QUESTION: “Church representatives give the impression that they do not believe in the power of the sacrament of reconciliation – the confession – when they deal with the sins and failures of those in position of responsibility. “This is a statement of Jesuit Father Hans Zollner a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since its creation and president of the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University on authorities including Pope Benedict XVI in the  report on how sexual abuse was handled in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. How do you see?

ANSWER: The opinion of Fr Zollner SJ, seems to be true to the facts. For any process of “reconciliation”  a sense of sin is important, whether of omission, commission, social sin, sin of complicity, etc. This originates from the formation of conscience, which is essential to distinguish between the good and the bad, so to say to form a moral consciousness. Equally important is the theology of grace, an out-come of the sacrament of confession. But today preparations for the sacrament of Confession and Communion have been reduced to teaching some prayers.
Along with the individuals and parents, “those in authority” have great responsibility in this formation. But how many of those in authority – bishops, parish priests, catechism teachers, religious sisters who pre-pare the children for these sacraments, etc. – teach about discerning good and evil at a younger age? It is high time, to make an assessment and review about how far giving these sacraments together with baptism in some Oriental Churches, has contributed to the contemporary plight of this sacrament. Re-ferring to the recent developments in the Archdiocese of Munich, while applying the current canonical norms, one has to verify the personal involvement of the then Archbishop and how far the principle of retrospective effect of the current law can be applied.

Abp Kuriakose Bharanikulangara
Faridabad