When to Confess

Anyone who grew up Roman Catholic can remember the opening formula: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." Many also remember anxious days as seven-year-olds, learning what to say after those words, when they would kneel in the blackness of a narrow cubicle and talk to a shadowy figure behind a grille. "I disobeyed my parents"; "1 told a lie"; "I said a bad word." The ritual was required. Without it one would not be permitted to reach the bright day of his first Holy Communion. Later, if one went on in parochial school, it became a schoolday habit: the herd march into the pews for an afternoon of fidgeting or perhaps nervously inventing sins, waiting for one's turn in the dark confessional and the familiar--if not quite inevitable--"three Our Fathers; three Hail Marys." Sometimes the occasion happened to coincide with real sorrow, and even when it did not, the voice behind the screen was usually kind. But for too many, too often, confessing became just a routine.

Thus, for roughly half a century, young Catholics were initiated into the sacrament of penance and its promise of forgiveness from God. The results, many Catholic educators agree, were often disastrous. Some young penitents became haunted by the fear of mortal sin and going to hell. Others developed false consciences, accusing themselves of sins that were only the harmless exuberances of a child. Still others dreaded the whole experience so fiercely that they gave it up for good as soon as they were able to. Those who continued to receive the sacrament were sometimes spiritually stunted, unable to go beyond the rote recitation of childhood formulas: veteran confessors recall adults as old as 65 who still confessed to disobeying their parents, even after the parents were dead. Even those who grew into a healthier understanding of the sacrament often consciously tied it to the sacrament of the Eucharist, feeling unworthy to receive Communion without confession (which is required only once a year, for those in serious sin). Explains the chancellor of a California diocese: "It was a case of too much, too soon."

To avoid such problems, some religious educators began, as far back as World War II, to suggest a separation between the child's first encounters with the two sacraments. A Dutch bishop was apparently the first to put the idea into practice, nine years ago, and a number of bishops in the U.S. and Canada adopted the innovation during the late 1960s. First Communion continued to be given at about the age of seven, or even earlier, when the child could understand the difference between ordinary bread and the sacred bread of the Eucharist. Confession, on the other hand, was introduced later, with more extended preparation; most children involved in such experimental programs did not make their first confession before the age of nine. The practice was well established in 1971 when U.S. bishops asked for, and got, Vatican approval for a two-year experiment.

One important influence behind the change was the work of such developmental psychologists as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, whose studies discerned a number of stages in a child's intellectual and moral growth. Though a child might have a rudimentary sense of right and wrong at the traditional "age of reason," seven, the studies seemed to indicate that he did not develop a sense of personal sin until nine or ten.

Despite such reasoning, the Vatican has now ordered an end to the promising experiment, and the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S.--where some 90 out of 162 dioceses have adopted the new approach--is in an uproar. A decree jointly issued in July by the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy and the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments ruled that dioceses must immediately return to the traditional order of the sacraments.

The Vatican's protagonist in the argument is the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, American John Cardinal Wright. Essentially, Wright has argued, children should not be treated like "little tots" but like "little men," whose consciences need careful formation at an early age. The proper age, said Wright, was about seven. Confession then, Wright argued, might "save the person at his roots" by correcting bad habits that "could jeopardize forever [his] recuperating capacity."

Wright's opponents concede--indeed insist--that confession must never be denied to a child who is ready for it. But they also maintain that a child cannot be required to receive the sacrament unless he is conscious of serious sin. Jesuit Francis Buckley of the University of San Francisco points out that canon law itself defines the age of reason differently for the reception of the Eucharist and penance.

The Vatican decree on the subject sharpens rather than closes the debate. While most U.S. dioceses headed by cardinals or other high-ranking prelates decided to adhere to the new directive --Philadelphia, St. Louis and Minneapolis-St. Paul among them--others were conspicuously silent or obviously playing for time. Baltimore's archdiocese tempered the Vatican order with newer insights by directing that preparation for the two sacraments be kept separate, but that children at least be offered the opportunity to receive both sacraments at the age of reason.

Some prelates were plainly outraged. Bishop Joseph L. Hogan of Rochester, N.Y., wrote a "concerned" pastoral letter telling his parishes to withhold action until "new guidelines" were issued. Hogan added that he expected "some exciting dialogue and confrontation on the issue at the U.S.

bishops' meeting this fall." And in an even stronger pastoral message, Bishop Charles Buswell of Pueblo, Colo., wrote: "I am convinced that the reception of first Communion before first confession is based on good theology, is rooted in solid findings of the behavioral sciences, and is excellent pastoral practice." In his diocese, said Buswell, the practice will continue to be allowed until the Vatican's decree can receive the "mature consideration" of U.S. bishops and educators.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.