My first brush with Catholic guilt came at my first confessional. Inside a wooden box, I got down on both knees, closed my eyes, entwined my fingers in prayer and said, "Bless me Father, for I have ...

I knew I had to go to confession at St. Peter’s Basilica. But I never guessed my confession there would change the direction of my life. While growing up in a Catholic family and attending Catholic ...

IN AN INTERVIEW with a Jesuit magazine in 2013, Pope Francis declared, “The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.” This is not how ...

My Catholic first Communion was circa 1962. I was 7-years-old, but my first confession was the stepping stone, which brings back dress rehearsals and the sins of omission. We second-graders had to ...

To confess is to "agree with God," or so believes the world's best-known evangelist. This teaching is shared with every person who trains to be a counselor at a Billy Graham crusade. Unpacking the ...

The Roman Catholic Church urges its faithful to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year, and insists that they do so before receiving Communion if they have committed a mortal sin. In ...