The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

""THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. 399That Confession was not invented since the dayaof the Apostles is manifest as soon as we attempt tofix the period of its first establishment. Let us goback, step by step, from the nineteenth to the firstcentury.It had not its origin in the present century, aaeverybody will admit.Nor did it arise in the sixteenth century, since theGeneral Council of Trent, held in that age, speaksof it as an established and venerable institution ;and Luther says thatauricular Confession, as nowin vogue, is useful, nay, necessary nor would ; I,"he adds, have it abolished, since it is the remedy" Iof afflicted consciences ;and even Henry VIII.,before he founded a new sect, wrote a treatise indefence of the Sacraments, including Penance andConfession.It was not introduced in the thirteenth century,for the Fourth Council of Lateran passed a decreein 1215, obliging the faithful to confess their sins atleast once a year. This decree, of course, supposesConfession to be already an established fact.Some Protestant writers fall into a common error,"in interpreting the decree of the Lateran Council, bysaying that Sacramental Confession was never required in the Church of Rome until the thirteenthcentury."The Council simply prescribed a limitbeyond which the faithful should not defer theirConfession.1 Lib. de Capt. Babyi. cap. de Poenit.