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Concept
Confession (religion)
Summary
Confession, in many religions, is the acknowledgment of one's wrong thoughts and actions (sins). This may occur directly to a god, to fellow people, or to a person acting as a mediator for a god.
It is often seen as a required action of repentance and a necessary precursor to penance and atonement. It often leads to reconciliation and forgiveness.
In Catholic teaching, the Sacrament of Penance is the method of the Church by which individuals confess sins committed after baptism and have them absolved by God through the administration of a priest. The Catholic rite, obligatory at least once a year for serious sin, is usually conducted within a confessional box, booth or reconciliation room. This sacrament is known by many names, including penance, reconciliation and confession. While official Church publications usually refer to the sacrament as "Penance", "Reconciliation" or "Penance and Reconciliation", many clergy and laypeople continue to use the term "Confession" in reference to the Sacrament.
For the Catholic Church, the intent of this sacrament is to provide healing for the soul as well as to regain the grace of God, lost by sin. A perfect act of contrition, wherein the penitent expresses sorrow for having offended God and not out of fear of eternal punishment, even outside of confession removes the eternal punishment associated with mortal sin but a Catholic is obliged to confess their mortal sins at the earliest opportunity. In theological terms, the priest acts in persona Christi and receives from the Church the power of jurisdiction over the penitent. The Council of Trent (Session Fourteen, Chapter I) quoted John 20:22–23 as the primary Scriptural proof for the doctrine concerning this sacrament. Catholics also consider Matthew 18:18, describing the power to "bind" and to "loose", to be among the Scriptural bases for the sacrament.
The Catholic Church teaches that sacramental confession requires three "acts" on the part of the penitent: contrition (sorrow of the soul for the sins committed), disclosure of the sins (the 'confession'), and satisfaction (the 'penance', i.
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