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Yesterday on Catholica Andrew Kania brought us a provocative commentary on what amounted to a strong argument in favour of the importance of Reconciliation. Today on Catholica Tom McMahon continues his series on the Sacrament of Penance with an exclusive revelation of the first "sin" he confessed in Confession. It's lain as a secret for 73 years. Be one of the first to read the momentous revelation. Can you remember what the first "sin" was that you confessed? Many readers will identify with what Tom writes. Does the form of "Confession" we were brought up on actually lead to the sort of "Reconciliation" that was being discussed in yesterday's email and lead commentary. Is it, for example, a protection against dementia?

Firing up the boilers after a holiday lay over … the unanswered question of Tom's last "confession"? … from the archives … some vivid memories of a good catholic child who became a priest …..

I had to go back into the archives, locating my trend of thought — too much holiday relaxation and fun with the grandtots … We find our Polar Express (of thought) idling on sacramental track PENANCE as we prepare to stoke up the intellectual boilers. I find it easy to maintain this symbolism as our three-year-old grandson plays "trains" once a week, upstairs in Tom's train room. Sebastian prefers to engineer the wooden BRIO rather than watching the electric ones go around; I am like Psychologist Piaget as I watch one-year-old Dominic find delicate train parts and lock his tiny fingers around them as grandpa tries gently and unsuccessfully to take them away. Years ago I would try to have something positive to say to each child as the school Masses were forced in for monthly confession; I was a Piaget in the confessional box, trying to unlock the damaging misinformation planted in a child's mind. I have never forgotten my first confession. Adults hold tight to what they call tradition (latin tradere = to pass on) or what they see as a hand-me-down. In reality the traditon of children's confession has its origin somewhere in the 1930's; the practice of children's confession is a tag along to first communion for tots promulgated by Pius the Tenth in 1910. By then the historical Jesus is dead 1975 years. I can't imagine the historical Jesus hearing a child's confession or telling a child she/he is sinful.

ALL ABOARD! my confessional trail begins in 1933 … I first confess my "sinfulness" at age 7…

I have mentally traced back into 73 years a process of disillusionment I experienced concerning my trust in priests and their ability to forgive my sins; let me walk it out in seven steps from my first encounter with the confessional box:

1. In 1934 I am not yet five and mother takes me to church in the sleepy village of Sonoma, Ca. (Valley of the Moon, Jack London and Call of the Wild). Mother leaves me in the pew, entering one of three confessional doors and I think she is making a phone call. I was asleep when Mom came out and took me home. Mom was widowed in 1931 and I can today imagine the confusion this valiant woman underwent and can see none of it as sinful. Mom was totally dedicated to love of her children, while certainly respecting others.
2. I am age 7 and my second grade classmates are seated in semi-dark Mission Dolores Basilica with our second grade teacher directing each child into the confessional (now that I look back the nun was more than likely about 21 — the blind leading the little blind). I really don't know what this is all about but I better go along with "it" cause I want to be included in the group who will receive First Communion on Sunday and one takes the package deal. Sister Hebenebens of the Double Cross told me I had to tell my sins to the priest and I wonder what this sin stuff is all about. OK, if you say so! My chief source of information, my Mom, said nothing. I saw genial Father Plunkett go into the middle door of the box I chance upon and he's a nice priest and he won't be mad if I hide my big "sin" (you my reader are the first to hear about "it").
   
   THE SIN: I attended first grade in public school in rural Sonoma and then we moved back to San Francisco; on my first day in Catholic school with nun in severe garb patrolling the class aisles I pooped in my pants and was allowed to sit there for hours until my Mom, the parish secretary, took me home. Mom was kind and understanding while I figured the nuns and kids must have been ticked, sheer projection. I would often think of this experience when I went out to church to hear the tots' confessions. I would also keep in mind classmate John Monagle's story about the child who opened his priest's door excitedly to report that the kid before him had peed all over the floor; John dutifully got out a mop and cleaned up, more than likely relishing the break in the monotony. (Those poor tots with their innocent bag of tels, cruel and unusual punishment. Today, as a therapist, I call it child abuse!) Before seminary I went along with the system, Mother seeing to it we kids confessed at least around Easter time. I was a good catholic — whatever that meant. I sure did not eat meat on Friday and I wasn't going to Hell like those who did.
3. Times got better as I grew older and made my monthly report on how good a Catholic kid I was. I frequented during summer vacations the confessional booth of Msgr. Harry Lynne, a priest's priest and a prince of a person, who knew me by name and encouraged me on to priesthood. Home in my 12th year of seminary I, an ordained deacon, went with my Mom to Holy Redeemer Church in San Francisco, entering the confessional of Mark Hurley, a future bishop. When Mark opened the slide I began "Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts…" and when ended Mark began to laugh and so did I. We talked for about twenty minutes about the occurrences which might happen when I was hearing confessions, soon within a year; when I knelt next to my Mom I whispered to her that I had killed ten people last month and we both smiled. My Mom went to confession no more than once a year and Mom had no time for attention-getting guilt. I clearly recall wondering at the time what sins my widowed mother could commit. I well recall in my first year of priesthood Mom quietly telling me "Tom, you are so innocent and know so little about life". Mom was a good psychologist (another Mother story next week).
4. My uncle was pastor of St. Elizabeth Church, Guerneville, Ca. on the Russian River. In the 1930's as grade school boy I spent four summers "at the river", my chores were to clean ash trays, make beds, and dry dishes, helping an overwhelmed housekeeper as four supply priests joined my uncle to say Sunday Masses for the summer Catholic crowd. I ate with the priests lunch and dinner, three of whom would be my future seminary professors. One Saturday I slipped and rock in hand flew over hitting the priest who was walking over to hear confessions. Guilt ridden, I was his first penitent, asking forgiveness of God "for throwing a rock at a priest". He said nothing and gave me absolution. 40 years later I would visit this priest in a retirement home and we chatted about many memories, but nothing was ever said about my confession. I often have thought about how that priest could have helped a child in understanding how God had nothing to do with an accident and surely was not offended by human fault. P.S. I had a canoe, nightly work at the roller rink, the Big Bands nightly — all part of my early sex education
5. One memory haunted me over ten years of seminary. One warm summer night I, age 15, went down around 11pm to 106, the hall's public jakes; through the open window I clearly heard the voices of two faculty members, quite intoxicated and taking over the coals every member of the priest faculty. I listened for an hour and went to bed that night aware that I had lost my spiritual virginity; the humanness of priests would dominate me until this present day (2009). Three years later one of the intoxicated tried to have me unjustly expelled from seminary, an issue I have not forgotten. I remember confessing that I had looked at a picture of a naked woman (I was 16) and wondering if the priest had ever done the same thing. I never did confess my drawing a bra on Venus, whose picture was in my first year latin book. Lordy, lordy we were so Jansenistic! … And God created them male and female … And, in innocence, we thought sex was sinful.
6. I carried into my early priesthood the idea that obedience to authority was godly. I used confession for advice on how to stay perfect, four years to Mark Hurley principal of local O'Dowd High School and one year to a priest I later found out was "married" to his housekeeper. I worked my way through the myriad of realities that this young priest had not heard of in seminary. I read my breviary faithfully; I was poor at Latin yet I accepted that failure to do the hour of Latin reading was a mortal sin. I believed in Hell and eternal punishment, unaware that humans — more than likely isolated 5th century monks — had set up the criterion for damnation. I became aware of "sexual conduct unbecoming to clerics" especially when intoxicated in public; I became aware that canon law allowed a priest to say Mass in the "state of mortal sin" (primarily making sure the collection is taken up), if he could not first find a priest before Mass, yet obliged him to seek confession soon after Mass to his bishop or another priest. Five years ordained a jungle of bewildering realities confronted me. I saw myself as a possible Jeckle and Hyde, one image known to the people and the split known only to me. I would begin therapy and my studies of human psychology. I would no longer trust my delicate conscience to an ordained Catholic priest. I would read FREE AND FAITHFUL TO CHRIST by Bernard Haring (1978), henceforth dealing with God by way of the teachings of Jesus and the Vatican Two document on Freedom of Religion and Conscience. Father Bernard Hering would correspond with me encouraging my new found freedom; I was in safe hands. Jesus had come to set us free from ignorance and fear. Jesus was my savior. Vatican Two never mentioned sin.
   
   I was still considered a junior clergyman, having to take junior clergy exams and preach a sermon annually to one faculty member at the seminary chapel while I had the responsibility of a thousand innocent and God-seeking families as the aged pastor just said Sunday mass … and mismanaged the books of the parish. I was 32 years old and still being treated as a child by the chancery office. The original pastors I served under were mentally ill — fear, ignorance, loneliness, and intoxication had destroyed once good men.
7. I persevered in reading my breviary for six years. My new confessor, a serious canon lawyer, excused me for health reasons from the obligation as I was working 12 hour days. The straw that broke the camel's back came on priest's retreat when it was announced that permission had come from Rome for priests to read the breviary in English BUT individual permission need be requested and granted by the bishop. This would be a turning point in the innocence of this clergyman and my trust in church leadership. It was announced that Bishop Guilfoyle would give permissions that afternoon beginning at 1.30 pm at the swimming pool. A line of about 50 priests passed one by one by Guilfoyle as "Merlin in deck chair and bathing suit" flicked his wrist without saying a word … permission granted. I turned away in disgust … how serious were these guys? What disrespect for a person and church law … and sin bypassed by a flick of the wrist? With the Rome meetings of Vatican Two over and the documents of reform in hand I took to teaching two hundred families the glory of John the 23rd, s redeeming and liberating reform. Jesus had come to set us free from fear and ignorance. I never went back to a priest for confession, junking all the ideas of Augustine and Luther about the sinfulness of humankind. I became a convert to Christianity. Conversion means to turn around and go another way. Jesus obviously believed in the goodness of humankind.

There is lots more hidden between the above lines that space does not allow; this is the story of my spiritual trek through my own graveyard of the Roman confessional system. I regret that the mercy of Jesus was so bungled, especially starting with the tragic inclusion of innocent children … more on this next week. Huge increase in numbers, depersonalization, and poorly trained confessors did the system in. Tom New Year's Day 2009

Tom in San Jose, a "sin-filled" township, having found a Jesus freedom and peace of mind. 01/01/2009

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[Index of Commentaries by Tom McMahon]