b. Reconciliation_b. Reconciliation 18/12/2012 12:31 Page 6
The Sacrament of Reconciliation
A culture of no regrets If the sacrament of reconciliation is a sacrament in crisis as John Paul II has often said, and as pastoral experience seems to bear out, then part of the explanation for this might be that remorse has Remorse has become become practically practically impossible in impossible in our culture. The Archbishop of our culture Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, writes about this difficulty in his book Lost Icons: Reflections on Cultural Bereavement (Edinburgh 2000). One of the virtues we seem to have lost, he argues, is the capacity for remorse (Chapter 3). If he is right, then the crisis in the sacrament of reconciliation is partly explained by more widespread difficulties about remorse, regret, apology and forgiveness in contemporary experience. The evil in some of the things that have been done in recent history can seem too deep for forgiveness. Who is entitled to forgive people involved in the Holocaust and other genocidal campaigns? What does forgiveness and reconciliation mean in South Africa, the north of Ireland, or after the attacks of September 11th? The promises of the Bible - ‘no need to remember the past’, ‘behold I make all things new’ - can seem incredible in the face of great evil and irreparable loss. It is important to be aware of this background if we want to
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