James O'Toole / The Rise and Fall of Confession in America скачать в хорошем качестве

James O'Toole / The Rise and Fall of Confession in America

For generations, American Catholics went to confession regularly and in large numbers, admitting their sins to a priest and receiving God's forgiveness through him. The sacrament served as a distinctive marker of Catholic identity, shaping parishioners' views of their relationship to God, their neighbors, and the larger world. It gave them a clear moral framework for thinking about their own personal behavior. But starting in the 1970s, most Catholics abandoned confession altogether. This talk will describe and analyze the reasons for the flourishing of the practice and then the reasons for its decline. Part of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity. This lecture took place on February 17, 2026 at the College of the Holy Cross.