Forgiveness: worth a penny or two (Nat Arnett)

To feel better about ourselves we need to unburden our souls. We need to tell someone else about our sins, problems and foibles. Then, through the magic of asking for, and receiving, forgiveness we soothe our souls and know that all is right in our world.

And for years and years the Roman Catholics have been giving away this service for free — or for the odd chapel, cash donation, cathedral or work of art during less enlightened times. Generations of overworked and underpaid priests have heard the words: … forgive me Father for I have sinned … recited at them over and over again by their congregants.

But things are not as rosy as they have been in the past, and the number of people attending confessions is declining says Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, an official for the Vatican office on clergy.

… has told Vatican Radio the sacrament of penance has been experiencing a “deep crisis” for decades …

… says fewer people distinguish between good and evil, and as a result don’t go to confession …

It seems that priests now have some unequal competition from psychologists and psychiatrists:

… archbishop said in the interview on Tuesday that if faithful don’t have a sense of sin, they might “confuse” confession with “the couch of a psychologist or a psychiatrist” …

And what is this unequal competition? The psychologists or psychiatrists are paid by their clients. And doesn’t it follow — in our modern, material world — that if we pay for something it is worth more than if it was received free. So, the level of good-feelings generated by a psychologist or a psychiatrist is higher than what could generated by the freely giving and long suffering priests.

Maybe it is time for the Catholic Church to become more mercenary and charge for the occasional confession and the sense of peace that comes with it. After all, the psychologists and psychiatrists have had a pretty easy, non-competitive run for most of the last hundred years. And the Catholic Church has never been averse to making a bit of money.