This is third part of an article which Mr Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, has very kindly shared with us, his investigation into what the “progressive” theological journal Concilium was saying about reform of the sacrament of Confession in the years which immediately followed the most recent ecumenical council. The first part was published in February, and the second in March. Once again, we are very grateful to him for sharing his work with us.
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| A confessional in the cathedral of St Stephen in Toulouse, France. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0. |
In our previous installments in this series on the journal Concilium’s 1971 attack on Confession, we have documented the progressives’ attempts to frame the traditional administration of the sacrament as in a state of crisis (Part 1), and their subsequent call for a redefinition of guilt as a social construct (Part 2). Today we continue with a study of their attempt to recontextualize the nature of reconciliation in order to undermine the foundation of private penance.
Christian Duquoc’s “Repugnance” to the Sacrament of Penance
We have already had occasion to mention the French Dominican Christian Duquoc (1926-2008) in our previous essays. He was a prominent voice in French progressive circles, with over forty-five titles to his credit from 1942 to 2006; his writings appeared in French, English and Spanish language journals.
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| Fr Duquoc wearing the updated habit of a Dominican Doctor of Theology. |
In the pages of Concilium he stands out as the most vitriolic critic of the traditional sacramental forms, sometimes devolving into downright scorn. In the 1971 issue titled “Sacramental Reconciliation,” he published a scathing criticism of traditional forms of confession, which he castigated as “useless” and “meaningless.” [1] Entitled “Real Reconciliation and Sacramental Reconciliation,” Duquoc’s piece argued that sacramental reconciliation—as experienced by most Catholic penitents in 1971—was insufficiently authentic. He called for a radical reconsideration of the meaning of reconciliation, grounding it not so much in the cleansing of one’s conscience through reconciliation with God, but in communitarian reconciliation grounded in socio-political struggle. As we shall see, Duquoc will ultimately call for sweeping changes to the form of the rite in order to reflect these new priorities.
Like the other Concilium authors, he begins his essay by pointing to a crisis in the sacrament of confession. He frames the situation thus:
Yet reconciliation is an object of suspicion owing to the forms it assumes in the Catholic Church, and notably owing to the celebration of penance… The sacrament of penance, as it is practiced today in the Catholic Church, gives rise to many reservations. There are fervent Christians, including priests and religious, who are unable to overcome their repugnance to its method of administration. There are many facile explanations of their allergy: the loss of a sense of sin, forgetfulness of God, distaste for prayer. But these explanations are unfortunately of too universal a kind to throw light upon this particular phenomenon—for they would apply just as much to lukewarm believers who nevertheless experience no distaste for the existing forms of the sacrament of penance and often have recourse to them. It is precisely where Christianity is taken most seriously that repugnance to the sacrament of penance is most apparent. [2]
As we have repeatedly seen with other progressives, Duquoc takes the crisis of confession as axiomatic; it is assumed, never justified with data. The traditional form of confession is the object of “suspicion” and “repugnance”; it elicits an “allergy” from “fervent Christians.” Duquoc offhandedly dismisses any possibility that this is related to modernity’s eclipse of the sense of God, as spoken of by John Paul II. [3] Instead, he invokes a No True Scotsman fallacy to argue that the problem is the ritual itself, which is said to be universally disdained “precisely where Christianity is taken most seriously.”
Penance: A Superfluous Obstacle
Duquoc argues that the traditional manner of confession is either superfluous or an obstacle to Christian growth.
In the first place, he claims the rite’s redundancy by an appeal to the Eucharist, the ultimate sacrament of reconciliation. For the Eucharist, “through the sharing of bread, symbolizes not only the reconciliation to come, but offers thanksgiving for reconciliation already received.” [4] And if the Eucharist both effects and foreshadows man’s ultimate reconciliation, then is not the sacrament of penance, in the words of Duquoc, “superfluous, if reconciliation is already achieved”? [5]
He also argues that penance is an obstacle to Christian growth because it is ineffective. Like other critics of the sacrament, Duquoc views penance as a form of dry ritualism that does not offer men the transformative power that authentic reconciliation should make available. At best, it is a mechanical “process of guilt-shedding… without accession to responsibility”; at worst it engenders an “unhealthy and inward-looking return to the past” that he characterizes as reflecting a “neurotic character”, especially when it comes to sexual sins. [6] For this reason, Duqouc says penance has a “fictive nature,” an empty formalism that yields no meaningful outcomes for those who frequent it. [7]
For now we shall pass over his first objection that the Eucharist makes penance superfluous — although it should be noted that this argument frequently shows up in progressive literature on the subject. [8] Duquoc’s second point deserves further consideration, for, we might ask, how can he possibly argue that penance is an obstacle to Christian growth? Many Catholics have the experience of going to confession for the same sin repeatedly, but we do not find this formulaic; rather, we find in it an expression of the boundless mercy of Christ. Is not “guilt-shedding” one of the reasons why we frequent the sacrament, so that our conscience may be purified through absolution of sin? Pope Pius XII encourage the frequent confession of even venial sins:
As you well know, Venerable Brethren, it is true that venial sins may be expiated in many ways which are to be highly commended. But to ensure more rapid progress day by day in the path of virtue, for a constant and speedy advancement in the path of virtue, we highly recommend the pious practice of frequent confession, introduced by the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; for by this means we grow in a true knowledge of ourselves and in Christian humility, bad habits are uprooted, spiritual negligence and apathy are prevented, the conscience is purified and the will strengthened, salutary spiritual direction is obtained, and grace is increased by the efficacy of the sacrament itself. Let those, therefore, among the younger clergy who make light of or lessen esteem for frequent confession realize that what they are doing is alien to the Spirit of Christ and disastrous for the Mystical Body of our Savior. [9]
Duquoc’s view is diametrically opposed to the sensibility expressed by Pius XII, for he absolutely repudiates the notion that confession is about personal reconciliation with God through private confession of fault and purification of conscience. What, then, is confession ultimately about?
“Historical Reconciliation”; i.e., Marxism
For Duquoc, reconciliation is about what he terms historical reconciliation; that is, not a private reconciliation with God through confession of faults, but a social reconciliation with our fellow men through rectifying historic injustices. He writes:
The current emphasis in Christianity on the dynamic and future character of reconciliation [i.e., concern for the Last Judgment] robs forgiveness of its historicism, reduces it to a private dimension, in short, devalues it. Struggle, as the active and committed form of reconciliation, has pride of place. Forgiveness, seen as obsessed with the past, is an obstacle to the freedom required for political struggle. The shift in emphasis in reconciliation makes the sacrament of penance meaningless; the social import of forgiveness is underestimated. [10]
Duquoc’s argument against penance therefore is analogous to Marx’s critique of Christianity as a whole: by compelling men to think about eschatological rewards or punishments, it distracts them from political struggle against injustice here and now. Some further quotations should demonstrate how seriously he stresses this point:
Here and now we are immersed in the class-war and injustice. Brotherhood, transparency, peace are no more than hopes; whenever they have a germ of reality, the reality is regional… Today, in the Churches, small spontaneous groups, deeply committed and politically like-minded, are fighting for a Church to their image, purified of hierarchical and anonymous relations, a place of free expression. These communities are revolutionary in aims and status… believers most sensitive to collective phenomenon and social injustices are also the most hostile to the existing forms of penance. Militant Christians engaged in trade-unions or political activities, or involved in the class-war, are the first to be infected by the allergy to sacramentality as it exists in the Church today. There is no question at all of indifference to God or to the Gospel of Christ, but in their daily fight for the setting up of a less inhuman society, and in their political projects, the sacrament of reconciliation strikes them as either meaningless or ineffectual. A serious attitude to reconciliation as something to be effected here and now empties of its meaning reconciliation symbolized in the sacramental act. [11]
Given his idealization of “militant Christians” forming “communities revolutionary in aims” focused on “political projects” and social justice “to be effected here and now” — and his condemnation of any celebration of penance which distracts from this — it does not seem an exaggeration to label Duquoc’s analysis as positively Marxist.
We can summarize Duquoc’s view as follows: for reconciliation to have meaning, it must be present-oriented, focused on correcting injustices here and now. The traditional method, however, is the opposite of this; traditionally, we are contrite for actions committed in the past and confess in hopes of attaining heaven in the future. For Duquoc, traditional confession seems a Janus-headed monster that focuses attention everywhere but where it ought to be pointed: historical reconciliation in the present.
The Reform of the Rite
Given these ideas, how can the rite of penance be reformed to reflect his proposed emphases?
Duquoc begins his analysis of the rite by affirming that any ritual, to be effective, must adequately convey its supporting theology through the symbolic actions of the rite itself, for “we cannot take refuge in appeasing theological meaning so long as this meaning does not become apparent in the rite.” [12] Contemporary traditionalist readers will find this ironic, as the entire drama of the post-Conciliar reform is specifically that the reformed rites do not reflect the Church’s traditional theology. Duquoc, of course sees the problem in reverse: it is the traditional rite doesn’t reflect his new theology. “Current uneasiness regarding the sacrament of penance,” he says, “derives from the dichotomy between the manner of celebration and the meaning of sacramental reconciliation.” [13] In other words, there is a disconnect between the lex orandi and the lex credendi. But unlike traditionalists — who would argue that the lex orandi should be brought into conformity with the lex credendi — Duquoc will simply argue that the traditional lex credendi is wrong. Regarding traditional forms of confession, he says:
The existing form, inherited from Irish missionary monasticism, robs sacramental penance of its social character and implies that forgiveness and reconciliation belong to an inner conscience. Moreover, it encourages the sentiment already too prevalent in our society that religion is a private affair. So the form of a sacrament does influence its meaning; and as things are now it obscures its true significance. The reform of rites is thus not an undertaking of secondary importance — it is the very condition of understanding what Christianity is about. [14]
This is a slippery series of propositions. Historically, the claim that the traditional rite of penance was created by Irish monastics is an exaggeration. The contributions of the Irish were more particular; at most we can credit them with the system of specialized penances for specific sins as evidenced in the famous Irish penitentials, as well as the custom of bringing even sinful thoughts to sacramental confession. [15] But to claim the entire rite was their creation is inaccurate, though it is often repeated in an attempt to push the creation of the traditional practice much later into the Middle Ages that it might be shorn of its antiquity. (Incidentally, even if the traditional rite was entirely a creation of the Irish monastics, I’d much rather follow the precedent of an emaciated, wild-eyed 7th century Celtic hermit living on a rock than entrust my spiritual formation to a Concilium author from the 1970s).
Regarding Duquoc’s second claim, that the traditional rite is in danger of making penance a private affair, we have to ask: a private affair in contrast to what? Because it is certainly true that, strictly speaking, there is no “private” sin. Every sin at least involves a broken relationship with God; “Against you and you alone have I sinned, O God,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 50, 6). In addition, every sin wounds the Body of Christ collectively, even in ways that aren’t immediately apparent. And there can certainly be “structures of sin,” as the Catechism says [16], institutionalized expressions of personal sin which perpetuate cycles of evil. But is this what Duquoc means?
No. Duquoc is contrasting confession as a “private affair” with his view of historical reconciliation — that is, reconciliation as a tool of socio-economic justice:
The purpose [of reforming the sacrament] is clear; it is provided by the necessary link between forgiveness and reconciliation at the level of true history. The sacramental symbol should make clear that forgiveness is a social function necessary to our history as it makes its way toward reconciliation. [17]
There we have it. The sacrament of penance to be transformed into “a social function” necessary to bring about socio-economic justice in our current day.
Duquoc’s Recommendations for a New Rite
Duquoc concludes his essay with a blistering criticism of the traditional form, which he decries as being too focused on personal sin. He phrases his criticism as a series of hypotheticals, presumably to maintain plausible deniability that he is actually asserting such things, but his disdain rises to the surface easily enough:
Does this private form of penance represent a concession to a mediocre form of Christian life? Is it a sacred therapy to appease consciences that are incapable of making their own the evangelical demands? Or does it illustrate an obsession with legalism in our relations with God? Is the institution of confession for faults that do not stop the forward-march of the community ascribable to an unhealthy desire for purity? It is difficult to answer these questions. [18]
But for those who have been reading attentively, Duquoc has already answered all of these questions in the affirmative. He goes on to complain that the traditional rite “tends to remain silent on political and economic matters” and suggests a reform of penance should adopt an aggressively communitarian perspective. [19] He does not give any concrete rubrical recommendations, but we may presume he envisions something akin to what his fellow Concilium author Franz Heggen proposed in his 1971 fabricated ritual for First Confessions, which was specifically designed to reflect a more communitarian emphasis. [20] Duquoc does argue, however, that whatever new form is adopted, it should encapsulate a symbolic repudiation of the theology underlying the traditional form. His conclusion merits being quoted at length:
The reconciliation celebrated in the sacrament of penance [i.e., the traditional form] is first and foremost reconciliation with oneself, which becomes the sign of reconciliation with God—this is a far cry indeed from the symbol advocated by the early Church, reconciliation with one’s brother as the sign of reconciliation with God. The form of the administration of the sacrament is not harmless; it favors one aspect of reconciliation. The private form favors reconciliation with oneself in the interior of one’s conscience, sole seat of authentic relationship with God. Other human realities, and notably economic and political relationships, escape all interference from Christianity …… This situation invites us to a great creative effort in the liturgical domain — otherwise the seeming discrepancy between our history and the symbolic celebration of reconciliation will grow; sacramental reconciliation will be seen as factitious, and be abandoned, or it will appear politically as a structure upholding the status quo. Hence the urgency of discovering new forms of celebration … The rites passed on by our history were imposed on it without sufficient attention being paid to local forms of possible signs of reconciliation. Certainly efforts are being made today to extricate Christian sacramentality from the situation in which it finds itself. Up till now these efforts have not amounted to much — they have combined a public penitential liturgy with private confession [i.e., the penance services of the Novus Ordo]. The gap between reconciliation with oneself and reconciliation with mankind, sign of reconciliation with God, is far from being overcome at the level of symbol. Confession still seems too bound up with an abstract law.Yet I do not think we need despair. The current criticism of the insignificance of the sacrament of reconciliation spurs us on to new discoveries. The Church cannot for long do without an effective symbolization of the social, historical and collective function of forgiveness. [21]
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| What could go wrong? (Victims of a struggle session in occupied Tibet during the Chinese cultural revolution. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) |
Conclusion: A Wrongness So Big
The first time I read Duquoc’s essay, I was overwhelmed by the sheer breadth of his errors: a web of bad theological premises and faulty history, tied up with a bow of historical determinism with some logical fallacies sprinkled on top. Its wrongness was so big it was difficult to zero in on where, specifically, his wrongness lay. But upon further readings, I think I can pinpoint a few things that merit special critique:
First, Duquoc is simply incorrect about his history. While the sacrament of penance did undergo development over the centuries — and while it is true that penance in the early Church included more communitarian elements — it is simply wrong to posit a dichotomy between some primitive public penance focused on communal reconciliation and private confession focused on reconciliation with God. Both elements have always been present in the Church’s practice. It has always been understood that a sin against our brother damages our communion with God and that we must be reconciled with our neighbor; likewise, it has always been acknowledged that clearing our conscience of all known sins is an integral part of reconciliation with God. St. Paul said he strove to “live in good conscience before God” and affirmed “I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward God and toward men” (Acts 23,1, 24, 16).
Furthermore, contrary to Duquoc’s assertions, private confession was certainly practiced in the early Church. There are many testimonies to its existence, but a particularly poignant text comes from Pope St. Leo the Great, who, in a letter to the bishops of Campania in the year 459, said the following:
I have recently heard that some have unlawfully presumed to act contrary to a rule of Apostolic origin. And I hereby decree that the unlawful practice be completely stopped. It is with regard to the reception of penance. An abuse has crept in which requires that the faithful write out their individual sins in a little book which is then to be read out loud to the public.All that is necessary, however, is for the sinner to manifest his conscience in a secret confession to the priests alone... It is sufficient, therefore, to have first offered one’s confession to God, and then also to the priest, who acts as an intercessor for the transgressions of the penitents. [22]
Like many post-Conciliar reformers, Duquoc is simping for a fantastical antiquarian history that never existed.
Duquoc’s Marxist analysis of the needs of the modern Church should be self-refuting in light of five decades of the abject failure of this hermeneutic. While Christians should certainly never turn a blind eye to social injustices or “structures of sin”, as the Catechism calls them, there is no reason such social issues cannot be addressed within the traditional forms. It is mystifying that Duquoc thinks the Church of his day had been silent on economic and political matters; one wonders if he had ever read the writings of Leo XIII or Pius XI—or, for that matter, texts like Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, published four years before he authored his essay. If Populorum Progressio was “silent on political and economic matters,” then one wonders what constitutes “political and economic matters” for Duquoc.
We should also note how brazenly he affirms that the post-Conciliar Church is operating under a fundamentally new theology. He does not say this explicitly, but it is at the heart of his argument for sacramental reform: the rite should symbolically express the theology it is meant to encapsulate. But the old rite of the Church does not express Duquoc’s new theology. Therefore, the rite must change: the evolving lex credendi must be reflected in a reformed lex orandi. We see therefore in Duquoc’s argument the underlying assumption of so many reformers that was recently made plain by Cardinal Roche — “the theology of the Church has changed.” [23]
Finally, Duquoc argued that the Eucharist, as the source of reconciliation, gave the sacrament of penance a kind of redundancy; if the Eucharist both effects and signifies our reconciliation with God and man, what is the point of sacramental confession apart from the Eucharistic liturgy? We will take up this point in our next installment when we consider the work of Jean-Marie Tillard, O.P., a peer of Duquoc who argued that the general absolution at the Mass could replace the sacrament of penance.
NOTES
[1] Christian Duquoc, “Real Reconciliation and Sacramental Reconciliation,” Concilium: Sacramental Reconciliation, Vol. 61, ed. Edward Schillebeeckx (New York: Herder & Herder, 1961), p. 28-29
[2] Ibid., 27-28
[3] John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, § 21 (1995)
[4] Duquoc, 27
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., 30
[7] Ibid., 31
[8] In the same issue of Concilium, author Jean-Marie Tillard devotes an entire essay to arguing that the Eucharist is the only sacrament we need for forgiveness of sins. See Jean-Marie Tillard, “The Bread and Cup of Reconciliation,” op. cit., 38-54
[9] Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, 88
[10] Duquoc, 29
[11] Ibid., 30, 28
[12] Ibid., 34
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., 35
[15] See Chris Antenucci, “A history of the use of the sacrament of reconciliation in the early church,” Mar. 28, 2018, available online at https://medium.com/@chrisantenucci/a-history-of-the-use-of-the-sacrament-of-reconciliation-in-the-early-church-8d0eaf275faf. See also, Phillip Campbell, The Saga of Ireland (Cruachan Hill Press: Grass Lake, MI., 2024), pp. 90-92 for a discussion of the contributions of St. Finnian to the development of Irish penitential practices.
[16] CCC 1869
[17] Duquoc, 35
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid., 36
[20] See Phillip Campbell, “A 1971 Proposal for a New Form of First Confession for Children,” Unam Sanctam Catholicam, Oct. 16, 2023. Available online at https://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-1971-proposal-for-revised-childrens.html
[21] Duquoc, 37
[22] Pope Leo the Great, Magna Indignatione, March 6, 459. Letter 168. PL 54, 1210=Ballerini 1753: 1430. Available online at http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1817
[23] See Joseph Shaw, “Cardinal Roche on the Vatican II Rupture,” One Peter Five, Mar. 4, 2023. Available online at https://onepeterfive.com/cardinal-roche-vatican-ii-rupture/
