“Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? Says the LORD GOD. Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live?” (Ezekiel 18:23; The African Bible).
With these encouraging words, the prophet Ezekiel encouraged the people of Israel to repent of their sins and live.
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, on Ash Wednesday we begin the holy season of Lent, during which we are reminded of our need to turn away from our sins and to return to God who, as the psalmist says, is “gracious and merciful” (Ps. 111:4; Ps. 103:8), and therefore is always ready and willing to forgive and accept us back when we repent.
- The Death of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in the Archdiocese of Freetown
I have decided to write to all of you about the worrying development of a total abandonment and neglect of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in our diocese, the Archdiocese of Freetown. If you would recall, those of you were present at the inauguration of the Second Archdiocesan Pastoral Assembly in St Anthony’s Parish Hall, on the theme, “Towards a Synodal Church in the Archdiocese of Freetown”, one of the questions for the consultations in preparation for the general assembly of the pastoral assembly on 8th and 9th March 2024, referred to “the death” of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation in our diocese. We have noticed, over the years, a very worrying lack of interest in this particular sacrament in this diocese. Even though the question has been put out for discussions at the parish and deanery levels in preparation for the general assembly referred to earlier, I want you to know that, as your Chief Shepherd, I am very worried and that I am having sleepless nights about this very serious pastoral situation in our diocese: the “death” of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Therefore, without any prejudice to the on-going conversations on the same subject in preparation for our second Pastoral Assembly, and while exhorting all to take seriously and discuss frankly and honestly the issue, I have decided to engage all of you – priests, religious brothers and sisters, and the lay faithful – on the question, especially as we are entering today into the holy season of Lent, with the celebration of Ash Wednesday. Accepting the imposition of the ashes on our foreheads, we recognize our mortality (i.e. that we are dust and unto dost we shall) and we commit ourselves to repenting of our sins and living according to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The truth be told, whenever there is a communal celebration of the Sacrament of Penance of Reconciliation in the parishes and Catholic communities, and especially during the annual Archdiocesan Lenten Pilgrimage to Regent, on the fifth Sunday of Lent, there is generally an encouraging turn out for confessions. However, throughout the rest of the year, the confessionals (in churches where confessional are present) are generally empty because very few of the faithful come for confession often scheduled for an hour or so in our parishes.
- Some Popular Reasons for not going to Confession to a Priest
People give many reasons why they do not go to confession to a priest. One of the most common one is that the priest himself is a human being and a sinner; therefore they prefer to kneel down and ask God to forgive their sins. I totally agree with those who argue that priests are human beings and sinners. Without making any excuse for the sins and evil deeds of her priests, the Church herself recognizes that her priests are human beings and therefore sinners who also need God’s grace of mercy and forgiveness. Therefore, there are several points in the Catholic rite of the Holy Eucharist (the Mass) where the priest prays for the forgiveness of his sins in order to be worthy of participating in the celebration. Because those prayers are said in silence (sub voce), the rest of the congregation does not hear them. Besides, most priests go to confession on a regular basis, especially when they attend retreats and recollection days or go for spiritual direction.
But even more importantly, it is God, not the priest, God who forgives the sinner in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. In the prayer of absolution the priest pleads with God the Father of mercies, who reconciled the world to himself through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, and sent the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. Then he prays that, through the ministry of the Church, God may pardon the sins of the penitent. It is at the end of this prayer that the priest absolves the penitent in the name of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So it is really God, not the priest, who forgives sins.
It is, however, interesting to note that those who say that they would not go to the priest for confession do not use the same argument when they want to attend Mass and receive Holy Communion, or to marry in Church, or to have their children baptised, or to bury their dead relatives. It is to those same priests whom they judge to be sinners that they go to ask for such pastoral services. It is only in relation to confession that they judge the priests to be human beings and sinners, and therefore not fit to hear their confession.
No one denies that God forgives us when we kneel down and ask him for mercy. However, this method does not give one the assurance that he or she has actually been forgiven by God. It is in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation that the priest gives such an assurance. After exhorting the penitent to avoid the occasions or practices that led him or her to the sins they have confessed, he tells him or her to do some penance as a sign of conversion or a break with the past of sin. Then he says the prayer of absolution and concludes by saying, “The Lord has freed you from your sins. Go in peace, but sin no more”.
I have always found those words of the priest very uplifting and reassuring. I leave the confessional or the presence of the priest feeling light because I have been freed from a burden of sin. More positively, I go away with an overwhelming experience of the mercy of God and of the pure grace of Jesus Christ. In other words, I go away feeling happy that I have personally benefited from the love, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion of God. This does not happen when I only kneel down in the Church or in my room and ask God for forgiveness. In fact, there is always that lingering doubt whether or not God has actually forgiven the sins for which I have begged him for mercy and pardon.
The other reason often given by some people who do not go to confession is that the priests discuss the sins that people confess to them. I find this reason outrageous because even the most deranged priest was taught during his seminary formation that divulging the sin of a penitent amounts to automatic excommunication. In any case, in the last fifteen years of my ministry as the archbishop of this diocese, I have repeatedly challenged those who hold this view to have the courage and report to me those priests they say divulged their sins after confessing them. If the priests are investigated and are found guilty of revealing to a third party or to the public the sins of the penitents who confess to them, I shall immediately dismiss them from the priesthood and excommunicate them from the Catholic Church, and then inform the competent authorities in Rome about my decision. No one has ever come forward to report that a particular priest has divulged his or her sins to another priest or to another person.
Perhaps there are other reasons why many of our Catholic faithful do not go to confession. I am eager to know them. Therefore, I am hoping that the consultations in preparation for our second pastoral assembly would bring them out. But as your Chief Shepherd, I am very worried that many people are not going to confession on a regular basis. You know, just as much as I do, that we are all sinners, but we are not availing of the healing grace of God which the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation offers us.
- Other Grave Sins apart from those against the Sixth Commandment
And by sin, I do not mean only those against the sixth commandment: You shall not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14; Mt 5:27). Many people think that only those acts against that particular commandment are sins. Indeed, they are grave sins and should be confessed before receiving Holy Communion. There are also more grave sins which are against that particular commandment; such as abortion and assisting in the abortion of “an unwanted” pregnancy resulting from sex purely for pleasure.
However, there are other grave sins, too, that should be acknowledged and confessed. Take, for example, such things as using corrupt means to enrich oneself, not doing a day’s work for which one receives a salary, sharing false and malicious information about others, tribalism and all forms of favouritism, cheating in examinations, polluting the environment created good by God, neglect of one’s family and family responsibilities for one’s selfish pursuit. One could also include the importation, selling and consumption of dangerous drugs, like Kush and Tramadol that endanger lives and exploit the misery of the poor and the unemployed. We know that they are sins but we do not confess them. They should all be confessed.
Unfortunately, even as the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation is dying in our diocese, quite often the lines for Holy Communion in our parishes and Catholic communities are getting longer, even though we have been repeatedly reminded that receiving the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ while conscious of having committed a grave sin amounts to self-condemnation. For example, in his first letter to the Corinthians, St Paul, after presenting the apostolic tradition of the Holy Eucharist that he had received and passed on faithfully, says:
When you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes. Therefore anyone who eats this bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone is to examine himself and only then eat of the bread or drink from the cup; because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation (1 Cor. 11: 26-29).
- The Gravity of Sin and the Need to be Healed by God through the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation
It is a well-known fact that we are all sinners. Yet, to the detriment of our spiritual well-being and to the holiness of the Church, the Body of Christ into which we are incorporated through the sacrament of Baptism, we neglect the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation which our divine Lord himself established (cf. John 20: 21-23; Mt 16:19), and which the Church has consistently taught and upheld as a necessary path to conversion and reconciliation with God and with our fellow human beings (cf. James 5:14-16).
In the recent ITCABIC communiqué, issued in Bo on Sunday, 28th January 2024, we the Catholic Bishops of The Gambia and Sierra Leone reminded all that Lent “is a grace-filled season of conversion and renewal in preparation for the fruitful celebration of the Lord’s at Easter, an event which is at the core of our Christian faith. Therefore, we are called to return to the Lord our God who is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger and abounding in love (cf. Joel 2:12-14)”. It is my hope that we would all heed to this call of the Bishops to seek the path of conversion and renewal through the traditional disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and also to avail of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.
Let us begin with the awareness of the gravity of sin, of being sinners, and of our need to confess our sins because they damage us and our relationship with God and with our fellow human beings. In his first letter, St John says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).
The path to conversion begins with the acknowledgement of being sinners, of having sinned. But the next step is more important; namely, to appreciate the powerful and attractive image that Jesus presents of God as a forgiving, merciful, and compassionate Father, who can forgive any sin, even the most terrible sin that we can ever imagine, and who never grows tired of forgiving us and welcoming us back home whenever we turn to him from our wayward ways. Like the father in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (cf. Luke 15:10-32), God willingly and joyfully accepts us back whenever we repent and return to the path of righteousness.
The third and final step is to have the courage to go and confess the sins that we know are killing us spiritually and destroying our relationship with God and with others. That requires humility, which does not come easily. So we need to turn to the Holy Spirit to ask for the grace of courage and humility to face the priest in the confessional and say, “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned …”
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, my prayer for all of us is that, during this Lenten season, we may all be aware of the gravity of sin and of our sinfulness, and trusting in the love and mercy of God manifested in Jesus Christ, invoke the Holy Spirit to grant us the grace of courage and humility to go to the priest of our choice and sincerely confess our sins. As I noted earlier, the experience of being forgiven by God can be soul-lifting and life-changing. I encourage of you to give it a try, especially during this Lenten season, and you will never again delay or hesitate to go to confession.
May God bless you all, and may this Lenten season be an opportunity for all of us to turn to God and experience his overwhelming love and mercy!
Most Rev. Edward Tamba Charles
Archbishop of Freetown
Ash Wednesday, 14th February 2024
