Sacrament of Penance: Difference between revisions

=== Since the Council of Trent ===

[[File:ModConfessional.png|thumb|right|Modern confessional: three options for penitent; priest behind screen]]

In the mid-16th century the bishops at the [[Council of Trent]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/girm-introduction.cfm|title=Introduction|website=www.usccb.org|access-date=September 26, 2019}}</ref> retained the private approach to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and decreed that indulgences could not be sold. The Council Fathers, according to Joseph Martos, were also "mistaken in assuming that repeated private confession dated back to the days of the Apostles".{{sfn|Martos|2014|p=362}} Some [[Protestant Reformers]] retained the sacrament as sign but shorn of [[Canon law of the Catholic Church|Canonical]] accretions. However, for Catholics after Trent "the confession of mortal sins would be primarily regarded as a matter of divine law supported by the ecclesiastical law to confess these within a year after they had been committed".{{sfn|Martos|2014|p=357}} In the following centuries a use of the sacrament grew, from [[Counter-Reformation]] practice and, according to Martos, misunderstanding what {{lang|la|[[ex opere operato]]}} meant (independent on the worthiness of the priest) and from seeing penances as penalties (abetted by indulgences) rather than as means of reform.{{sfn|Martos|2014|pp=347, 357–58}}