How to Confess

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

--I John 1:8,9

All Christians must confess their sins. Confession is recommended by the Old Testament (Psalms 32 and Proverbs 28), and is practiced in most churches as well as in all synagogues. But there is a wide difference of opinion on the manner of confessing and on what should be confessed. Most Protestants and Jews confess their specific sins privately to God and are absolved publicly by means of liturgical formula. Roman Catholics and some Anglicans confess their sins, at regular intervals, to a priest.

Even among Roman Catholics, who normally begin regular confession at about the age of seven, there is often misapprehension about what kind of sins should be confessed. In a new book, Pardon & Peace (Sheed & Ward; $2.50), Father Alfred Wilson, a British Passionist, deals lucidly with this problem.

"Did I Pretend?" All mortal sins must be confessed, but confession of minor offenses (like wife-nagging) is optional. Father Wilson says that there is no use worrying about long forgotten sins: "If [the Lord] does not recall the sin to your mind, He has no one to blame but Himself."

For the self-righteous, whose soul search does not reveal anything worth confessing, Father Wilson has prepared a 20-page probe. If anyone can answer all the questions without finding something to own up to, Father Wilson thinks that he must be either "a saint or spiritually purblind." Sample questions:

P: Were the brilliant retorts I narrated suggested by afterwits--what I should like to have said, not what I actually did say?

P: Did I pretend to have read a book, when in reality I had read only a review?

"Almost Always." More important than the confession itself is the contrition of the penitent; an ounce of true repentance is worth a pound of remorse. Cut for the habitual minor sinner. Father Wilson has a counsel of moderation: merely resolve to cut down on the sinning, don't make an impossible vow to cut it out entirely. He cites a realistic five-year-old penitent who resolved: "I will be a little better than before, I will hardly ever get angry ... or be rude ... I will almost always do my English lesson well."

Father Wilson tosses out a few hints on how penitents can make themselves less tedious to priests:* 1) don't adorn the tale ("Not a few people think that they will be wasting the priest's time, as well as disappointing the poor man, if they are unable to tell him something that will make him sit up and whistle. Supreme optimists!"); 2) in confessing sins of impurity, no gratuitously graphic details, please; 3) "don't say, 'perhaps I was uncharitable . . . perhaps I told lies. . . .' Did you or didn't you?"; 4) "It is bad manners not to listen to the priest"; 5) "Be blunt, be brief, be gone."

* In the "confessional" of the psychoanalyst's office, total recall is encouraged; but psychoanalysts are paid to listen.

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