UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet
13 February 2014 by Jim Christie
The UN committee’s critique has refocused attention on the preparation of priests for the ministry. In the first of two articles, a priest-psychotherapist argues that the handling of the abuse crisis has been inhibited by a concentration on theology rather than an understanding of the human psyche
In the late 1960s, our theology schools were abuzz with the Second Vatican Council, but that had not yet impinged on confessional practice. Among other things, we had “mock confessions”, in which (in front of everyone else) the ordinands took turns at being confessor while our professor, the redoubtable Paul Brassell, took the role of the penitent.
Fr Brassell’s amazing command of accents and dialects, and the realism of the way he said things whether coming from man, woman or child, made the whole exercise both instructive and entertaining.
Catherine Pepinster’s recent column in The Tablet about certain shortcomings in confessional practice (4 January 2014) in matters relating to the sixth commandment raises some significant issues which bring us to the contemporary problems about sexual abuse and how it is responded to. I recall Paul Brassell’s emphasis that a very brief or vague mention of a sin could be deliberately used by a penitent to “slip by” a tired priest’s attention; and “broke the sixth commandment” could be used to euphemise various things up to and including rape. The confessor was supposed to make discreet enquiries in order to establish (in his mind, at least) whether the sin was mortal, so that he could tailor his advice, and the penance, accordingly.
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