Husband-wife Domestic Confessional Model

[Aloysius]

So I've posted a few odd ideas to promote the idea of a domestic church in the home, one of them being the concept of a parental confessional wherein the child may confess some wrongdoing to one of the parents, my idea of what the "seal of confession" in that situation would entail stirred up a little controversy, but all in all the discussion really left me thinking of that as a really good idea.

Here is the topic where I proposed that idea: [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=67798"]Confessional Model in the Domestic Church[/url]

Anyway, I was thinking now about the concept of a confessional between the husband and the wife. Obviously, the husband and wife should constantly communicate and share things with each other; but it seems to me that having a place wherein one party completely humbles themself to confess wrongdoings and faults to the other, where the one confessing does not attempt to defend or excuse his actions in any way, and the other does not argue or bicker with the other about it; it being understood that the only place information talked about in this confessional setting can be used is within this confessional setting, and then the one being confessed to will forgive the one confessing, giving some penance to do (I could imagine a wife insisting that the husband buy her jewelry as a penance, lol) and bless them in some way, or else if that one thinks the one confessing was not truly sorry they could withhold the forgiveness/blessing, and perhaps consider it a rupture in their communion if it was serious enough which would be exemplified in abstaining from the communion of the marital embrace until a type of forgiveness/blessing had been achieved in another such "confession".

I really think this type of domestic church setup within a family, including my previous idea where children confess to their parents in a "confessional" style setting, and this idea where spouses confess to each other in a "confessional" style setting, would strengthen a family and build a stronger understanding of the Sacrament itself. ie, when one in that family commits a wrongdoing, that one must first reconcile to his family through a family confession, and then reconcile to the Church and God through a Sacramental confession. A constant exchange of confessions, penances, and reconciliations between members of a family and members of a Church, it would all flow together as a constant cultural thing... Sacramental confession would be seen as a natural extension of this. Within the family, things like being included in dessert at meals, or any other such extension of traditional parental punishments which exclude one from an activity which would be part of a sense of membership to the family, like being grounded in one's room, not being permitted to watch TV with the family, et cetera; to make manifest the fact that the wrongdoing had injured their communion with the family and that they needed to repair it, would be the type of thing that a grave wrongdoing would cause one to be excluded from, the same way a grave sin excludes one from Holy Communion in the Church; and of course between the husband and wife, it would be primarily the marital embrace which would take the place of that-- that a grave wrongdoing in the family excludes one spouse from being able to engage in the conjugal union the same way a grave sin excludes one from Holy Communion in the Church.

What thinkest thou?

[rkwright]

haha I had to laugh a little bit, because it does sound a bit odd... withholding forgiveness sounds like making matters worse...

I'm going to try this with my girlfriend... maybe she'll stop telling all her friends about anything I do wrong if its under the "seal of domestic" confession

[Aloysius]

it'd be the same deal as a priest refusing to absolve, if the one shows a real purpose to ammend and a real sorrow, the other would have to forgive. I don't think it's making matters worse, if it's done right; it's making matters manifest, so that the spouse who ought to be sorry for something can tangibly see that this action has blocked full union with the other and that the only way to restore it is to be sorry. of course, they would only confess things which they actually thought were wrong, so they're likely to be sorry for anything they confess, and the only things that they would not be sorry for would be things found out outside of this little confessional, seeing as those would probably be the things they wouldn't think were wrong and thus there would still be marital squabbles and such, but those things brought up in these confessions would find much more easy resolution, if both agreed to the terms of it: the full and complete trust and secrecy, the complete humility that must be shown by the spouse confessing (ie no making excuses, no defending one's actions in the slightest, simple full disclosure) and the open mercy available from the spouse being confessed to, that the spouse being confessed to must put themself in a higher mindset and look at things not from the point of view of whether that spouse's actions hurt their feelings, but rather from the point of view which seeks reconciliation and ammendment above all else, seeing things from the POV of the mind of Christ.

like if the husband confessed to the wife that he had lied about liking her latest cooking contraption, the wife would not be able to respond to the husband in this context in a way which would lead to bickering; but she might impose as a penance that he has to eat a whole bowlfull of it lol.

more serious matters would be where stuff like witholding forgiveness would come into play; if God forbid, there was adultery to be confessed, the spouse being confessed to would need some serious assurences of a purpose of ammendment, would have high-stakes penances like "you can never talk to that person again", and the reconciliation would be a longer time coming, the forgiveness might not be offered right after that first confession because they must be sure that their spouse has a real purpose of ammendment.

I don't think this should be a weird concept, if we are really supposed to be a domestic Church in family life. if we take that to heart, something like this ought to be quite plausible to practically live out. it won't solve every problem, it won't be perfect, it won't create utopian marriages; but it might just be something that would strengthen the bond of marriage and deepen an authentic living out of the Catholic faith in day to day life.

anyway, there ought to be a trust between two spouses anyway (or two dating people) wherein you can tell the one something that they must keep secret, that their revealing of it would be almost unforgiveable. I'm just saying make that an explicit thing analagous to the seal of confession. things you just do wrong directly and explicitly couldn't be sealed post fact, ie you couldn't just invoke it to keep her quiet about something wrong you did; it'd only "seal" information she obtained through this confession process, not information she already knew (though with a good trusting relationship, you could ask her not to tell her friends about something you did, and IMHO she really ought to adhere to your request if you were sincere; otherwise she would indeed be committing the sin of calumny... which she could come back and confess to you... girls need to remember: GOSSIP IS A SIN... of course, we all know that girls will gossip anyway, lol, so I feel your pain)

btw, you may have noticed that uncharecteristically, I have been using generic pronouns instead of reverting to the generic masculine. this is because everytime I do this, it seems to me as if I am falling into the trap of calling the husband always wrong and in need of apologizing; lol, so in this one instance, contrary to all my linguistic convictions, I have painstakingly been generic in my pronouns.

[rkwright]

Honestly I do like this idea. In light of the premise behind it, the home being a domestic Church, it really does make sense. I think it would work best in maybe more serious matters; like the adultery situation, maybe someone spending money without the other's knowledge, maybe not helping out around the house, not sharing the workload with the kids or something. I don't really know, I'm not married

Where would you see this really being used, lets say in a good marriage. The cooking example is an ok one; though I'm not really sure, this just doesn't seem like something I would go to a confessional for.

Another thing that must be taken in consideration. What about times when one party feels wronged by the other, but the other doesn't really see it that way. It would be like bringing the confessional to them. Could one withhold martial duties, until they feel the other party has 'confessed'? Sorta like an automatic excommunication?

I agree with you that a certain trust or secrecy must be implicit on certain things in a relationship. My girlfriend knows more about me than any other person; well maybe not my mom, because moms know it all. But its those squabbles where she tells her friends I'm acting like a baby... yea.. those... I guess they're going to happen.

I have to say though, on the cooking, if my penance was going to be to eat the food, I might not confess it.

[rkwright]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1428654' date='Dec 3 2007, 02:27 PM']that the spouse being confessed to must put themself in a higher mindset and look at things not from the point of view of whether that spouse's actions hurt their feelings, but rather from the point of view which seeks reconciliation and ammendment above all else, seeing things from the POV of the mind of Christ.[/quote]

On the serious matters, this would be extremely hard I believe. More often than not, these matters are not known to one party. In the Church Confessional, God already knows our sin, but home the spouse on serious matters probably doesn't know the sin. If this is the first time the spouse has heard of adultery, it would very very difficult to not have hurt feelings.

On the other hand, it is the ideal right? To have someone that loves you unconditionally as Christ loves His Church. Hopefully if you had someone like that, there would never be a question of adultery.

[Aloysius]

yeah, it is an ideal, of course hurt feelings would exist, but when that idea of an ideal exists as the thing to be approximated, the thing to be strived for, they can be minimized; and the mindset going into it is focused towards the healing of those hurt feelings through the process of the penitent spouse being contrite and doing a penance of reparation.

of course all the normal relationship things would still exist for if one spouse didn't think they were wrong, and perhaps it could be incorporated in some way like "i think you need to confess to me, and until you do i think your actions have hurt our relationship too much for us to currently enjoy the marital embrace"... or else it could just be like a normal argument... the apology of one or the other spouse could take the form of this confession thing, or just the form of a normal apology; maybe either way the one spouse would include their little special blessing/forgiveness thing, though.

anyway, it would be used in all types of things; the cooking thing might be considered a "venial sin" which might not absolutely need to be confessed; maybe as the husband and wife make a general act of contrition every night in their evening prayers all venial sins are considered to be forgiven without explicit confession. you know, it's encouraged that even "venial sins" be confessed, but isn't absolutely necessary.

the parallels are endless.

[ovenbird03]

This sort of sounds like a Chapter of Faults, only with sins rather than just imperfections.

I've been involved in something similar to this idea. It is called a Chapter of Acknowledgement where everyone takes a turn 'confessing' their failings which have affected the group and asking forgiveness. For example, not fulfilling their job, letting others do most of the work, being judgemental, etc. Another day everyone meets again and each person says one 'praise' or good thing about everyone else in the group. I've found this very healing and helpful with communication.

I would VERY strongly caution against withholding forgiveness or introducing penances into a husband-wife situation. For one thing, it is very important for the soul of each individual to forgive as much as we are able and to beg God for the grace to forgive completely. For another, penances in this context seem inappropriate and like a punishment. Penances used in this domestic church situation may skew an individual's understanding of penance as it is understood in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (especially if used between parents and children). Penance is not a punishment, but something which removes the temporal consequences of our sin.

[goldenchild17]

aloy, I don't really have much to contribute to this, just wanted to say that I thought your first idea was a good one and I like this one as well. I think they are things that could really help keep a family bond strong.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1428508' date='Dec 3 2007, 03:55 AM']So I've posted a few odd ideas to promote the idea of a domestic church in the home, one of them being the concept of a parental confessional wherein the child may confess some wrongdoing to one of the parents, my idea of what the "seal of confession" in that situation would entail stirred up a little controversy, but all in all the discussion really left me thinking of that as a really good idea.

Here is the topic where I proposed that idea: [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=67798"]Confessional Model in the Domestic Church[/url]

Anyway, I was thinking now about the concept of a confessional between the husband and the wife. Obviously, the husband and wife should constantly communicate and share things with each other; but it seems to me that having a place wherein one party completely humbles themself to confess wrongdoings and faults to the other, where the one confessing does not attempt to defend or excuse his actions in any way, and the other does not argue or bicker with the other about it; it being understood that the only place information talked about in this confessional setting can be used is within this confessional setting, and then the one being confessed to will forgive the one confessing, giving some penance to do (I could imagine a wife insisting that the husband buy her jewelry as a penance, lol) and bless them in some way, or else if that one thinks the one confessing was not truly sorry they could withhold the forgiveness/blessing, and perhaps consider it a rupture in their communion if it was serious enough which would be exemplified in abstaining from the communion of the marital embrace until a type of forgiveness/blessing had been achieved in another such "confession".

I really think this type of domestic church setup within a family, including my previous idea where children confess to their parents in a "confessional" style setting, and this idea where spouses confess to each other in a "confessional" style setting, would strengthen a family and build a stronger understanding of the Sacrament itself. ie, when one in that family commits a wrongdoing, that one must first reconcile to his family through a family confession, and then reconcile to the Church and God through a Sacramental confession. A constant exchange of confessions, penances, and reconciliations between members of a family and members of a Church, it would all flow together as a constant cultural thing... Sacramental confession would be seen as a natural extension of this. Within the family, things like being included in dessert at meals, or any other such extension of traditional parental punishments which exclude one from an activity which would be part of a sense of membership to the family, like being grounded in one's room, not being permitted to watch TV with the family, et cetera; to make manifest the fact that the wrongdoing had injured their communion with the family and that they needed to repair it, would be the type of thing that a grave wrongdoing would cause one to be excluded from, the same way a grave sin excludes one from Holy Communion in the Church; and of course between the husband and wife, it would be primarily the marital embrace which would take the place of that-- that a grave wrongdoing in the family excludes one spouse from being able to engage in the conjugal union the same way a grave sin excludes one from Holy Communion in the Church.

What thinkest thou?[/quote]
Most married couples do this all the time, its called "pillow talk". It is a dangerous game , however, to put lovemaking in terms of punishment and withholding reward, that is a form of power exchange that should never take place between husband and wife.

However I would preclude from using the term confession when relating to kids because it is likely to be confused with church confession. A priest is a disinterested observer, which is something a parent cannot be. The term consequence is much better for use in raising kids.

[Aloysius]

For a discussion of the idea of a confession with kids, go to the link in the OP. but my answer would be that the parent would tell the child if/when they thought the child needed sacramental confession based on something said in the parent confessional.

anyway, I don't see this penance in terms of punishment anymore than I see penance in sacramental confession as a form of punishment. I made ridiculous examples here like buying jewelry and eating bad food, but practically I'm proposing stuff along the lines of restoring that which was damaged, the way all penance is supposed to be in sacramental confession... it could include saying prayers, or doing nice things (perhaps good things which might be seen as the opposites of the bad things that were confessed), et cetera.

see, I know couples do this in a way (which is why I prefaced my discussion with "I know couples should always have open communication anyway..."), I'm just proposing a particular way which brings the life in the domestic church into sync and continuity with life in the Church at large, promoting a deeper experience of what these reconciliations mean. one might say "this confuses the sacrament with the mundane"... but does anyone question the sacred bread given in Eastern Churches which is blessed but not consecrated, taken from among the bread to be consecrated? that sacred bread is to the Eucharist as this domestic church practice would be to sacramental confession.

the idea of a rupture of communion with really grave wrongdoings brought up in this context, and the analogy of abstaining from marital relations the same way one would abstain from communion while in mortal sin, does not seem to me like a power struggle. it would be reserved only for the most severe of circumstances, and the idea would be to make visibly manifest the break in their marital communion which has come about by that unrepented serious wrongdoing. seems to me to make perfect sense, and any argument against that could equally be applied against the idea of abstaining from the Eucharist. it's not punishment/withholding reward, it's manifesting visibly an invisible reality about something which has come between that communion of husband/wife. the same concepts that govern what is and is not a mortal sin regarding receiving communion would govern this.

[Theoketos]

Right off the top of my head without reading more then the first post...

For my input as a married Man and a trained theologian, I say this innovation is not such a good idea. It opens up the door to so many violations of conscience and the seal of confession. There is a reason that the sacrament has developed into the manner we have today. Even bringing up inorganic developments such as these make me nervous.

{AL, I have come to expect a little more prudence from you, especially when I consider your posts on the rest of the Sacraments}

After reading the whole thread thus far.

I can see how this model would be intriguing. But it would be redundant. And this redundancy would both lessen the effectiveness of the true sacrament and confuse it with something that is not a tradition of the Church.

Initiating such a tradition would, I believe, only seem to give authority to persons to force another to reveal their conscience, when in fact they have no authority to do so. This is against both Divine and Natural Law. Moreover that is stated so in the [i]Summa[/i] I believe.

That being said, one should not really keep anything that from one's spouse that they deserve to know. For instance, I do believe that if you have committed adultery, your spouse has the right to that information. However, to reiterate, the confessional is to be only between the penitent and the person of Christ in the Priest.

[Aloysius]

this "confession" would not be sacramental, the blessed bread in eastern Churches is to the Eucharist as this would be to sacramental confession. I would be interested to know what you see in the Summa which would contradict this idea, as this has nothing to do with the sacrament itself.

calling this an "inorganic innovation" as if it were related at all to the sacramental rites would be like saying some family who comes up with a tradition of reading the bible aloud every night is creating some sort of innovation against the liturgy of the word, in my opinion; it's like applying liturgical laws to private family prayers in ridiculous manners such that you would consider a father in the wrong for reading the gospel outloud in a family prayer, since he is a layman and only priests can do the gospel in Church. would reading the bible be redundant to the liturgy of the word? would a lay parent reading the gospel be an innovation? This is a question of how one runs their family, for which there is no relevant legislation from the Church to inovate against.

The Seal of Confession applies to the priest, not the penitent. The penitent can confess matters on his conscience to whomever he wishes; and in a close family, the intimate sharing of matters on one's conscience would be a good thing.

Of course, the only thing required according to divine law is to confess mortal sins in sacramental confession; but two spouses could agree that they will also confess their wrongdoings to one another because those wrongdoings are also inherently damaging to their relationship and thus a reconciliation of sorts would be necessary between the two; and parents have every right to require their kids to tell them about what they have done wrong. This has nothing to do with the actual sacramental seal of confession, which is something designed to offer the possibility to the penitent of being reconciled to the community of the Church and to God without making his sins public; this would refer specifically to being reconciled within the family when one's wrongdoings damage their full communion with the family.

I see no way in which reconciliation within the family in any way lessens the efficacy of sacramental reconciliation within the Church, if anything the two things reinforce each other.

[kateri05]

[quote]two spouses could agree that they will also confess their wrongdoings to one another because those wrongdoings are also inherently damaging to their relationship and thus a reconciliation of sorts would be necessary between the two; and parents have every right to require their kids to tell them about what they have done wrong.[/quote]

but isn't this already happening anyways? part of marriage is admitting to one another when you are wrong and have wronged the other person. such communication is the basis of your marital relationship.

and aren't parents supposed to already be doing this?


i'm kind of with theo, it seems redundant.

[Aloysius]

this is just one way of doing it which intricately ties thing together so that sacramental confession is better understood; plus, the setting and the standards surrounding this format will lessen the type of bickering and self-defensiveness that would ordinarily come when problems just come up in everyday conversation; this necessitates the one who has done wrong to be humble and not defend the actions, but also the other spouse to be open to total forgiveness.

but is the sacred bread in the Eastern Churches redundant to the Eucharist? is reading scripture out loud as a family redundant to the Liturgy of the Word? what's wrong with redundancies like that? they re-inforce that which you claim they are redundant to.

[mom25angels]

Hmmm.........I have to say IMHO that this may not work so well in a marriage. The formality of the setting may really put one or the other of the spouses in a superior situation. Take the infidelity circumstance.......how exactly would this work. "honey I cheated on you four times last month." response "Ok dear I didn't like your dinner yesterday". There may be a little inequality of sins here. Now if this was a perfect world--with no attachment to sin and practice of perfect virtues--spouses could more easily realize that all sins hurt each other etc.. but there would be a great temptation to "tally" sins, perhaps not even purposely. I think it is better to just practice forgiveness daily. Like, "I apologize I didn't say Hi when you walked in the door today", rather than lets make an appointment to discuss our sins against each other. One may have the tendancy to make a list of the other's transgressions and point them out.
I do think that the spirit of your idea is right on. Families certainly do need to be a safe harbor where sins are forgiven. We do need to model true contrition and ask for forgiveness. It should be a natural occurance however. I find myself saying to my kids, "That was not a kind thing to say to your sister. Please apologize to her." If it is a re-occuring problem with one of them I pull them aside at some point and explain to them the seriousness of their actions and point out to them the need for confession, forgiveness and penance. We should attempt to instill attrition for sins, especially sins within the family. A daily examination of conscience is a great way to do this.