Planning My Confession - Part 1

A little over two weeks ago, on July 16, I wrote about my empty confession and expressed a desire to begin a series of confessions that are substantive.  Today, I pick up from where I left off, thinking about it yet again but taking no action.

To confess properly, I need to know what sins I have committed.  To be truthful, I do not quite know exactly what a sin is that has to be confessed. [1]  Is not knowing what a sin is a sin in itself?  Is ignorance of sin an excuse for sin?

I have never seen a checklist of sins posted next to a confessional.  Maybe someone should come up with a questionnaire for a penitent to complete, much like an intake form given to a new patient at a doctor's office asking all kinds of questions about one's medical history, so that the confessor reviewing a penitent's sinful past can decide to what extent the confession should be, if a confession is deemed necessary.

What about one's dissatisfaction with the Catholic church, a particular reference to a particular saint or a blessed (not quite a saint) or the choice of Eucharistic prayer?  Is that a sin?  Is the Catholic church infallible so that every disagreement with the church is automatically a sin to be confessed?  If that is the case, I can spend the remainder of my life inside a confessional.

I am struggling with a dilemma: If criticizing the Catholic church is a sin, and I believe myself to be correct in criticizing the Catholic church, why should I go to the people who uphold the very church I criticize to seek absolution of my sins when the church itself is in sin?

I have a lot more work to do before stepping into a confessional, or maybe the Church does, or both the Church and I have much work to do.  I do not think my thoughts are final and unchangeable.  I struggle because the Truth is infallible but think that the Church is not, and I do not know the Truth.  The day I know the Truth, I will know exactly what to confess, but that day may not come soon enough, so is it better to over-confess than under-confess or not confess at all? 



[1] A young Benedictine monk, Brother Anthony, once casually asked a bunch of us, at the time 14-year old freshmen boarders, if there was any difference between a monk who lights up a cigarette whenever he starts to pray and a monk who prays whenever he starts to smoke?  No one had an answer since both monks would have ended up praying and smoking at the same time, not even Brother Anthony.  Now that I am older, much older than Br. Anthony was at the time, I am able to see the difference, apparent in the intent of the nicotine-addicted monks.  In the first instance, the monk who starts to smoke as he starts to pray has to break his concentration and put God on hold to light up a cigarette, whereas in the second, the monk who during his "free" time lights up a cigarette, interrupts his own smoking to start a conversation with God.  This difference in intent does not tell the whole story, however, since no one knows where the heart of each monk is when he begins to pray or the content of his prayers.  Therefore, it is impossible to make a judgment as to who is the holier monk.  If it is that difficult to judge others, is it not more difficult to judge oneself, when one is capable of rationalizing one's actions in order to legitimize them?