Confessions - my Testimony
I made my first confession in 1978.
At the age of seven, I was introduced whether I wanted to be or not into this
astounding practice. Mortal sins have to be confessed on pain of everlasting
damnation and even possibly death at the hands of the Catholic God. There comes
a time when one has a sin one finds impossible to tell even to a priestly
stranger no matter how weak in the head one is in relation to one’s religion. In
my case, it was the alleged sacrilege of stealing a communion wafer to have
Jesus in my house in 1984. The burden this caused was tremendous and my nights
were filled with the terror and dreams of eternal damnation and I developed a
complete lack of self-esteem. The sin merited automatic excommunication which
worsened things. The self-disgust and the fear and the guilt drove me to
contemplate suicide but I wouldn’t have done it for I thought then that my
everlasting damnation was assured. I had to settle for dragging my jaw on the
ground and wishing I had never been born. Abusive mother Church stole the best
years of my life from me. Now, she would tell me that she did not and that I was
lying in a bed of thorns of my own making. But the fact that Catholicism is a
cult of unsupported and needless faith proves that she would be falsely accusing
me because it is not right to harm anyone directly or indirectly for the love of
guesses.
The thought of dying without confessing to a priest scares every Catholic for it
makes salvation more likely. I saw the Church destroy the relatives of suicides
like she had destroyed me with her doctrine of auricular confession. Yes, Rome
does say that a suicide may not be in Hell but she still implies that it is most
likely that he or she is there. Since a person dying that lonesome and terrible
way cannot fulfil the conditions of repentance he lays down for his or her
salvation due to the agony, horror and emotion of the dying process it is clear
that her teaching is no consolation. She informs us that people must have a
clear mind to repent. If Rome preached rational truth, she would not be so
destructive.
I was taught the difference between contrition and attrition. Contrition meant
repenting sin for it was simply bad and against the love of God. Attrition meant
refraining from sin because of the danger of punishment or in the case of mortal
sin, everlasting damnation. Contrition forgave sin instantly provided you
intended to go to confession. The Council of Trent stated: "though it sometimes
happens that this contrition is perfect and that it reconciles man with God
before the actual reception of this sacrament, still the reconciliation is not
to be ascribed to the contrition itself apart from the desire of the sacrament
which it (contrition) includes". With attrition, there was no forgiveness unless
one got absolution from the priest. I realised that attrition was not real
renunciation of sin. The person is only worried about the punishment not the
sin. I saw then how evil the confessional truly was. I saw how it is just a way
of condoning the evil done by those who use it with attrition. I saw then that
the Catholic faith thrives on hypocrisy.
CONCLUSION:
Confession is demeaning and is nonsensical.