Historical Origins And Development Of Reconciliation In The West

Baptism is the primary means of reconciling sinners to God. But what happens when Christians fall into sin after baptism? In the sacramental traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, the Eucharist itself has been a means of restoring relationship with God and other Christians. But highly visible or habitual sinning required special attention if the integrity of the Christian community was to be maintained. In the Western tradition this led to the sacrament of penance: confession, absolution, and satisfaction for wrongs done. Although Protestants rejected many aspects of this sacramental practice, they retained a deep concern about church discipline and used both individual and corporate means to maintain discipline. In recent decades, Roman Catholic practices have changed markedly. Recently, Protestant groups have largely replaced formal church discipline with pastoral counseling. (For a renewed emphasis on corporate repentance in one wing of Protestantism, see chapter 19, "?The Solemn Assembly.?")

Biblical Practices Saint Paul is the apostle of reconciliation, and the ministry of Christians, as he describes it, is particularly characterized by the word reconciliation. The context of Paul's reference to the centrality of reconciliation for Christians comes from a marriage situation in which spouses separate for a time—at least with an abstinence from sexual intercourse—and then come back together (1 Cor. 7:11). A secular, legal usage of reconciliation between husband and wife provides a symbol of a relationship action which takes place between God and human persons—both individually and communally; between God and the world God created; and between humans themselves. Reconciliation is not used as a specialized vocabulary word in the Hebrew Scriptures. But the action described by the phrase "?to reconcile?" permeates the story of God's creative act and God's interactive history with the human race. In its beginnings, God's creation is pictured as becoming separated from God by the disobedience of the first man and woman (generating a hostile environment in which they earn their bread in sweat and toil; Gen. 3), but with God's promise that they would come back together again. In a second creation account depicting the story of Noah and the Flood (Gen. 6–9), once again there is the recognition of God's separation from all creation, but with a rainbow promise of a faithful, reconciling presence that would never destroy the world and its inhabitants again. From the stories of Abraham and Sarah to that of Moses and Zipporah, the covenant relationship of God and the people of God permeates the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, the history of the Israelite people is one of broken relationships always being repaired and restored at the initiative of God. Another strong image is that of the spousal or marriage relationship between God and humankind, which takes in all the struggles of separation and coming back together, all too familiar even in the most special of love relationships (Hos. 2:16–22). The penitential rites developed in the Mosaic tradition all look to the reconciliation of human beings with God. Within this biblical setting, Paul can readily adopt the language of reconciliation. God is reconciling each one of us in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:18). In Christ, God is reconciling the whole world to God's self (Col. 1:20). Because of our faith in Jesus, believers are to be reconciled to one another and to God (Eph. 2:16). Because of the faith of believers, they find themselves called to a ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). Reconciliation, then, emphasizes the return, the coming back together after some kind of alienation, separation, or rejection—identified as human sin. The Bible stresses God's initiative in the process of reconciliation and the invitation to humans, not only to respond but also in Jesus to become cooperators in his mission of reconciling. Early Church Rigorism and Public Repentance As reflected in the Acts of the Apostles, the first Christians realized this sense of reconciliation in the profession of Jesus as Savior and in being baptized in his name through the water and the Spirit. The early Christians as they gathered in their first assemblies (ecclesia, the term later translated "?church?") rejoiced in their sense of being a new creature and this world being a new creation—all related to God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17). The definitiveness of the reconciliation even through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection was made clear when the candidates stepped forward to be immersed in the unrepeatable rite of baptism for the forgiveness of sins. The Christian community realized another moment in this reconciliation with God and one another each time they entered into the celebration of the breaking of the bread (Eucharist); at the same time they also experienced themselves caught up with Jesus in the reconciliation ministry. But a problem arose when the various civil persecutions of the early Christians became the occasion for a number of people either to reject their newfound faith or to perform some pagan ritual act which compromised it. In the early second century of the Christian era, the church developed a more elaborate form of reconciliation in order to deal with sinful members of the community. Baptized members who had sinned seriously and thereby publicly affected the community—for example, apostates, those unfaithful in marriage (adulterers), and those who had cut short the life of another person (murderers)—came forward for another ritual act of reconciliation, a coming back after baptism to God and to the community, the church. This ritual action established an order of penitents, similar to the already established order of catechumens in the early church. This action brought the repentant sinner, by stages of a penitential process, back to full communion with the church. It truly was a ministry of the local church, with an emphasis on the prayer, fasting, and almsgiving support of the community members, in addition to the penance of the repentant sinner. On a schedule similar to that for catechumens, the individual penitents entered into the process usually on Ash Wednesday by the confession of their sins, ordinarily to the bishop (episcopus). The confession was followed by the laying on of hands by the minister as a gesture of both exorcism and solidarity, then by the taking on of a lengthy penance by the penitent person, sometimes for life (often including the repudiation of a military career and a total abstinence from sexual relations). Finally came the celebration of receiving absolution from the bishop and a welcome back into the community Eucharist on Holy Thursday. This so-called second baptism, now not of water but of tears, was very rigorous because it was lengthy and could only be entered upon once by a penitent person. Because of difficulty of the penitential process, many people waited until their deathbed to use their only chance to enter this rite. This specialized practice of reconciliation, eventually referred to as a canonical penance, flourished in the church from the late second through the fifth centuries. Those who had sinned seriously were required to take advantage of this rite for their participation in the church; otherwise they suffered excommunication. Most Christians continued to experience reconciliation less formally and publicly for the sin in their lives through a variety of ways—prayer, fasting, almsgiving, spiritual guidance from another, and participation in the Eucharist. The Origins of Private Confession Beginning sometime in the fifth century, because of a tradition present in the Irish monasteries—a tradition of a reflective monastic practice prevalent even earlier in the Christian churches of the Middle East—another ritual action of reconciliation developed as a response to human sinfulness. It seems to have grown out of the practice of monks who sought direction for their spiritual development by telling their faults as well as virtues to a spiritual father. Eventually, this monastic practice became common among all church members. The process involved the individual's confessing of their sins, ordinarily to a priest, whenever they had committed a serious sin; speaking to the confessor in private; accepting a penance proper to the offense; and then receiving the sign of forgiveness. Each confessor, even the inexperienced or ill-educated, was helped in making the penance appropriate to the sins confessed by referring to books called penitentials, which listed various kinds of sins commonly confessed with appropriate penances. This became known as the tariff practice of penance, since it built upon the notion of paying a specific tax or tariff for specific violations of civil law (the punishment fitting the crime). Not only did the rite lose its communal setting, but even the concept of sin became more private, as a code violation with the consequences of incurring an individual debt. This debt had to be paid in order for it to be absolved. As a nod to some kind of community context, the development of substitutes or commutations for the penances imposed slowly became common. In order to reduce the length of time for penance or to relieve its severity, the church extended the possibility of substitutes to the penitent, generally called indulgences. The prayers and good works of other church members, the unused merits of saints' lives, or even the superabundant fruits of Christ's own sacrifice were promised to increase the worth of the lesser penitential act performed by the repentant sinner, and thereby satisfy so many days, months, or even years of penance performed according to the norms of the penitential books. Eventually, such substitutions or indulgences for penitential acts led to the abuses of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century church. From Ireland, this form of reconciliation spread throughout Christian Europe. This private penance only briefly struggled for legitimacy with the older form represented in the order of penitents, since this canonical penance had fallen into disuse among the Christian faithful. The new rite, called Celtic penance, offered the advantage of frequency and ready availability. However, at the same time, the rite in its stress on the private nature of penance appeared to mitigate the community context and involvement. The prominence of the confession of sins, which enabled the confessor to assign appropriate penance, led to the popular name confession, especially from the eighth century onwards. Medieval and Reformation Reforms The decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 recognized this rite of confession and absolution, identified officially as the sacrament of penance, as the ordinary means of ecclesiastical forgiveness. But the sacrament still tended popularly to be called confession, from the emphasis given in the Irish church development. The Fourth Lateran Council, in its decrees on penance, imposed a requirement for all Christians guilty of serious sin to confess to a priest annually before Easter Communion. In the late medieval church, confession and absolution were the normal means for supporting the repentant and reconciling the sinner. The Protestant Reformers, beginning with Luther in the early sixteenth century, generally rejected this sacrament of penance, often claiming that the Fourth Lateran Council had invented it. Martin Luther's call for reform in the church returned to the emphasis on baptism and Eucharist as the normal means of our reconciliation with God and the community. Although he remained ambiguous about its place in the Christian life, he tended to devalue the ritual action of penance, but still retain it. Calvin and other Reformers focused reconciliation in baptism, the Eucharist, and in some private, non-sacramental actions, thereby eliminating penance. The concern of the Reformers was to let no human action, even a church ritual action, obscure the total efficacy of Jesus' salvific act and the absolute gratuity of God's grace, especially in the act of reconciliation. The Council of Trent in the sixteenth century made some attempt to clarify church belief and practice and so marked another stage in the development of the sacrament of penance, especially in its stance towards the Reformation movements represented by Luther and Calvin. The Council of Trent reaffirmed the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, thereby highlighting the importance of confession and absolution in the reconciliation of the individual Christian sinner with God. The elements of the ritual action remained the same, but penance was no longer needed to be completed before the priest absolved the sinner. This remained the common practice in the Roman Catholic church until the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Although, as noted above, some of the Protestant Reformers desired to see aural confession of sin retained, they taught that sins could be legitimately confessed to another lay person. Anglicans included public, corporate confession of sins with absolution in their eucharistic liturgies. John Calvin and the Reformed tradition laid great emphasis on a disciplined church even while rejecting sacramental confession. The Anabaptists and their descendants (Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites) adamantly rejected the very idea of aural confession and priestly absolution as a post–New Testament corruption of the Christian gospel. They advocated private admonition of wayward members by other members based on Matthew 18. If this private admonition went unheeded, the congregation would take action to excommunicate the wayward member. In practice, however, aural confession of sins to another person gradually disappeared in all Protestant groups. Its place was taken by various forms of corporate church discipline. As part of the catholicizing trend in Anglicanism after the sixteenth century, especially during the nineteenth century, aural confession of sins to a priest with absolution and penance became more common, although it still remains the exception among Anglicans. Modern Reforms In 1963, in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the council called for a reform of the sacrament of penance that would clearly show the social and ecclesial nature and effects of the sacrament. On December 2, 1973, the Rite of Penance was promulgated; the Roman Catholic community in the United States began to use the new rite in 1977. Although the decree tended to use the terminology of penance and reconciliation interchangeably, reconciliation appears to be the favored term in better expressing the Christian reality. The ritual action of reconciliation takes on three approved forms. The first form is that of the individual persons confessing to the priest minister. However, the ritual setting is focused more on a dialogue, with appropriate Scripture being read aloud and providing the context for the confession of their sins. The second form is a group or community entering into a Bible service reflection, with possibly a communal examination of conscience, but with individual confession and absolution followed often by a common penance for all the participants. The third form is aimed at the group or community entering into the ritual action, with Scripture reflections and common examination of conscience. This form requires no individual confession of personal sins, but rather a general acknowledgment of sinfulness from all the participants followed by a general absolution by the priest minister. In addition, a number of models of communal celebrations of reconciliation without absolution are given in an appendix of this decree. The introduction of these new ritual actions of reconciliation has left this particular sacrament still not well understood or utilized. At a special synod of bishops called by Pope John Paul II in 1983, the subject was penance and its place in the contemporary world. In the apostolic exhortation called "?Reconciliation and Penance?" subsequently published on December 2, 1984, Pope John Paul II stated clearly that penance in Christian life is to be related to reconciliation with God, with oneself, and with others. He stressed the profoundly personal character of the sacrament, adding emphasis to the first two ritual forms of individual confession of sins. At the same time, the Pope restricted the use of the third ritual form for highlighting a social and an ecclesial context of general reconciliation. An understanding of the development of reconciliation in its many forms, but focused in a specialized ritual action, has led Christians today to a greater appreciation of its theology, ministry, and celebration. The Christian mystery of reconciliation is key to understanding God's relation to us all, redemption in Christ, conversion, the church, and its life of worship and ministry to sinners.