In addition to Martos, I’ve read Theological Investigations, volume XV: Penance in the Early Church by Karl Rahner and The Evolving Church and the Sacrament of Penance by Ladislas Orsy.
While I’m not going to say that your authors are heterodox, they certainly aren’t very traditional.
Fr. Orsy wrote in opposition to Fr. Avery Dulles (both Jesuits, but Fr. Dulles is a champion of orthodoxy in an otherwise mostly modernist “Society”) about a decentralization of the papacy, a more “democratic” election of bishops, etc.
Rahner is another questionable Jesuit, but I think the Church declares him orthodox.
Furthermore, do they all offer interpretations for this specific Council?
Do you have any references for this? This is completely different than everything that I have read. This chart by Tom Richstatter gives 600 A.D. as the start of Celtic penance.
newadvent.org/cathen/11618c.htm
The mitigation of public penance which this passage indicates continued throughout the subsequent period, especially the Middle Ages. The office of poenitentiarius had already (390) been abolished in the East by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in consequence of a scandal that grew out of public confession. Soon afterwards, the four “stations” disappeared, and public penance fell into disuse. ln the West it underwent a more gradual transformation. Excommunication continued in use, and the interdict was frequently resorted to. The performance of penance was left in large measure to the zeal and good will of the penitent; increasing clemency was shown by allowing the reconciliation to take place somewhat before the prescribed time was completed; and the practice was introduced of commuting the enjoined penance into other exercises or works of piety, such as prayer and almsgiving. According to a decree of the Council of Clermont (1095), those who joined a crusade were freed from all obligation in the matter of penance. Finally it became customary to let the reconciliation follow immediately after confession. With these modifications the ancient usage had practically disappeared by the middle of the sixteenth century. Some attempts were made to revive it after the Council of Trent, but these were isolated and of short duration. (See INDULGENCES.)
Now, I will go so far as to call this source you cite (Tom Richstetter) heterodox.
The author of that page makes a distinction between the “old” form of “Confession” and the “new” form of “Reconciliation”. He speaks of the “liturgy” aspect of Confession being “words of absolution” and the “liturgy” aspect of “Reconciliation” being “Gathering, Story Telling, Reconciling, Commissioning”. Hmm…sounds like heresy to me.
Then we have his take on who the ministers are of the Sacrament (he says “ministries” but I assume he means ministers). For the “old” Confession he says “an ordained priest with proper jurisdiction” but for “Reconciliation” it is supposedly “the community and its ministers and its pastor”. Major misunderstanding at the least, heresy at the worst.
If you read what the current Catechism of the Catholic Church says about Confession, it is the same as was described by Trent (or at least should be). It is not some community kumbayaa time get together. Actually, community “reconciliation” services are illicit to go to if they presume to forgive mortal sins. Mortal sins still require the use of the individual confession to a priest (or bishop of course) unless in times of grave emergency.
No, you misunderstand. “Shrouded in doctrine and dogma” is a good thing. A very good thing that came out of an origin of massive abuse on a scale that puts any abuse associated with altar girls to shame.
I still don’t see how this came out of abuse. The Church defined that this is the way it should be. The Church has absolutely no reason to listen to heretics or scofflaws.
I question your sources and I question your interpretation of the whole matter.
Again, let us consult the Holy Fathers of the Council of Trent-
The Fourteenth Session, On the Most Holy Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction, Canon VI-
CANON VI.–If any one denieth, either that sacramental confession was instituted, or is necessary to salvation, of divine right; or saith, that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Church hath ever observed from the beginning, and doth observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention; let him be anathema.
So, private confesssion to a priest did not start out as an abuse, rather it has been all along, unlike as you so fancifully assert.
