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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
to God in the presence of another person. On such an occasion
the spiritual adviser must of course remain completely silent.
The Content of Confession
When considering the contents of a confession we must
always remember that the repentant person comes to confess
his own sins, not those of others. If others are involved in
a sin he has committed the person confessing has no right
to mention their names, or disclose by implication who they
are. If sins against the Sixth Commandment are confessed,
the confession should be complete and at the same time
modestly and reticently expressed. The reticence should not,
however, encroach upon the sincerity of the confession. All
pretence and ambiguity must be avoided. A repentant who so
confesses as to deliberately conceal the real nature of his sin
behaves as badly as one who makes an incomplete confession.
He cannot have experienced true repentance, otherwise, as
Belton says, ‘he wouldn’t beat about the bush or make false
descriptions’.
J. Taylor writes: ‘He who confesses his sins must do it with
all sincerity and straightforwardness—not in order to attain
certain ends, or to make religion a servant of bad motives, but
in order to annihilate sin, humiliate and punish oneself and in
order to receive forgiveness and be righted. One should
therefore always relate one’s experiences exactly, just as they are;
with the exception of cases where circumstances and conditions
demand that they should not be revealed. But sin, as such, may
not be concealed. It may neither be so described that
shamelessness is kept alive in the person who committed the sin or in
such a manner that it can become a temptation for the person
listening to the confession.’
A word must be said about the demand for truth in confession.
Two things must be observed: sins which have really been
committed must not be concealed. Sins that have not been
committed must not be confessed. Conscience must convict or
acquit on these points. Few penitents can disguise from
themselves the knowledge that confession should be truthful when
dealing with sin. This is the more important since confession
should be a personal indictment. If the settlement is truthful
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