European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 21, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Vacant by Peter Steinfels Mew York times a deeply embedded religious practice Long believed Centra to a whole spiritual Outlook is widely abandoned within a few years. The abandonment occurs silently spontaneously without anyone urging it and almost without anyone discussing it. Such a development is hard to imagine yet that is what happened in the United states to the sacrament of confession in the roman Catholic Church. The rite of confessing one s sins to a priest and receiving absolution followed by the performance of a symbolic or sometimes not so symbolic penance is also recognized As a sacrament in the anglican and orthodox Christian traditions. But it has played a special role in modern roman catholicism. No confession has not vanished among catholics. Many go once or twice a year especially in the lenten season of repentance. But one study of regularly churchgoing catholics showed that Only 6 percent went to confession monthly and Only one Catholic out of 100 went More often than that rates that would have been considered exceptionally Low several decades ago. Twenty six percent never went to confession at All according to the 1983 notre Dame study which surveyed what it said was a representative Sample of 2,667 non hispanic american catholics with ties to parishes. The study did not give a margin of sampling error. Exactly How and Why the change came about remains a Puzzle to Catholic leaders. The Power of confession in catholicism can be measured by the literature it has generated from Graham Greene to Frank of Connor a literature of childhood confusion adolescent dread and adult redemption. The confessional has been a tiny theater into which was squeezed great spiritual drama both tragic and comic. Protestantism too at least before the current Kinder and gentler age of interfaith understanding paid a Shadow homage to the place of confession in Catholic spiritual life. Protestant polemicist made the confessional exhibit a in their complaint that catholicism insinuated clerical Power in Between god and the individual soul. There was an Echo of this in George Bernard shawls letter of distress when his Friend and ideological jousting partner . Chesterton converted to roman catholicism. Quot i find the spectacle Quot of Quot your portly kneeling figure Quot in the confessional to be Quot incredible monstrous comic Quot Shaw wrote. Chesterton on his part exalted in the cleansing experience of confession. Quot Well when a  Puzzle Over sacrament comes from confession he does truly by definition step out into that Dawn of his own beginning Quot Chesterton wrote in his autobiography. Quot in that dim Corner and in that Brief ritual god has really remade him in his own image. He May be Grey and gouty but he is Only five minutes  a critique of frequent confession was not part of anyone s theological Agenda. It did not feature in the documents of the second Vatican Council 25 years ago or in the monumental debates surrounding the Council. Catholics just voted with their feet massively and instinctively in the United states and in other nations. A recently released study by the american Bishops committee for pastoral research and practice reveals How puzzling the development remains. The document explores a variety of frequently uttered explanations from a loss of a sense of sin to cultural forces like growing individualism and pluralism. Some observers link the drop in confessions to the Catholic laity a widespread disagreement with the ban reasserted by Pope Paul i in 1968, on contraception. Others link it to growing disbelief in hell. The Vatican and some Bishops have worried endlessly about the Impact of alternative rites authorized for receiving the sacrament including communal penitential services and the option of confessing face to face rather than hidden behind a screen. But there is Little evidence that these options have affected practice one Way or the other. The explanation observers prefer seems to depend on who they Are. The Bishops recent study showed that the Bishops themselves rank Quot a less pervasive sense of sin Quot and Quot confusion Over what is right or wrong Quot High among the Likely reasons. The laity rank them Low instead attributing the drop in confessions to their ability to experience forgiveness and reconciliation better in other ways. Could the decline simply be part of a general slide in religious belief and Fervour it does not seem so. The study shows that although three quarters of a Sample of Catholic adults go to confession once or twice a year or never at Ali More than 80 percent of the same Sample attend mass and receive communion weekly. One theory supported by the laity s replies in the study holds that less frequent confession May even result from More frequent communion and the sense of reconciliation Many catholics find there. But if the empty confessionals do not indicate a loss of religious feeling they most certainly indicate a searching change in that feeling. The sacrament of penance was a Linchpin in the Catholic spirituality that prevailed from at least the 16th Century. It was a spiritual Outlook keenly aware of personal sins understood in terms of precise acts acknowledged and enumerated in regular self scrutiny. Sin doctrine prayer and penance were All rigorously and authoritatively defined. The Power of such a disciplined Outlook is undeniable although catholics themselves have increasingly questioned whether it was conducive to genuine spiritual transformation. Stars and stripes bookstores stars and stripes bookstores co take advantage of the stars and stripes top 10 paperback discount program storming intrepid is another stars and stripes top 10 paperback selection available at a ten percent discount from the regular cover Price. Top 10 paperbacks Are available at All stars and stripes bookstores. The crippled space shuttle intrepid is carrying top secret Star wars technology and it appears that a russian agent is in command. If the soviets get to that payload before the americans the consequences Are unthinkable. What began As a routine voyage turns into a harrowing Nightmare in outer space As the top echelons of intelligence military and aerospace Combine forces in a desperate bid to Stop the russians. 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