Things misunderstood

I don't read the paper very often.  In the age of the Internet, newspapers like The Age and the Herald-Sun seem to spend most of their time playing catchup.  Even their op-ed sections are barely worth bothering with: between regular columnists and a cadre of letter writers one can readily guess what the range of opinion will be on any given topic.

While I was buying my lunch the other week, I did however flip through The Age to kill time.  One of the letters dealt with the proposal (now law) to force priests to violate the confessional where abuse allegations are concerned.  The letter itself was unremarkable apart from two surprising misunderstandings that it revealed:

The Age, 20 August 2019

The second paragraph is awkwardly worded, and one can't be sure whether the "it" refers to the Church or the Confessional.  Regardless, the assumption that either the sacrament of penance or the church itself emphasises a shame-based view of sexuality is simply wrong.  Far from shame, what we are urged to, whatever our desires may be, is simply to be more than our instincts make us.

I too am a Catholic with SSA, who believes the Church’s Teaching and is celibate. You are not alone. God bless you! I feel your pain when i see Father Martin and others promoting false Mercy. Pray for conversions of heart.

— Francesca (@MaryFrancisLOL) September 12, 2019

The other misunderstanding was a belief that the confessional is an ordeal.  If it is, it is because confession demands that the penitent be honest with themself, and hear his or her own voice saying the ugly, vile things that they were willing to do when (in general) nobody was watching.  The only ordeal is the loss of the opportunity to lie and to take comfort in a half-truth.  Fearing this sort of honesty is as hard an indictment of our culture as I can imagine.