Public Sin and Ecclesial Responsibility: The Forgotten Meaning of the Confiteor

“I confess to Almighty God,
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned…”

These familiar words from the Confiteor, recited at the beginning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, are not a mere liturgical formality. They are a declaration—before God and before the Church—that our sins, even when privately conceived, affect the whole Body of Christ. The phrase “and to you, my brothers and sisters” is not poetic embellishment. It is a solemn admission that we are accountable to one another because we are mystically united in the Communion of Saints.

The Church’s Ancient Witness: Public Penance as Restoration
In the early Church, this accountability was visibly enacted. Grave sins, particularly those causing public scandal, were confessed publicly before the congregation. In the medieval Church, this developed into the rite of public penance, where notorious sinners were ritually expelled on Ash Wednesday by the bishop and only readmitted to the sacraments after a period of visible penance, culminating in solemn reconciliation on Maundy Thursday. These rites were not acts of humiliation but of restoration—remedies applied by the Church to heal her members and preserve her witness.

The Crisis Today: Silence in the Face of Manifest Grave Sin
This principle—public sin demands public repentance—has been tragically obscured in modern times, especially in the realm of politics. In the name of tolerance, diplomacy, or false mercy, the Church now too often treats grave public scandal as a private spiritual matter. But silence in the face of manifest sin is not mercy; it is pastoral abandonment. It leaves the sinner in peril, misleads the faithful, and weakens the Church’s public witness.

A Grave Parliamentary Offense
On 17 June 2025, the House of Commons passed Clause 191 of the Crime and Policing Bill, effectively decriminalising abortion up to and including birth. It is the most radical change to British abortion law in over fifty years. Among the 379 MPs who voted for this barbaric provision were thirteen self-professed Catholics. Some also supported the legalisation of assisted suicide—undermining the Church’s constant teaching on the inviolability of human life. These votes were not cast in ignorance or ambiguity, but with full knowledge of the Church’s moral law.

The Named Offenders

Those MPs include:

• Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour – Salford)
• Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Labour – Mitcham & Morden)
• Andy McDonald (Labour – Middlesbrough & Thornaby)
• Dr Ben Spencer (Conservative – Runnymede & Weybridge)
• Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat – Dorking & Horley)
• Dan Aldridge (Labour – Weston-super-Mare)
• Kevin Bonavia (Labour – Stevenage)
• David Chadwick (Liberal Democrat – Brecon, Radnor & Cwm Tawe)
• Colum Eastwood (SDLP – Foyle)
• Florence Eshalomi (Labour & Co-op – Vauxhall)
• Claire Hanna (SDLP – Belfast South & Mid Down)
• Pat McFadden (Labour – Wolverhampton South East)
• Oliver Ryan (Independent – Burnley)

To date, there has been no public act of repentance, no retraction, no clarification, and no statement of conscience from any of them. If, by the grace of God, any one of them has since repented, confessed, and been absolved, then that too should be made known publicly, as the sin was public and caused grave scandal to the faithful.

The Distinction Between Public and Private Sin
This reflects a crucial and often misunderstood distinction in Catholic moral teaching between private sin and public sin:

• Private sin is known only to the individual (or a few), and its harm is primarily internal—against one’s own soul and relationship with God. These sins are rightly confessed in the secrecy of the confessional, where grace heals in silence.
• Public sin, however, is committed openly or is widely known—especially by those in positions of visibility or influence. Its effects are external and communal: it wounds the unity of the Church, confuses the faithful, and leads others into error by scandal—that is, the sin of causing others to stumble (cf. Matt. 18:6).

Scandal and the Duty of Correction
Scandal, in Catholic teaching, is not merely about causing offense. It is about causing spiritual harm by leading others to believe that sin is acceptable. When a public figure who claims to be Catholic knowingly promotes abortion or euthanasia, and suffers no ecclesial consequence, the result is a false witness—one that suggests Catholic doctrine can be disregarded without penalty.

Answering Objections: Is Public Reproof Uncharitable?
Some argue that it is uncharitable or unjust to publicly call out these MPs. But this objection misunderstands the nature of mercy, correction, and authority.

Catholic tradition, Scripture, and canon law are united on this point: public sin requires public correction. As St. Paul exhorts, “Them that sin, reprove before all: that the rest also may have fear” (1 Tim 5:20). St. Thomas Aquinas affirms that where scandal arises from public sin, it must be corrected publicly, lest others be led into the same error (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 33, a. 7).

Charity is not the avoidance of discomfort. It is the willing of the true good of the other. To allow Catholic legislators to persist in sacrilege while maintaining public communion with the Church is not merciful—it is cruel.

The Role of Bishops and the Laity
That is why Canon 915 obliges ministers of Holy Communion to withhold the Sacrament from those who “obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin.” This is not a punishment but a safeguard—for the dignity of the Eucharist, the integrity of the Church, and the salvation of the person in error.

The bishops of the Church bear a particular responsibility here. As successors of the Apostles, they are not only private pastors but public guardians of the faith. When they fail to admonish Catholic public officials who defy the Church in grave matters, they share in the scandal by omission.

The laity, too, are not exempt. The Confiteor reminds each of us that sin—even when secret—has consequences for others. When the faithful fail to insist on coherence between public action and professed belief, they allow falsehood to masquerade as fidelity.

The Goal: Restoration Through Visible Repentance
Yet the goal is not exclusion but reconciliation. The Church longs to welcome back the sinner—but repentance must come first. The Confiteor ends not in condemnation but in hope: “Pray for me to the Lord our God.”

If any of the MPs who voted against life and truth were to repent, confess, and publicly amend their error, the Church should receive them with joy. But that repentance must be visible. For where the sin was public, the healing must be public too.

Conclusion: A Call to Fidelity and Courage
In our time, the Church must recover the clarity of her Tradition and the courage of her saints. Only then can she speak with authority to a world that has forgotten what sin is, and no longer believes in grace.

First published on Selsey Substack

1. Code of Canon Law, Canon 915: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1385: “Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.”
3. For the list of MPs and their votes, see The Catholic Herald, 6 July 2025.
4. On the nature and necessity of public penance, cf. Dom Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, and Fr. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, vol. II.
5. On the distinction between public and private sin, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 33, a. 7.
6. On scandal and its gravity, cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2284–2287.
7. On ecclesial correction as an act of charity, cf. Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule, and St. Catherine of Siena, Letters, esp. to Pope Gregory XI.