Inside Information

The Holy See on occasion opens to the public some of its inner workings.

This is such an event.

The rational is to encourage the faithful to receive this sacrament when needed:

"We cannot hide that the sacrament of penance is threatened in this time of secularization," (Msgr. Gianfranco) Girotti (the tribunal's #2 man) said. But he stressed that it remained "fundamental for salvation and the sanctification of souls."

How accurately was our time described, even some 2,000 years earlier:

Then Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind." Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not also blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains.

John 9:39-41

I hope we are not that blind.