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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 30, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Firstly, thank you for the generous and eirenic response. I'm glad that we started with a disagreement but now appear to have reached a point where we're sharing personal experiences and giving each other advice for how to grow in holiness.

I join you in wholeheartedly endorsing a daily examen. Ignatius was definitely one of the figures who appealed to me and prompted me to investigate Catholicism! I think the idea of pausing to consciously look back at your day is a good one, and for what it's worth I wouldn't say exclusively Catholic. For example, I'd say that Wesley's twenty-two questions are approaching a similar idea. I approve of the way that link puts it in terms of spiritual accountability, and I can see how personal confession would serve the same end.

One of the risks of the approach I laid out, after all, is that it might make sin generic, abstract, and universal. The more a believer contemplates sin and holiness in glittering generalities, the easier it is to ignore the small everyday duties. It is easier to say, "All of my motives are partly mixed with sin" than it is to say, "I lied to my friend Kevin today".

All that said, I notice that one word was missing from your post. There is no mention of the priest in your post. I would have thought that the priest is the most distinctive element of confession in Catholicism. I wholeheartedly endorse a regular examination of conscience, and confession of sin before others and corresponding penitence is obviously meritorious. In Catholicism, though, we are talking about a rite done with a priest, who represents the institutional church and absolves you in Christ's name. (Indeed, in the very person of Christ.) I'm curious what your experience of the priest's role has been. I'd suggest that for most people raised Protestant, the idea of making yourself vulnerable and telling your shameful secrets to a priest seems alien and uncomfortable.

As Shrike mentioned, many Protestant churches technically have liturgies for confession to a priest or minister. In my experience, however, these are almost never used. For that matter, confession is decreasingly popular even among Catholics - you gave a 10% figure for monthly confession, and frankly I think that's optimistic. I've talked to Catholic priests about this locally and they've told me that it is more and more neglected (at least here in Australia), and to an extent it has become 'a sacrament without a theology'. It still exists and is still offered, but there is minimal felt sense among the people of its purpose, much less its necessity. I can't bring myself to approve of that, because even though I don't think that confession to a priest is necessary, I think that what's going on here is probably a society-wide amnesia around the very concept of sin.