It is necessary to return to the confessional, noted Benedict XVI, speaking to the participants in the  Apostolic Penitentiary's course of formation. The hedonistic and materialistic cultural context is causing a loss of the sense of sin and of the sense of good and evil. Priests, with the example of the holy Cure d'Ars, must guide the faithful courageously, be dedicated to hearing confessions, and establish a dialogue of salvation with the penitents. The certainty of being loved by God which the priest should transfer to the faithful, the Pope said, helps men to recognize their own sin and to be introduced gradually into the stable dynamics of conversion of heart, which leads to the radical renunciation of evil and to a life according to God. For his part,  the priest is able to perform this task if he lives an authentic life of prayer, nourished by the Gospel and by closeness to God.

It is necessary to return to the confessional, noted Benedict XVI, speaking to the participants in the  Apostolic Penitentiary's course of formation. The hedonistic and materialistic cultural context...leggi tutto