Once upon a time, I was a practicing Catholic. At first, I unquestioningly embraced the teachings of the church... that is until I hit my young adult years and started questioning everything. With all due respect to my friends and family members who are devoted Catholics, please know that I honor each person’s decision to walk the spiritual path that serves him or her best. Even though I left the Roman Catholic Church, I have always loved that the word “catholic” is derived from the Greek root meaning “regarding the whole” and is more commonly referred to as meaning “universal.” This is a poignant example of the truth found in the heart of the religion – in the birth of the message. I also still practice (and pray) daily much of what I learned.
This morning I awoke with a new level of clarity about the sacrament of confession. It was something I hadn’t pondered for more than twenty years, but it had suddenly become clear to me why I had become so adamantly opposed to what I had been taught when I was little. It was as if Martin Luther himself had visited me in my dreams!
When I was a young person attending mass regularly, I could see the advantage of using confession as a purification process to prepare myself for the sacrament of communion. At some point, I decided that there was a something broken. I couldn’t in good conscious practice this sacrament any longer. So I stopped going to confession even though I struggled internally each time I attended church.
Here’s why it seemed broken to me... As I saw it, I could disobey God’s commandments with the excuse that I am an imperfect being who is naturally prone to err and to sin. I could privately confess my mistakes to a holy man – God’s representative – who is endowed with what seems like mystical, magical powers. Somehow he has been given God’s permission to absolve me of the responsibility of the havoc my sins created in the world that week. After that, I could go back out into the world and do it all again because this holy man would help me buy my way back into heaven the following weekend.
As God’s emissary, the priest doles out penance, which involves supplicating in the pew afterward and reciting specific prayers a certain number of times. Can you tell I had a problem with that too? I always wondered how he knew how many of which prayer to assign. I figured it had to do with the severity of the sin or the number of sins you confessed. Maybe they teach a formula in the seminary.
This sin + that sin = a special combo of Hail Marys and Our Fathers. If the sin is committed multiple times carry the 7 & multiply by 3, and depending on the answer, add on a Rosary... or a ½ dozen when there are multiple sins involved.
But I digress. It’s true that confession made me feel more pure, righteous and holy for a time. However, the idea that I could keep messing up and returning to the confessional for forgiveness and absolution bothered me. Now I see that the potential to stunt personal growth is what got to me. There’s a conflict here. The church sermonizes that we should learn from our mistakes and grow, yet the implicit message is “Go ahead. You can mess up over and over again – that’s why we’re here.” This went beyond the mercy quotient as far as I was concerned and seemed a little too co-dependent.
And what if I keep God’s commandments so that I would have nothing to confess? Ah, but we are told that this is not possible for we are imperfect sinners – redeemed but yet not redeemable. In addition to my ability to reach my full potential being suppressed by the constant reminder that it isn’t possible, it’s an absolute requirement that I participate in the weekly confession process in order to receive the reward of the communion sacrament. Jesus can only commune with me if I’m pure and forgiven by a priest? Oh, and if I don’t participate in the sacraments, I risk Hell and condemnation.
This carrot and stick approach assumes too much. It’s the church’s forgone conclusion that I will sin because I cannot help myself. It is as though I am an errant child who can’t and won’t ever know better. Ironically, they taught me to know better... so well that I no longer sought confession because it seemed hollow, rote and unhelpful.
In spite of my misgivings and my disillusionment with the church’s approach, I recognize and honor the relief that confession brings. The true release of the burden of guilt is a beautiful and sacred alchemy. If profoundly felt and actively participated in, self-forgiveness is a powerful and memorable experience. To know this aspect of God’s love and to take it deeply into your being is the most natural deterrent in the world from committing such a “sin” again.
I have learned that lasting personal and spiritual growth truly occurs at the moment I embrace personal accountability. If an intercessory, like a priest, is helpful in making a space for this to occur, then so be it. I accept the possibility that even I will seek such a relationship in the future. Maybe someday someone who’s specially gifted will help me in such a situation. However, I choose not to abdicate the responsibility of my personal and spiritual growth to another entity, whether a person or an institution, in what I consider a carrot and stick system.
For me, it wasn’t ever my faith that I questioned but, rather, my faith in a church to solely provide my spiritual guidance. Even though I chose to leave the church and still belong to no church, I am in constant joy over how God works through my life. I am a child of God – not a child of a church.
