Catholic Church: “Reconciliation Talks” or Burden? When children should confess

Anyone who has their child baptized as a Catholic usually sends them to First Communion later on. The German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) emphasizes this: “According to statistics, almost all children who are baptized a Catholic go to their first communion,” says the annually published figures on the situation of the church in Germany.

Before First Communion, which is usually celebrated in the weeks after Easter, the children have to do something that has long since become alien to most adult members of the Catholic Church – namely, go to confession. “After a sacramental confession,” according to canon law, comes First Communion. Elementary school students in the third grade, mostly nine or ten years old, are supposed to confess to a strange man, the priest, what they have done so wrong in their lives up to now. And of course alone, so that no one is listening.

Can children sin?

Pastoral caregivers are also increasingly critical of this topic, as Helmut Heiss, head of the Sacrament Pastoral Department in the Archbishop’s Ordinariate in Munich-Freising, says. Canon law is not as clear as it might appear at first glance. Elsewhere it says that confession is only required for serious sins. “It is very debatable to what extent eight or nine-year-old children are capable of serious sins.” In two first communion concepts that he co-authored, the emphasis is placed on the topic of reconciliation, Heiss emphasizes. For example, value is placed on the culture of reconciliation in the family. “Reconciliation must be practiced and learned,” it says.

Confession, especially for children, has been increasingly critically questioned in recent years. The abuse scandal that has shaken the Catholic Church for at least 13 years now plays a role here

Harald Dreßing, head of the forensic psychiatry department at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim, led the so-called MHG study, which examined sexualised violence by priests and deacons in the German dioceses. The study showed that the confessional was also a crime scene for abuse, he says. Accordingly, confession was also used to plan and prepare for crimes. “Children were questioned and spied on as potential victims.”

Confession and abuse as a “toxic mixture”

Many people later reported, for example, that the priests asked inappropriate questions during confession. “The situation was exploited perfidiously. It was a toxic mixture.” Sexual abuse is about power – and that is magnified in the confessional, where the confessor has the power to absolve sins. “This is a highly frightening situation.”

This also leads to the fundamental question of whether children under 14 should confess at all, said Dressing. From a developmental psychological point of view, the children’s confession is not a suitable format. At the age of their first communion, children are not yet able to grasp the topics of guilt and sin. That only started when I was about 14 years old. So confession either becomes a meaningless ritual – or stirs up fears. The Church, however, argues that confession is a sacrament and therefore inviolable. However, there is room for interpretation. There are a number of priests who see children’s confession as problematic.

Confession no longer so central

The abuse study by the Diocese of Münster lists numerous case studies in which abuse occurred or was prepared in the context of confession. “While today confession is of marginal importance for many Catholics, it was a central and regular part of the practice of faith until the 1980s,” says the study published in mid-2022 by a team led by historian Thomas Großbölting.

With the loss of importance of confession, however, the setting is also likely to play a less important role when it comes to the topic of abuse: “Since confession has lost massively in importance for the practice of faith in the last four decades, it can be assumed that the absolute number of acts of abuse committed by initiated by this setting and committed in this context has declined.”

Many churches are trying to tackle the subject of confession in a way that is as child-friendly as possible. Symbols and images are used, bulky stones are transformed into precious stones through confession. One can read about the “reconciliation talks” in a brochure of the community catechesis of the diocese of Eichstätt in Bavaria.

Call for a general protection concept

And as far as the topic of prevention is concerned: Helmut Heiss from the Munich ordinariate emphasizes that all parishes would have to commit to a protection concept that also had to be approved by the prevention department. For example, it makes sense that there is also the possibility of going to confession in a non-sacred room with the door open.

Trusted persons could remain in sight, but not within earshot. The child also has the option to leave the room if they feel uncomfortable. “The sensitivity of the pastors towards the parents in relation to the first confession is very high.” As a rule, visual contact is always made possible if this is desired.