Pope says both penitents and confessors can profit from confession

(25 March, 2011) The Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation has great educative values, not only for penitents but also for confessors who administer the sacrament. Pope Benedict XVI made the observation on Friday while addressing a group of participants in a course organized by Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary. The Pope mentioned several saints, such as John Mary Vianney, John Bosco and Padre Pio, saying their faithful and generous availability for confession shows us how the confessional can be a real place for sanctification. The confessional, he said, is a privileged place for a priest to contemplate the splendour of Divine Mercy, where he often witnesses real and true miracles of conversion that strengthen his own faith. In visiting the darkest recess of the abyss of the human heart, the Pope observed, a confessor’s humanity and faith might be put to the test, but on the other hand the experience will strengthen the certainty that the last word on the evil in man and in the world is with God and his mercy that can renew everything. Pope Benedict said the priest can learn from the penitent’s effort in examining the conscience, the acknowledgement of one’s sins and the readiness to listen. Penitents also give us profound lessons in humility and faith, the Pope said.