Confession Definition and Meaning


Confession is a term that comes from the Latin confessĭo. It is the statement made by a person, either spontaneously or when asked by another subject. The confession usually includes data hitherto unknown to the listener.

For example: “The singer’s confession about his sexuality surprised millions of fans”, “When he heard his wife’s confession, Ramiro thought he was going to faint”, “I don’t want to lie anymore, it’s time for confession: I’m going to call Agustina by phone to tell her what happened in that house ”.

At the legal level, the confession is a personal statement of the defendant or the litigant in front of the judge in the framework of a trial : “After four hours of inquiries, the detainee broke down and gave the most awaited confession, when informing where the body of the victim ”, “ The confession did not take long to arrive and the Justice ordered the immediate incarceration of the offender ”.

For the Catholic Church, according to abbreviationfinder.org, confession is a part of the sacrament of penance or reconciliation, which consists of the declaration of sins committed before a priest. Through this sacrament, believers receive forgiveness from God for these sins.

In this sense, it should also be stressed that the aforementioned religious must comply with what is known as a confession secret. Specifically, what is established with him is that he cannot reveal, under any circumstances, what a faithful has revealed to him during his sacramental confession.

Such is the importance of this maxim that even in Canon Law it is established that any priest who uses this information and reveals it must submit to the consequences. That is, you will have to accept that you have been directly excommunicated.

In many cases, there has been the fact that a priest has known who has committed a crime, because the offender has told him so, but he has not been able to make his identity known because he was subject to the confidentiality of confession.

To receive divine forgiveness, Christians must go through four stages: repentance (the intention not to commit the sin again), confession (the verbal enumeration of sins before the priest acting as confessor), satisfaction or penance (actions ordered by the priest as reparation for sins) and absolution (decreed by the priest in the name of God).

In addition to all the above, we cannot overlook the fact that in the field of culture there are certain works that make use of the word that occupies us in their titles. Thus, for example, we find the film “Confession”, which was released in 1940 by the director Luis José Moglia. In it we are told the life of a group of musicians and how one of them falls madly in love with a woman whose only dream is to succeed.

In the same way, we also find the film entitled “Confessions of a dangerous mind.” In 2002, the one who brings us closer to the life of Chuck Barris, who worked as a producer and as a CIA agent, came to the big screen.

Confession Definition and Meaning

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