Sin and Penance Among Catholics

The 1960s were a time of great change in the United States, and American Catholics in particular lived through important church events, as well as political and social turmoil in their homeland. In addition to the Second Vatican Council, the ensuing liturgical changes, and Paul VI’s release of Humanae vitae, Catholics were undergoing socioeconomic changes. Better educated, better employed, upwardly mobile Catholics began to leave behind their urban-based Catholic subculture for more affluent and religiously diverse suburbs.

This dissolution of the Catholic subculture conditioned the American reception of the aformentioned ecclesiastical events. Various scholars have noted that the context in which Vatican II was conducted was different from that in which it was implemented. In the United States, the government came under fire in regard to both civil rights and the antiwar movement, and to some degree both a confrontational tone and techniques were used in internal church debates as American Catholics, like their compatriots, were captivated with the notion of freedom. In the midst of this, traditional Catholic values that had been taken for granted began to be questioned. The concept of sin had been a firmly entrenched reality, understood in categories of mortal and venial, and reinforced by frequent examinations of conscience and trips to the confessional, as well as a fear of hell.

As the 70s approached, the notion of sin seemed to disappear in the U.S., reflected by psychiatrist Karl Menninger’s best-selling book entitled Whatever Became of Sin? Catholics, now demographically similar to their fellow Americans, were not immune to the decline of the concept of sin, and two factors in particular contributed to this decline. The first was the rise of psychology and counseling, which provided a new model for understanding conflict in relationship and self-understanding. The second was the changing sexual values of American culture. As premarital sex and contraception became normative in society, American Catholics – particularly those of the younger generation – were less likely to see these acts as sins, even if the pope continued to affirm them as such. During this time there was a dramatic decline in the sacrament of confession.

One other significant implementation of Vatican II that occurred during this volatile time period was Paul VI’s release of the Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini, which authorized episcopal conferences to modify their local penitential practices. In the United States, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops did just that, releasing their letter in 1966. Echoing the language popular in contemporary moral theologians such as Bernard Häring, the bishops emphasized freedom over obligation and the voluntary over the required when they removed the communal practices of Friday meat abstention and Lenten fasting and replaced them with individually chosen penances. Though the bishops were certainly well-intentioned and hoping to renew the practices of penance, what ensued was a further decline of the notions of sin and penance, as well as a further undermining of Catholic identity in a religiously pluralistic country.

-Maria C. Morrow