For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America by James M. O'Toole ISBN 9780674294523, 0674294521 instant download

For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America by James M. O'Toole ISBN 9780674294523, 0674294521 instant download

The remarkable story of how confession became a defining rite for American Catholics—and then, beginning in the 1970s, all but disappeared.
For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God's forgiveness. The sacrament served as a distinctive marker of Catholic identity, shaping parishioners' views of their relationship to God, their neighbors, and the wider world. But starting in the 1970s, many abandoned confession altogether. Focusing on the experiences of both laypeople and priests, James M. O'Toole reconstructs the history of confession's steady rise—and dramatic fall—among American Catholics.
In the early United States, the Catholic Church grew rapidly—and with it, confession's centrality. Although the sacrament was practiced unevenly for much of the nineteenth century, frequent confession became common by the early twentieth. Both priests and parishioners...