In “The Guilty Vicarage,” an essay on detective fiction, W.H. Auden argues that the most successful detective novels take ...

The release this month of a watershed report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France has sparked another debate over the secrecy of confession. The Catholic Church declares that every priest ...

NCR interviews James O'Toole, whose new book, For I Have Sinned, details the growth and eventual decline of confession in the ...

The Roman Catholic Church urges its faithful to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year, and insists that they do so before receiving Communion if they have committed a mortal sin. In ...

While popular understanding may suggest that innocent people simply do not confess to crimes (“I would never confess to doing something that I did not actually do!”), the surprising fact is that false ...

Without doubt, wrote Martin Luther, “;confession of sins is necessary, and in accordance with the divine commandments” But Luther was dead set against the Roman Catholic obligation to confess before ...

Mathew Schmalz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

ROME — The inviolability of the sacramental seal and the importance of internal form in the life of the Church were firmly reaffirmed in a note published July 1 by the Vatican’s Supreme Tribunal of ...