The Rev Canon Meyrick on Confession - Church Association Tract 312

I. What it is.
It is a system authoritatively instituted in 1215 by Innocent III. (the Pope that made our King John his vassal and released him from his engagements to observe Magna Charta), according to which every man and woman is bound at least once a year to confess to his parish priest all the grave sins that he has committed since his last confession. The priest, sitting in his tribunal as the representative of God, listens to his statements, inquires into his frame of mind, passes judgment on his state, and, if he thinks proper, conveys to him God’s pardon for his sins in the form of an absolution, on the condition of his satisfying God by performing certain painful acts, specified by the priest, which shall make up for his sinful acts, and are substituted for eternal punishment. This is the minimum demanded by Pope Innocent’s injunctions, and now binding on every Roman Catholic man and woman, but it is further taught that “good Catholics” ought not to be contented with this minimum, that they ought to use the confessional as a singular means of growing in grace and holiness, and that the more frequently that they expose the inmost feelings of their hearts to the priest the better they will become, and for this purpose they ought not to confine themselves to the enumeration of their grave sins but to count up and tell out all their lighter failures and feelings which they ought not to have entertained, accepting in every case the judgment of the priest as to what they should do to make up for their wrong acts and thoughts and words and desires. In both cases the confession must be made, not indeed with sorrow for having offended God, but at least with sorrow arising from the fear of punishment in this world or the next. With this imperfect sorrow and the confession and acceptance of the penance imposed by the priest, the sinner may be assured that his sins are wiped out by the priest’s absolution, and he may now either lead a new life or he may begin again and go through the same process as before of transgression, confession and absolution.

II. What it sprang out of.
Innocent III., with or without the Fourth Lateran Council, changed the Christian faith in many essential particulars by the novel tenets which he sanctioned; but yet he must have had something which he could transmute into his various new doctrines.... To read more, click here.