In “The Guilty Vicarage,” an essay on detective fiction, W.H. Auden argues that the most successful detective novels take ...

NCR interviews James O'Toole, whose new book, For I Have Sinned, details the growth and eventual decline of confession in the ...

The 1953 Alfred Hitchcock film “I Confess,” based on an earlier play, features a priest suspected of murder. He’s innocent, and has even heard the murderer’s confession – but cannot clear his own name ...

NCR readers respond to articles about the state of the sacrament of reconciliation, the appointment of Archbishop Hicks and ...

The proposed law reignites national debate over the balance between child protection and religious freedom. By requiring ...

After the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, there is a worldwide push to end the guarantee of secrecy of confession – called “the seal of the confessional.” On Sept. 11, 2019, two ...

Confession, the Catholic and Orthodox practice of listing one’s sins in the presence of a priest who then offers absolution and is sworn to secrecy under pain of eternal damnation, has long been a ...

A proposed law in Arizona could see priests facing felony charges if they fail to break the seal of confession after learning ...

In the late '60s, when the Rev. Jan Larson was a new Roman Catholic priest, he would sit in a dark confessional for hours and listen to people rattle off a "grocery list" of sins. They had impure ...

SAN FRANCISCO — In his new book, CONFESSION OF A CATHOLIC WORKER: OUR CURRENT MOMENT OF CHRISTIAN WITNESS (Ignatius Press), Larry S. Chapp acknowledges the fact that everyone knows there is a “crisis” ...