The herald., 1894-03-12
YESTERDAY IN THE CHURCHES,
Father Hickey's Excellent Dis
c0ulsc on Confession.
Rev. i. j. duncan breaches TO tho
Unemployed Aoout Work.
The Mpioyed Considered At the
Church "f the New Era-Ths WV
q. a. .Associatton-Rev. Dyes
seiln 1n on Women.

The following 10 synopsis Of the SER
mon delivered by the Very Rev. J.
Hickey on Confession yesterday at the
Cathedral
Confession means telling our ems to q
duly authorized priest for the purpose
Of obtaining forgiveness. This mani
iestAtion, OF course, must be sorrowful
and must include the firm purpose Of
amendment, otherwise forgiveness is
imposHible. In the sixteenth chapter OF
st. Matthew we find that Christ said
to Peter; Thou art Peter, and upon
this rock l will build my church, and
the gates OF hell shall not prevail against
it. l will give to thee the keys OF the
kingdom OF heaven, and whatsoever
thou shalt bind upon earth shall be
bound in heaven, and Whatsoever thou
shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed in
heaven" In the same gospel in the
eighteenth chapter, Jesus Christ thus
addressed His disciples: Amen. say
to you, whatsoev YER you shall bind upon
earth shall be bound also in heaven ant
whatsoever you shall loose upon earth
shall be loosed also in heaven" In tn 9
twentieth chapter of st. John we read
that Christ said to His disciples: "Rs-
ceive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins
you shall remit, they shall be remitted
unto them, and whose sins you shall
retain they shall be retained"
These words clearly indicate that
Christ gave power to His disciples and
to their successors to forgive sin. To
obtain this forgiveness. confession OF
= @su.m -. = A.A
urally the power to remit or to retain
could not be properly or intelligently
exercised without q knowledge of what
was TO be remitted or retained.
That the Catholic church has always
held and taught the practice of confes-
sion is apparent from the express testi-
mony OF the early Christian fathers.
Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Basil,
Ohry sostom. Jerome, Gregory the
Great, Anselm and Bernard all bear un.
equivocal witness to this fact. So unani.
nous are they on this point that
Gibbon, Protestant or rather infdel
as he was, in his History OF the Fall
OF the Roman Empire, acknowledges
that ian intelligent man finds it impos-
sibls to resist the weight of historical
evidence going to establish the fact that
confession was one of the principal
points in the belief of the Popish (sic)
church throughout the period of the
fret four centuries" Leibnitz, also q
Protestant, declares in his Systema
Theologicum that without doubt God
conferred . great boon by giving to His
church the power Of remitting and re.
tanning sins, power exercised by the
priests, whose ministry cannot be de-
spised without ain." We readily ac
knowledge that penance with the power
Of absolution or OF the key thai
promise, and it guarantees pardon
through the love of Jesus Christ.
Even in our own days all Protestan ii
have not renounced the practice OF con
fession. Witness the prescriptions found
in the ritual OF the Anglican church and
In that of the Lutheran churches o.
Denmark and Norway.
The antiquity of confession is evi
denced by the fact that the first instance
OF 1t 10 found in the very humble and
very complete acknowledgment of theil
fault by the progenitors OF the human
race, Adam and Eve.
That the Jews were not unfamiliar
with confession is the opinion OF ths
Protestant commentator, Grotius, who
in his review Of the Gospel according Il
Matthew, says: 81 regard as very prob
able the opinion of those who hold tbaI
among the Jews private confession o
sins was made to the priests. In
bis Historical Generate, the redoubtablt
infidel philosopher, Voltaire, is RESPONSE
BILE for the statement that confession
WAS one OF the rites in the ancient pagan
mysteries of Bacchus, Venus, Orpheus
Isis and Ceres. He even goes 80 far in
his Annales de PEmpire to affirm thai
"the enemies OF the Roman church
by opposing an institution so necessary
as 10 confession. seem to have deprived
men OF the most effective safeguard
against their secret crimes" The fa'
NOUS skeptic Raynal, too, in his His
toire Philoeophique, says that 1.-THE bes
government would be a theocracy, in
which would be erected the tribunal o.
confession"
A iavorite objection against the prac
tice OF confession is that it is an inven-
tion OF the priests. 1t is also urged thai
confession Is unnatural, and conee-
quently tyranny, a degradation, etc
The fact is that confession is as old aI
human nature itself, and is 80 insepara
bly, connected with it that to affirm the
one 10 to admit the other.
Christ did not institute confession
He found it already existing, and simply
raised 1t to the dignity OF sacrament