Lay confession

Lay confession is confession in the religious sense, made to a lay person.

From the Roman Catholic standpoint, lay confession is of historical interest only.

It is found under two forms: first, confession without relation to the sacrament, second, confession intended to supply for the sacrament in case of necessity. In the first instance, it consists of confession of venial sins or daily faults which need not necessarily be submitted to the power of the keys; in the second, it has to do with the confession of even grievous sins which should be declared to a priest, but which are confessed to a layman because there is no priest at hand and the case is urgent. In both cases the end sought is the merit of humiliation which is inseparable from freely performed confession; but in the first no administration of the sacrament, in any degree, is sought; in the second, on the contrary, sacramental confession is made to a layman for want of a priest.

Theologians and canonists in dealing with this subject usually have two historical texts as basis. The optional and meritorious confession of slight faults to any Christian is set forth in Venerable Bede's Commentary on the Epistle of St. James: "Confess your sins one to another" (Confitemini alterutrum peccata vestra). "It should be done", says the holy doctor, "with discernment; we should confess our daily and slight faults mutually to our equals, and believe that we are saved by their daily prayer. As for more grievous leprosy (mortal sin), we should, according to the law, discover its impurity to the priest, and according to his judgement carefully purify ourselves in the manner and time he shall fix". Clearly Bede did not consider such mutual avowal a sacramental confession; he had in mind the monastic confession of faults. In the eleventh century Lanfranc sets forth the same theory, but distinguishes between public sins and hidden faults; the first he reserves "to priest, by whom the Church binds and looses:, and authorizes the avowal of the second to all members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and in their absence to an upright man (vir mundus), and in the absence of an upright man, to God alone.

So also Raoul l'Ardent, after having declared that the confession of venial sins may be made to any person, even to an inferior" (cuilibet, etiam minori), but he adds this explanation: "We make this confession, not that the layman may absolve us; but because by reason of our own humiliation and accusation of our sins and the prayer of our brethren, we may be purified of our sins:. Confession to laymen made in this way has, therefore, theological objection. The passage from Bede is frequently quoted by the Scholastics.

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