Baum critiqued

Catholic New Times, Nov 2, 2003 by Brigid Elson

Gregory Baum's recent article on confession was from the 1970s, or the 1900s, or the 1740s: you can pick the era. It was out-of-date, an outmoded attack on a central Catholic sacrament. A sacramental reductionism such as this reduces to dust the significance of innumerable cultural artifacts like, say, Dante's Commedia, or Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest.

Most Catholics I know go to individual confession and are noticeably the better for it. There is something about facing up to one's sins and weaknesses and actually naming them to another person (i.e., the Person), which no anonymous crowd experience tan replace.

Brigid Elson, Toronto