MADRID, Spain – While Reconciliation is intended to allow Christ’s victory to overcome sin in our lives, what happens when shame over one’s sins is so great that it keeps people away from the sacrament?

VATICAN CITY – Initiatives undertaken during the special Year of Mercy must continue, including granting absolution to those who confess to having an abortion, Pope Francis said.

During Lent, we are all like Jesus, starving in the desert and being asked to turn stone into bread. But we must choose each and every time to say no. Even in the “Our Father” we ask God to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” But why must we face temptations during Lent and how do they shape us?
This Lenten season I decided to give up Facebook and YouTube videos. The reason was simple. I wanted to be more productive. So, I resolved to liberate myself from procrastination and to purposefully get work done.

DETROIT - When Fr. Benjamin Kosnac decided to start offering confessions 30 minutes before every Mass, he wasn't sure anyone would come. 

Only if our hearts are open and we recognize ourselves as sinners can we receive God’s mercy. That’s the message Pope Francis imparted to the faithful gathered for the morning Mass Thursday at the Santa Marta guesthouse.

VATICAN CITY - Trusting in God's infinite mercy, people should not be afraid or embarrassed to go to confession, Pope Francis said.

"There are people who are afraid to go to confession, forgetting that they will not encounter a severe judge there, but the immensely merciful Father," Pope Francis told thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square Aug. 2 for the midday recitation of the Angelus prayer.

The San Francisco priest who sparked controversy earlier this year by barring altar girls has been replaced as chaplain of the church’s Catholic grade school.

For the first time in months, I was feeling nervous about going to Confession. I had a sense of dread as I imagined reading my lengthy examination of conscience to my confessor. The worry of never again being able to look my priest in the eye lingered at the back of my mind as I scrambled to prepare to receive the sacrament.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis' decision to convoke a special Holy Year of Mercy has its roots in the event that led a teenage Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the priesthood.

VATICAN CITY - Hearing a Catholic's confession should be awe-inspiring for a priest, an experience that makes him look at his own life and willingness to convert, Pope Francis told a group of seminarians, new priests and priests who hear confessions in the major basilicas of Rome.

Lent should be a time for Catholics to spiritually prepare for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection and less about forgoing materialistic things.

Penance in Medieval Europe, 600-1200 by Rob Meens (Cambridge University Press, softcover, 290 pages, $29.99).

At a time when the Sacrament of Penance is in decline, a new history of early Medieval penance helps put today’s apparent crisis in a much longer perspective. Rob Meens offers a scholarly overview of the formative period when sacramental confession emerged. He takes readers back to when Catholicism appeared very different from what we expect today, a journey which some might find unsettling, others enlightening.

An American survey from more than a year ago showed that 45 per cent of people usually make New Year’s resolutions and another 38 per cent never make them. But only eight per cent of people are successful in achieving their resolutions. Self-improvement and weight-related resolutions are the most popular, followed by money-related and relationship-related vows.

VATICAN CITY - God is knocking to come into people's lives, so be attentive, humble and courageous to let him in, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY - The secrecy of a confession is maintained so seriously and completely by the Catholic Church that a priest would be excommunicated for revealing the contents of a confession when ordered to testify by a court or even after the penitent dies, Vatican officials said.