ABOUT CONFESSION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 8, 24 June 1898, Page 3

ABOUT CONFESSION.

SOME PERTINENT POINTS. ' No might nor greatness iv mortality Can censure Vcpc ; backwoundh.g caHrnny The whitest virtue strikes. ' What king so strong, Can tie the gall up in the slanderous, tongue .' ' ~

Thus spoke Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure. Catholics, and — in Xew Zealand— Dunedin Catholics especially, can fully realise the truth of the words of the ' sweet swan of Avon.' Almost every doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church— including that of confessionhas been grievously misrepresented ; and charges of monstrous crimes or sins have been laid at the door of the Catholic body. It is a series of little orgies of calumny. But through the malodorous atmosphere which surrounds them, we can see in letters of light the words of prophecy and comfort : ' Blessed are ye when they shall revile you and persecute you and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake ' (Matt. v. ii). The Catholic Church is the only one that is ever and ever more subject to this endless bombardment of falsehood and slander. It is her prophetic mark — to be like her Divine Founder, Who was harried just as industriously by the i owners of the foul heart and evil tongue. Like Him she was to be hated by all men for His name's sake Matt. x. 22).

SOME SLANDERERS. There is scarcely any Catholic practice so little understood and 80 frequently mis-stated by those outside our fold as that of the confession of sins. While, as we shall see, its use has been strongly advocated by many leading Protestant divines ever since the days of the Reformation, it has been constantly and bitterly aasailed by others. Most of these opponents of confession only echo a tradition — they have had no personal experience of what they condemn, or too slight an acquaintance with its history, its principle", its practical working, and its results. The most virulent assailants of confession belong to the recent outcrop of itinerant professional slanderers, who, of late years, have found a lucrative business in making this ancient practice of saints and sages the subject of prurient and sensational romance of the Zola type. Among this class of unfortunates we must count, to our deep shame and sorrow, some degraded and suspended clerics and some ex-nuns. But beside and beyond these there has been a large number of socalled ' ex-priests,' ' ex-monks,' and ' ex-nuns,' who not only were not what they claimed to be, but many of whom never had been Catholics. They were attracted to the ' lecturing ' business by the big profits which for years were to be made out of such slender capital as a few rank-smelling- no-Popery pamphlets, a glib tongue, and a total disregard for truth and decency. The action of the police and criminal courts in the United States and Great Britain thinned out this class — a number of them being convicted of fraud, embezzlement, forgery, one of selling indecent pictures, and a few of abominable crimes. The London Catholic Truth Society has in its possession the facts of the careers of some scores of this unfortunate class of real and bogus ' ex-priests' and 'ex-nuns.' Some of them have already been published in England and the United States. Others will, we trust, bee the light during the course of the present year. We know whereof we speak, and we can promise our readers that this new edition of the Jtor/uex' (inlUr y will serve as an eye-ope Der to the gullible or malicious scribblers who have pinned their faith to the coarse attacks made by these sons and daughters of Ananias on that consoling practice which bustaincil the Sisters of Charity on the battle-field, and Father Damiuri in hia living grave at Molokai.

At a future time we hope to point out the wide difference tlu exists between the genuine and the travestied Sacrament of Penace. Our present purpose is to view, iv the light of history, the nn n fait of the pracliee of eoufi is/on to a f< lloir-man at an act of r/hi/tn/i, and to see how ancient, how widespread and natural it is. Ripe scholarship, both Catholic and Protestant, has shown us that the practice of confession i» older than the priesthood who are allege 1 by some to have -invented ' it ; that it is older than Christianity ; that it is, in fact, or at leaht in its principle, almost as old and as widespread as the human race. TWO BASKS. The confession of sins i* based i\nu>t<!ij on two feelings implanted by the Creator in the human ho.irt — feelings that are as old as the fall of our first parents. We shall see at the proper time, that it is also based on a more direct Divine sanction.

1. The first of the two feelings just referred to is the de-ie of the heart to unburden itself of opprosivc secrete!. To one n.it jet

wholly lost to good, the mo-t painful and burdensome secret is that of crime. The records of history, fiom Cain to Eugene Aram and Richard Pigott, bear fie'jnent and striking evidence of this desire to unbosom criminal secrets, often on the part of those still in the full flush of youth and strength, but more especially when the near approach of death and judgment makes a man fall back upon himself, Nor has this been merely the feeling of the ignorant and vulgar sinner. It was the case with men of such transcendent genius of Bouguer, La Mettrie. Count Boulainvilliers, Montesquieu, Dumarsais, Maupertius, the Marquis dA ngers, Toussaint, Buffon, Delange. Robinct, L' Archer, the first Napoleon. an,l countless others, who knew no happiness until thoy had unburdened their consciences by a declaration of their sins. The first Reformer.-., as we .-hall *cc, recognised this divinely given instinct of the human heart. The Church of England acknowledges it, when it urges the sick and dying persons whose conscience is 'troubled with any weighty matter,' 'to make a special confession of his sins ' to the Minister (Visitation o/ the Sick) Eminent Protestant physicians, such as l)rs. Tissot and Aini-B.tdel, recognise the strength of this cry of the sinful soul for a confidant, and point out the important calming effect which the confession or unburdening of sin exercises on the minds of patients (Reflexions medico-thcologiqurx sur la Confession, p. 24). Confessions of sins is the natural outlet of a natural desire implanted by the Creator in the heart of man ; it is a safety-valve against despair, an incentive to true repentance. (To be continued.')