope Benedict did not err in teaching that ‘What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,’ and that ‘It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.’ ”

Seeking Essayists for Latin Mass and Youth Project

Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, and of a lot of books, is putting together a book project about young people and their love for the traditional Latin Mass. We are glad to share his post about it, and encourage our readers to consider participating.

Photo by Allison Girone

“I am working on compiling a series of essays from young people on the subject of what the Latin Mass means to them, which will ultimately be published in book form. The goal of this book is to explore the question of why the traditional liturgy is so appealing to the youth.

I am therefore asking for your help to identify young people who would be interested in contributing essays to the project. This post contains all the information about the project for those who might be interested in participating or having their children participate. If you are interested in supporting this endeavor, please read on.

1. Who Can Participate?

Contributors should be:

    (a) Between the ages of 12 and 24

    (b) Regular or semi-regular attendees of the TLM

    (c) Willing and able to cogently write an essay on the subject of the Mass

Participants certainly do not need to be advanced writers, but they should at least be competent writers.

2. What Should Participants Write On?

The general subject of the essay is "What does the Traditional Latin Mass mean to me?" There are a variety of ways to answer the question. For example, participants may write about:

• A narrative of how they discovered the TLM.
• How the TLM has benefited their spiritual lives.
• How the TLM has helped them enter into liturgical worship more fully.
• What they learned about the Catholic faith through the TLM.
• Any personal stories or anecdotes relating to love of the traditional Mass. ~ Anything relating to the place the traditional liturgy plays in their lives

Keep the tone of the essay positive, focused on the beauty, attraction, and transformative power of the traditional liturgy. The narrative should be personal, written in first person voice.

3. How Long Should the Essays Be?

Essays should be 2+ pages single spaced, or 4+ pages double spaced. A little shorter or a little longer is fine, but in general this is the average desired length.

4. When Should Essays Be Completed By?

I am hoping to have all the essays collected by the beginning of July.

5. How Should Essays Be Submitted?

Essays should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents, Google Docs, or Open Office, and emailed to me at uscatholicam@gmail.com. Please do not send PDFs or scans of hand-written essays. I need something in an editable format.

6. Should I Forward This to Others? How Many Essays Do You Need?

I am hoping to collect at least 50 essays. Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think may be interested (although please be selective with whom you send this to; do not simply spam it to huge mailing lists—give some thought to specific individuals of interest and send it to them).

7. Will Essays Be Edited?

Essays will be edited for typos and basic grammar, but the specific narrative and voice of each participant will be preserved.

8. Will Participants Be Identified?

Only by first name, age, and general region (U.S. state, province, or country).

9. How Do Participants Sign Up?

Simply send an email to uscatholicam@gmail.com, let me know the name and age of who will be participating (whether yourself or one of your children) and I will put your name on the list. Please do not sign up unless you or your child are able to meet the criteria listed above, including the deadline. Please include first and last name of the participant and their location. This information will not be made public; it's just for me to keep track internally of who is submitting what.

10. When Will the Book Be Published?

Lord willing, by the end of the summer this year.

Concilium’s Attack on Confession (Part 2): Guilt as a Social Construct

This is second part of an article which Mr Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, has very kindly shared with us, his investigation into what the “progressive” theological journal Concilium was saying about reform of the sacrament of Confession in the years which immediately followed the most recent ecumenical council. The first part was published on Shrove Tuesday.

The Confession, 1838, by the Milanese painter Giuseppe Molteni (1800-67); image from Wikimedia Commons, supplied by Fondazione Cariplo, CC BY-SA 3.0. 

The progressive attack on the sacrament of confession launched by the journal Concilium in 1971 was not restricted to rubrical considerations. The journal’s opening salvo against the sacrament began rather with an examination of the concept of guilt, addressed from purely sociological and psychological perspectives . Editor Edward Schillebeeckx set the stage for this approach in his introduction to the volume, arguing that, “As systems of value change, the sense of guilt changes with them.” [1] This will be a fundamental point in Concilium’s attack on the sacrament: traditional sacramental forms are no longer useful because the psychological and sociological categories of guilt presupposed by the sacrament have shifted. Schillebeeckx directly correlated shifting ideas about guilt to fewer people frequenting the sacrament, as “Within the Church, the change in the sense of guilt is manifested by a greatly diminished interest in the existing forms of forgiveness of sins.” [2] As we shall see, the Concilium authors will argue that advances in the psychological understanding of guilt and moral action rendered the traditional form of confession at best obsolete, and at worst positively harmful.

Remy: The Socially Constructed Nature of Human Guilt

This concept was fleshed out in considerable detail by Belgian sociologist Jean Remy (1928-2019) in Volume 61’s opening essay, “Fault and Guilt in the Perspective of Sociology.” Remy was a giant in the field of western European sociology. He was a professor of sociology at the Catholic University of Louvain and co-director of the Centre d’Études Sociologiques at the University of Saint-Louis in Brussels. The author of many works, and editor of the French language sociological journal Espaces et Sociétés, Remy specialized in dynamics of urban sociology and social transactions. During his long career, he trained an entire generation of French-language sociologists, and his influence continues to be felt in the field to this day. [3]

Remy begins with a definition of guilt as an interior dissonance that we experience “when one has the sense of failure with regard to an image of oneself to which an emotional value has been attributed.” [4] In other words, we experience the emotion of guilt when we fail to live up to an ideal version of ourselves we are invested in. Elsewhere he says, “guilt results from non-conformity with the image of self.” [5]

But from whence do we obtain our standards of what our ideal self ought to look like? Remy suggests we adopt it from the culture we inhabit; we are raised in a certain cultural milieu that feeds us our ideals of what a healthy, well-adjusted human being looks like. We internalize these standards and measure ourselves by them. Guilt, then, is ultimately socially determined, based on a self-image that is “to a great extent a social construction.” [6]

Guilt is not only a social construction, but a means for dominant groups to enforce their ethos — what Remy calls the institutionalization of cultural schemas. “Guilt supposes an individualization of responsibility, and thus becomes a way in which cultural schemas are institutionalized.” [7] Elsewhere he says that guilt can only be operative on an individual level “when the [cultural] norm has been interiorized, and adopted by the person in function of this image to oneself.” [8]

There is thus a profound link between guilt and social structure. If so, then what is the value of pardon and reconciliation? If guilt presupposes a deviation from internalized social norms, then pardon represents a reintegration into the community — a kind of auto-da-fé that serves as a reaffirmation of social norms. Remy says:

The sense of guilt is reinforced by the processes of pardon and reconciliation…Guilt appears as the sense of an individual departure from the norms of the group, even if this fact is not consciously perceived. On this basis guilt takes on, in a hidden way, the function of cultural reintegration. This means that guilt is a mechanism which assures institutionalization. [9]

To sum up, Remy asserts that guilt represents the way that the collective mores of society are enforced on individuals through an “individuation of responsibility” — the process by which “cultural schemas” are interiorized. [10] Remy has labored to establish the socially constructed nature of human guilt. When we cut through the proliferation of sociological jargon that characterizes his writing, the core of his idea is that guilt — and hence our moral system that guilt relates to — is a subjective determinant of the dominant culture:

If these analyses are correct, the concrete forms of guilt and hence moral feeling derive to some extent from criteria whose origin is not explicitly known to the person and which contribute, in a hidden way, to stabilize a social order by working out a system of evidences. [11]

“Rethinking the Nature of Sin”

We shall return momentarily to the idea of the “hidden” origin of our moral sensibilities, but for now we must ask: if guilt is a construct of the dominant culture, what happens when the dominant culture undergoes a paradigm shift? Suppose changes in society prompt a reevaluation of values — what then becomes of our experience of guilt?

Being a progressive, Remy presupposes that modern man — thanks to developments in the positive sciences — is in a fundamentally different position from that of all preceding generations. Ancient sureties no longer hold; the standards by which men measured their deeds can no longer be trusted. Remy never demonstrates this; like every progressive, he merely assumes it prima facie.

What is so different about modern man relating to perceptions of guilt? Remy says the evolution in modern morality relates to a shift away from individual towards a collective guilt. He is not the only Concilium writer to make this assertion; the point is hammered home by almost every contributor to the journal. James F. McCue insisted that a reevaluation of confession was needed because “our sense of sin has become more political and corporate” [12]; he cites “issues of world peace, colonialism, and racism” as the principal ethical questions modern men are preoccupied with. [13] Schillebeeckx argued that “Shortcomings in the private sector are regarded by many as of less importance than misdeeds which affect a wider sphere.” [14] Jean-Jacques von Allmen said, “Roman Catholic theologians are themselves rethinking the meaning of confession,” based on this shifting moral emphasis. “Even more fundamentally,” he adds, “these theologians are rethinking the nature of sin and Christian morality in general.” [15] In light of these new value systems, “the traditional rite [of confession] seems beside the point.” [16]

The Primacy of the Subconscious

The reformers thus desired that the Church’s discussion of sin focus on social sins rather than individual failings. But, we might ask, aren’t social sins merely the culmination of individual sins? Is not institutional racism merely the aggregate of countless individual acts of racism? Should we therefore not combat collective sins by starting with repentance for our own private sins?

Remy and the other Concilium authors unanimously disagree. This goes back to the concept of guilt. Guilty feelings presuppose some kind of culpability; we feel guilty because we feel responsible. But to what degree are we responsible for our own sins? In light of modern psychology’s discovery of the unconscious mind à la Freud, has it not been demonstrated that our conscious decisions proceed from a groundswell of primal urges deep within our subconscious? If this is true, how can a man be truly culpable for his actions, which he is incapable of even understanding? Recall that Remy had argued that moral principles “derive to some extent from criteria whose origin is not explicitly known to the person,” and are worked out in society “in a hidden way,” based on cultural and psychological factors outside the realm of conscious cognition. [17]

A famous photograph of Sigmund Fraud, 1921, by Max Halbertstadt. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

James McCue observed that “We are more impressed than were our fathers with the multi-dimensionality of our simplest actions, and with the impossibility of seeing clearly into our own most hidden recesses.” [18] This is what should distinguish the modern Church’s praxis from the pre-modern Tridentine approach to confession — modern man now understands the “multi-dimensionality” of even our smallest actions. Fr. Carl Peter, professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University, contrasted this with the ethics of the Tridentine era, whose moral theologians piously but naively “believed that remarkably broad moral changes were possible.” [19] This fundamental supposition that underlies traditional confession is no longer tenable. “Private confession,” McCue says, “seemed to presuppose that sin (one’s sinfulness) was a series of discreet acts committed against a fairly well-defined legal code.” [20] Modern psychology, however, has revealed that our sins are not a series of deliberate acts against a well-defined code, but rather a conscious manifestation of subconscious processes we can barely understand, let alone be culpable for.

To be clear, the Concilium authors do not deny man’s free will, nor the moral nature of human actions. They do, however, argue that the subconscious genesis of our actions makes it difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain culpability. Something like an Examination of Conscience would therefore have little meaning — private confession, which is offered in response to guilt feelings on the part of the penitent, would similarly be of limited value, since the Concilium authors believe guilt feelings are social constructs.

“New Zones of Guilt Feelings”

Instead of handwringing about our own failings, Catholics should shift their attention to structural problems within society — racism, environmental issues, economic justice, etc. This will require a recontextualization of how we think about guilt. If guilt is a social construct, then the construct must change, so that our moral sensibilities are agitated by a new set of problems. The Dominican Christian Duquoc was eager to see the traditional guilt-construct jettisoned, which he saw as incompatible with the needs of the modern world, even calling it “useless” because it was incapable of resolving the social conflicts of the modern world. On whether Christians should worry that the elimination of private confession would render the reconciliation of Christ meaningless, Duquoc says:

The conviction that private confession is useless does not in any way call Christ’s ministry of reconciliation into question. On the contrary, all effective reconciliation is seen by these Christians as an act of Christ. They are aware of the concrete quality of reconciliation, of its truth at the heart of conflicts. But private penance seems to them to suppress these conflicts artificially through the subterfuge of an inward guilt and forgiveness that have no bearing on the real conditions of life. [21]

The new construct Duquoc envisions is no longer private; rather, it is characterized by a historicism that gives a platform to the fight for social justice. In this passage, he waxes positively Marxist about social struggle as the central component of reconciliation:

The current emphasis in Christianity on the dynamic and future character of reconciliation robs forgiveness of historicism, reduces it to a private dimension, in short, devalues it. Struggle, as the active and committed form of reconciliation, has pride of place. Forgiveness, seen as obsessed with the past, is an obstacle to the freedom required for political struggle. The shift in emphasis in reconciliation makes the sacrament of penance meaningless; the social import of forgiveness is underestimated. [22]

If, therefore, Christian reconciliation is not to become obsolete, the Church must find a new meaning — a social meaning — for the sacrament. Duquoc says it is a “frequently noted fact that the more seriously a Christian takes the historical struggle for reconciliation the less he perceives the meaning of the existing forms of sacramental reconciliation.” [23] By whom this “frequently noted fact” is asserted he does not say, but it matters not; ultimately, what is needed is a new message, a new social construct that can forge a link binding Christian reconciliation to social justice, so that

the social import of sacramental penance resides ultimately in the link it establishes between forgiveness and reconciliation in our history. This dimension requires that the forms of its symbolization in the Church should be ceaselessly defined and delimited by the meaning that is to be brought out [i.e., by the demands of the new message]. [24]

The Church should thus shift its emphasis to create what Remy calls “new zones of guilt feelings,” by which we can slowly create a new social construct to “modify zones of guilt,” [25] what amounts to a massive campaign of psychological reeducation based on the prevalent zeitgeist. Ultimately the Concilium authors all agree that any viable scheme for reform of reconciliation must be based on the prevalent culture. After all, guilt is a social construct. If you have “zones of guilt” that are not reflected in the dominant culture, the Church’s moral message will not be resonant with the people. “To be effective,” Remy says, “the appeal [to moral conscience] must also be based on the dominant culture.” [26] He says:

preaching to the general public often owes its efficacy to the fact that it is in keeping with the dominant culture. It sees its power of creating institutions decline where it no longer corresponds to the latent cultural models which have evolved under various collective pressures. [27]

All this is a trumped-up way to say that the Church must take its moral cues from culture. The Church cannot hope to change culture through its preaching; rather, it must identify the struggles the dominant culture deems important and “modify its zones of guilt” based upon them.

As we can see, this vision goes far beyond a reform of how penance is administered; it represents a monumental shift in the Church’s approach to penance, as von Allmen said, a “rethinking (of) the nature of sin and Christian morality in general.” [28] If implemented correctly, Remy believes that this new approach is capable of revolutionizing our social interactions. Purified of traditional notions of guilt and moral culpability, we can finally begin to better our society in a truly egalitarian way. Remy says:

Now that the techniques of the human sciences are building up towards mastery of relations with others and of social interventions, without making use directly of the mechanism of guilt, it is no doubt important, from the point of view of a Christian evaluation, to react consciously and lucidly with regard to something which — perhaps in a hidden way — is at the origin of a new concept of individual and collective destiny. [29]

Some Damning Omissions

Obviously there is much that can be critiqued here from a standpoint of traditional Catholic thought, so we will confine ourselves to a few brief observations.

First, Remy and the others completely ignore the place of natural law (in fact, the phrase “natural law” does not occur once in the entire issue of Concilium). It is true that social conditioning has a place in helping us understand right from wrong, as St. Paul says: “If it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’ ” (Rom. 7, 7). However, social mores are not the source of our moral sensibilities; they are rather a conduit through which the natural law is manifest to us (or, in deviant cultures, obscured from us). The Catechism says, “No one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man.” [30] Concilium’s emphasis on guilt as a social construct completely obscures the place of natural law in the moral life — and understandably so, for if Remy et al. admitted the place of an unchanging, universal moral law accessible by every man in his conscience, the argument that the Church’s moral preaching must adapt to the dominant culture collapses.

Second, the Concilium authors habitually confuse guilt and contrition. Remy, Duquoc and the rest see the sacrament of penance as being essentially about guilt, engendering “guilt to the point of neurosis,” as Duquoc sneered. [31] But guilt is fundamentally different than contrition, and it is not the experience of guilt feelings but the presence of contrition that is at the heart of the sacrament of penance. Guilt is a feeling; contrition is an acknowledgement of responsibility, an admission that one has done wrong. We cannot control our emotional reactions to things; this is why any confessor worth his salt will tell penitent that their own feelings of guilt are not reliable. One penitent may weep like Augustine at the theft of some pears, while another may confess adultery with a disposition of stoicism; both are acceptable so long as there is sincere contrition at the heart of the confession. The emotions felt by the penitent are far less important than the penitent’s admission of wrongdoing and resolution not to sin again. No authority says we must experience a particular emotion when we confess; all authorities agree that we must have contrition when we confess. The Concilium authors’ failure to distinguish between the two is a juvenile error. And, like “natural law”, the word “contrition” never appears in Volume 61.

The Conversion of St Augustine, 1430-35 ca., by Fra Angelico (1395 ca. 1455) and workshop. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Third, there is no discussion of penance (satisfaction). The authors lament the alleged inefficacy of the sacrament but omit any discussion of the obligation of Christians to do penance for their sins, which is one of the four basic components of the sacrament of confession. Given that everyone who has ever made progress in the spiritual life has done so through practicing ascesis, if we entirely jettison the idea of doing penance from our theology of reconciliation, of course there will be no progress. But if we are not entirely culpable for our sins to begin with, then what purpose can penance possibly serve? It becomes entirely redundant.

Fourth, the concept that we should base our moral preaching on the dominant culture is a diabolical inversion of the maxim of James 4, 4: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Even in epochs when the Church happens to support the dominant culture, it does not derive its moral compass from that culture. And the Church’s greatest social triumphs have always been in situations when it vigorously resisted the dominant culture. To argue that the Church’s moral sensibilities should be derived from the culture is to completely upend two millennia of settled ecclesiology.

Finally, we should vehemently push back against the Concilium authors’ insistence that private confession engenders an unhealthy habit of navel-gazing, a neurotic obsession with one’s own faults that creates psychological instability. This is a strawman characterization of confession more suited to a Jack Chick tract than any Catholic theological journal. The Catholic’s consideration of our sins is not meant to be obsessive or neurotic. Let us close with a meditation on the words of St. Francis de Sales on the subject, whose brief admonitions contain more spiritual wisdom than one would find in a hundred issues of Concilium. How different and wholesome is the vision of this great caretaker of souls from the drivel of Schillebeekx and his friends!

St Francis de Sales in His Study, 1760, by Peter Anton Lorenzoni (1721-2), in the parish church of St Sigismund in Salzburg, Austria. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 3.0.)

We must not fret over our own imperfections… you must be sorry for the faults you commit with a repentance which is strong, level-headed, steady, and tranquil — a repentance that is not agitated, not worried, not discouraged.

… You must hate your faults, but you should do so calmly and peacefully, without fuss or anxiety. You must be patient when you see them and benefit from seeing your own lowliness. Unless you do this, your imperfections, of which you are acutely conscious, will disturb you even more and thus grow stronger, for nothing is more favorable to the growth of these weeds than our anxiety and over eagerness to get rid of them.

… Confess your fault and beg for mercy in the ear of your confessor to receive absolution. But when that is done, remain peaceful, and having detested the offense, embrace lovingly your lowliness.” [32]

NOTES

[1] Edward Schillebeekx, “Editorial,” Concilium: Sacramental Reconciliation, Vol. 61, ed. Edward Schillebeeckx (New York: Herder & Herder, 1961), p. 7

[2] Ibid.

[3] For Remy’s importance and work, see Rob Shields, “Review: Jean Remy — Social Transaction,” Space and Culture, Oct. 21, 2020. Available online at https://www.spaceandculture.com/2020/10/21/review-jean-remy-social-transaction/

[4] Jean Remy, “Fault and Guilt in the Perspective of Sociology,” Concilium: Sacramental Reconciliation, Vol. 61, ed. Edward Schillebeeckx, trans. Kevin Smyth (New York: Herder & Herder, 1961), p. 10-11

[5] Ibid., 12

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 10-11

[8] Ibid., 12

[9] Ibid., 11, 12-13

[10] Ibid., 13

[11] Ibid., 16

[12] James F. McCue, “Penance as a Separate Sacramental Sign,” op cit., p. 57

[13] Ibid.

[14] Schillebeeckx, “Editorial,” op. cit., p. 7

[15] Jean-Jacques von Allmen, “The Forgiveness of Suns as a Sacrament in the Reformed Tradition,” op. cit., p 115.

[16] McCue, op. cit., 57

[17] Remy, 11

[18] McCue, 57

[19] Carl Peter, “Integral Confession and the Council of Trent,” op. cit., 101

[20] McCue, 56

[21] Christian Duquoc, “Real Reconciliation and Sacramental Reconciliation,” op. cit., 28

[22] Ibid., 29

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Remy, 18

[26] Ibid., 19

[27] Ibid.

[28] Von Allmen, 115

[29] Remy, 24

[30] Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1860

[31] Duquoc, 31

[32] Golden Counsels of St. Francis de Sales, ed. Mary Paula McCarthy, VHM, trans. Peronne Marie Thibert, VHM (Monastery of the Visitation: St. Louis, MO., 1994), 16-17