Confession

I confess (pun intended) to not understanding why "the sacrament of penance is hardly received at all," as reported on by Sandro Magister — The Fourth Sacrament under Restoration. On the Job, the Curé of Ars and Padre Pio. As a convert, I'm baffled by the "empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this sacrament." (I am happy to say this is not the case in Korea, where Koreans often refer to this sacrament simply as "the sacrament," as in, "I need to receive the sacrament before Mass.")

I find the Sacrament of Penance to be, to borrow Cardinal Martino's words from the article, "a journey of repentance and a program of life, ... essentially a form of spiritual direction." I often find myself in the confessional. I even understand Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, who often committed actual sins just so he could experience the joy of aucular confession, although I recognize the wrongfulness and disorderedness of doing so. Carl Jung's patients were almost all Jewsa and Protestants, in a city that was 95% Catholic, a fact he attributed to the pschological benefits of the sacrament.