I think this statement is getting to the gist of what I and others have been trying to stress. You know I appreciate your knowledge as well as your expressed relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, so I hope you take my comments in that spirit.
We are given several admonitions in Scripture about the purpose of "confession". First of all - and mainly - is the idea that we sin against God by our wrong actions but it is not exclusively that he, alone, is offended. We go to him and "name it like he names it", coming clean in what we have done that was wrong. We are assured that God is faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). There are other people that are affected by our deeds both directly and indirectly. With that in mind, when James states we should confess our sins/faults to one another and pray for each other for healing, he cannot be speaking about "anonymous" confessing.
You purposely seek a man whom you do not know personally and who, you hope, doesn't know you either to hear your confession. You accept his absolution and penance requirements and, when completed, you leave confident that your sin is no longer an issue. Knowing you as well as I can via this online relationship, I also believe that you would apologize to the individual you offended by your action and ask for their forgiveness, intending to avoid repeating the same wrong. However, I don't think every other person may be that noble. From what I remember as a Catholic, I don't recall an emphasis on going to the person you offended and asking for their forgiveness. I'm not saying no priest does this, but just that I don't remember it being stressed.
The admonition in James has much more to do with accountability to each other than it does to a "sacrament of confession", so to speak. Think about how it would affect your way of life if, instead of confessing your faults to an unknown priest, you told your two best friends. And they, in turn, had the same deal with you. If this was the way we all faced our failings, don't you think it would and could drastically change the state of our churches?
I don't ever recall it even being a consideration. It was never part of the penance I received. That penance was always so many Hail Mary's, so many Our Fathers, the whole rosary, if I was that bad.
But nothing about reconciliation and restitution involving the individuals with which I had issues.
Ah, the safety of anonymity and not having to face the music by going to the person I offended and asking them forgiveness.
There's a lot to be said for public humiliation.
There is a great wisdom in this, and it is similar in fact to the purity of forgiveness:
If someone has wronged you personally, and you are beyond communicating with the offender (he will not talk to you), AND YET you forgive him - who does that forgiveness in your heart directly effect and benefit?
It is the direct juxtaposition of what happens if hate is in your heart: that hate is not effecting the person you are hating on nearly as much as it is effecting YOU personally. Hate eats up the soul.
But likewise, the Word instructs us to go directly to the brother or sister with whom we have a contention, first and foremost - IOW, YHWH would much prefer we settle these things eyeball to eyeball, using the structure of the Church as a secondary system, in case the primary fails. I see the confession/forgiveness dynamic as a direct parallel to that.
If I have offended my brother, the best possible action is for me to go to him, confess the offense, and hope that forgiveness is forthcoming.
If I offend YHWH, it must naturally be the same thing.
And in confessing before YHWH, the 'penance' He requires is written upon the soul... a whisper in the ear by the Holy Spirit - You won't feel forgiven until such things are performed, and are usually a conviction to provide an additional confession to a brother who has been hurt by your offense, or a witness before another in a similar condition. perhaps a restitution must be performed as well. A heart of flesh can feel the need required to resolve a thing, and it usually, and painfully, requires bringing secret things into the light for disinfection.
To the degree that the Church administers a confessional system to teach the above precept, it is a good thing, as it is operating in a secondary position, teaching the heart of stone the nature and means of a heart of flesh - and there are many who are hard put to learn the difficult road to exposing the darkness of the heart, having never felt it's rewards. To the degree that the church provides a replacement for the above precept, it is not only operating outside of its authority, but is enabling the heart of stone to persist, as the matter is not brought into the light for disinfection, and the secret thing remains.
Of course, our theology of confession arises from our understanding of what IHS said to Peter at Caesaria Philippi and from the "sending" of the Evening of Easter Day. We take "apostle" to mean something like 'minister plenipotentiary', as you know.
You accept his absolution and penance requirements and, when completed, you leave confident that your sin is no longer an issue.
I balked at this. I think the words "penance requirement" were what I stumbled on. In real life, I have suggested my penance (once it was Psalm 32) to my confessor. I tend to view penance more therapeutically than anything else. I view penance more in the realm of buying flowers for someone you have offended. YOucan't possibly "make it up,"but you can say, "Look, I'm really, really, REALLY sorry -- I mean it." and penance is, to me, kind of like that. "Look! I'm sorry! I'm reading Psalm 32, see?"
And that ties into contrition, which is a big and necessary aspect of the sacrament. I think TRUE contrition with respect to a sin against some person would involve something very like whichever step it is in AA and Al-Anon: to make amends expect where to do so would make things worse.
As a former pastor and, well, someone who likes to talk to people about God 'n Jesus 'n stuff, I recognize that people need to grow, and that to be too strict about full contrition might crush, or at least set back, someone whose faith and confidence in Christ's love was weak. But I am sorry to hear that no one looked with you at what real contrition means, and what it may require of one.
Your remarks about "accountability" got my attention because I often talk about "keeping my accounts current," with confession. Yeah, I'm being glib, a little, but I DO want to be done with old stuff before I undertake new stuff. I am about to do a year of classes for enquirers, and I am being nagged by respectable people to write a book! (No, srsly!) So I need to, you know, jettison such cargo as can be thrown overboard. SO, I go to confession.
Think about how it would affect your way of life if, instead of confessing your faults to an unknown priest, you told your two best friends. And they, in turn, had the same deal with you. If this was the way we all faced our failings, don't you think it would and could drastically change the state of our churches?
Funny. This summer I confessed one of my more distressing sins to a recent "convert", an adult who was baptized and received all the relevant sacraments this past Easter. I was trying to show by example what confidence in Christ means, when it comes to our shame.
Yes. I don't see why confessing to friends would be instead of receiving the sacrament, but I can see it being "as well as".
But you know as well as I do that in the big 'C' Church there are many troubled people for whom the (optional) anonymity of the confessional is as close as they currently are ABLE to come to a halfway honest acknowledgment of their sorrow and shame.
I never have done the telephone booth with a screen thing. I am always in front of my confessor either looking at him or, worst case, looking at the floor between us.
But I should say the ideal is a relationship with a good and holy priest where one returns to the same guy often. And the problem which I now experience is that my guy was reassigned 3 years ago and is now provincial prior, so he's up to his ears and couldn't possibly stop to spend 45 minutes with me. I miss him.
But in that case you combine the sacramental with the confessing to a friend. As I say, that's the ideal. It was a real blessing while it lasted.
I hope this was moderately responsive.
P.S. Thank you for the kind words. It means a lot. It is a pleasure and a blessing to look at this stuff with you.