SACRAMENTAL PENANCE is not at the best of times likely to be a very popular religious activity, and in fact can be psychologically damaging for some.  Given the relative abuse of the sacrament both by priests and laity in the Church during the 19th and much of the 20th century, when recourse to this sacrament was widely regarded as obligatory before receiving Holy Communion, we should not be surprised by the marked decline in the practice of seeking sacramental penance and absolution in the postconciliar Church. The canonical discipline that sacramental absolution after a personal confession of sins was obligatory only when in mortal or grave sin, was somehow obscured both by a widespread and dangerous misinterpretation of what might constitute mortal or grave sin (with a strong emphasis on sexual misdemeanours), by a liberal use of the sacrament as a form of clerical church discipline, and by 'slot machine' style confessions.  

Two significant events have in recent decades have undermined Catholic confidence in the practice of more regular confession. The first was the erosion of the moral authority of the Church which followed the Papal rejection of all forms of birth control apart from a deliberate and calculated use of women's natural cycle of fertility, and the prohibition of any pastoral guidance contrary to this teaching in spite of a division of moral theological opinion in the Church, which the Vatican unwisely attempted to silence. The Catholic laity did not respond in the way the Vatican hoped, and so 'Humanae Vitae' met with a widespread resistance, unprecedented in recent centuries. It is not surprising that this has weakened the moral authority of the Church in the confessional, and that theological moral opinion has remained divided.

The second factor is much more serious and is ongoing. This is the failure of Church authorities to respond with convincing moral and pastoral concern for victims of child abuse perpetrated by priests and others engaged in the service of the Church. Bishops apparently saw the institutional reputation of the Church as more important than the pastoral mission for which it actually exists. Nothing could have more fatally undermined public confidence in the moral authority of the Church than such treatment of its most vulnerable young people. But good can ultimately emerge out of all this. Bishops now have to win much more public consent for their moral authority, we clergy now have to regard the Church primarily as the people of God rather than mainly the divine institution we are called to serve, and the sacrament of penance is perhaps treated more seriously and spiritually by those it is intended to help.