Reviving Confession: Curé of Ars and Padre Pio

Penitents stood in line at their confessionals. Benedict XVI is proposing them as models to revitalize the sacrament of forgiveness.

ROME (Chiesa) - In opening the Year for Priests that he personally conceived and orchestrated, Benedict XVI has said that his aim is that of demonstrating "how important the holiness of priests is for the life and mission of the Church." And as a model of this sanctity, he offered the Curé of Ars and Padre Pio.

He recalled the first in the letter with which he opened the Year for Priests, on Friday, June 19, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As for the second, he went on pilgrimage to the place where he lived, San Giovanni Rotondo, on Sunday, June 21.

These two saints do not present a glamorous profile. Both were born to farming families and were uneducated, the one becoming a parish priest and the other a Franciscan friar, in two isolated villages of nineteenth-century France and twentieth-century Italy. But their holiness was so dazzling that myriads of people, some of them from very far away, came to them to beg for God's forgiveness, forming endless lines in front of their confessionals (in the photo, Padre Pio).

Prayer, the Eucharist, the sacrament of penance: these were the three shining lights of their sanctity. The third of these is especially striking, in an age like the present when the sacrament of penance is hardly received at all, having fallen into neglect partly through the carelessness of many priests.Benedict XVI has particularly insisted on the necessity of revitalizing this sacrament, in opening the Year for Priests.

He did so first of all in this passage of the letter inaugurating the Year, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the "dies natalis" of the sainted Curé of Ars, Jean Marie Vianney:"Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this sacrament. In France, at the time of the Curé of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence.

"He thus created a virtuous circle. By spending long hours in church before the tabernacle, he inspired the faithful to imitate him by coming to visit Jesus with the knowledge that their parish priest would be there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness. Later, the growing numbers of penitents from all over France would keep him in the confessional for up to sixteen hours a day.

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"It was said that Ars had become 'a great hospital of souls'. His first biographer relates that 'the grace he obtained [for the conversion of sinners] was so powerful that it would pursue them, not leaving them a moment of peace!'. The saintly Curé reflected something of the same idea when he said: 'It is not the sinner who returns to God to beg his forgiveness, but God himself who runs after the sinner and makes him return to him'. 'This good Saviour is so filled with love that he seeks us everywhere'.

"We priests should feel that the following words, which he put on the lips of Christ, are meant for each of us personally: 'I will charge my ministers to proclaim to sinners that I am ever ready to welcome them, that my mercy is infinite'. From Saint John Mary Vianney we can learn to put our unfailing trust in the sacrament of Penance, to set it once more at the centre of our pastoral concerns, and to take up the 'dialogue of salvation' which it entails.

"The Curé of Ars dealt with different penitents in different ways. Those who came to his confessional drawn by a deep and humble longing for God's forgiveness found in him the encouragement to plunge into the 'flood of divine mercy' which sweeps everything away by its vehemence. If someone was troubled by the thought of his own frailty and inconstancy, and fearful of sinning again, the Curé would unveil the mystery of God's love in these beautiful and touching words: 'The good Lord knows everything. Even before you confess, he already knows that you will sin again, yet he still forgives you. How great is the love of our God: he even forces himself to forget the future, so that he can grant us his forgiveness!'.

"But to those who made a lukewarm and rather indifferent confession of sin, he clearly demonstrated by his own tears of pain how 'abominable' this attitude was: 'I weep because you don't weep', he would say. 'If only the Lord were not so good! But he is so good! One would have to be a brute to treat so good a Father this way!'.

"He awakened repentance in the hearts of the lukewarm by forcing them to see God's own pain at their sins reflected in the face of the priest who was their confessor. To those who, on the other hand, came to him already desirous of and suited to a deeper spiritual life, he flung open the abyss of God's love, explaining the untold beauty of living in union with him and dwelling in his presence: 'Everything in God's sight, everything with God, everything to please God... How beautiful it is!'. And he taught them to pray: 'My God, grant me the grace to love you as much as I possibly can'."

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And Benedict XVI again urged priests to pay attention to the sacrament of penance in this passage from an address in San Giovanni Rotondo:"Like the Curé d'Ars, Padre Pio also reminds us of the dignity and responsibility of the priestly ministry. Who was not impressed by the fervor with which he re-lived the Passion of Christ in every celebration of the Eucharist? From his love for the Eucharist there arose in him as the Curé d'Ars a total willingness to welcome the faithful, especially sinners.

"Also, if St. John Mary Vianney, in a troubled and difficult time, tried in every way, to help his parishioners rediscover the meaning and the beauty of sacramental penance, for the holy friar of the Gargano, the care of souls and the conversion of sinners were a desire that consumed him until death. How many people have changed their lives thanks to his patient priestly ministry, so many long hours in the confessional!

"Like the Curé d'Ars, it is his ministry as a confessor that constitutes the greatest title of glory and the distinctive feature of this holy Capuchin. How could we not realize then the importance of participating in the celebration of the Eucharist devoutly and frequently receiving the sacrament of confession? In particular, the sacrament of penance must be even more valued, and priests should never resign themselves to seeing their confessional deserted or to merely recognizing the diffidence of the faithful for this extraordinary source of serenity and peace."

In reporting on the beginning of the Year for Priests, the news coverage barely mentioned the pope's insistence on the sacrament of penance.The media instead emphasized the passage in which Benedict XVI deplored the evil conduct of some pastors of the Church, "above all those who turn into 'thieves of the sheep' (John 10:1 ff.), either because they lead them astray with their own private doctrines, or because they bind them with bonds of sin and death." And in another passage, the pope said that "we priests are also called to conversion and to recourse to the divine mercy, and we must humbly petition the Heart of Jesus, fervently and constantly, to preserve us from the terrible danger of harming those we are required to save."

But it is clear that the primary objective of the Year for Priests proclaimed by Benedict XVI is none other than renewed attention to the sacrament of confession.This objective runs exactly counter to the spirit of surrender that so many bishops and priests demonstrate in the face of the desertion of this sacrament.

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Chiesa is a wonderful source on all things Catholic in Europe. It is skillfully edited by Sandro Magister. SANDRO MAGISTER was born on the feast of the Guardian Angels in 1943, in the town of Busto Arsizio in the archdiocese of Milan. The following day he was baptized into the Catholic Church. His wife’s name is Anna, and he has two daughters, Sara and Marta. He lives in Rome.