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The Sacrament of Penance & Reconciliation (commonly called Confession, Reconciliation or Penance) is one of seven sacraments of the Catholic Church and sacred mysteries of Eastern Christianity, in which the faithful obtain divine mercy for the sins committed against God and neighbour and are reconciled with the community of the Church. By this sacrament Christians are freed from sins committed after Baptism. The sacrament of Penance is considered the normal way to be absolved from mortal sins which would otherwise condemn a person to Hell. As biblical basis for this sacrament, the Catholic Church refers to , "confess your sins to one another" and to Jesus' breathing the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, saying "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained" (). ==Elements of the sacrament== The sacrament has four elements, three on the part of the penitent (contrition, confession and satisfaction) and one on the part of the minister of the sacrament (absolution).〔(Sacrament of Penance )〕 Catholics distinguish between two types of sin. Mortal sins are a "grave violation of God's law" that "turns man away from God". Someone who is aware of having committed mortal sins must repent of having done so and must confess them in order to benefit from the sacrament. Venial sins, the kind that "does not set us in direct opposition to the will and friendship of God", can be remitted by contrition and reception of other sacraments〔 but they too, "constituting a moral disorder", "are rightly and usefully declared in confession".〔(Council of Trent, Session XIV, Chapter V )〕 Every sin involves "an unhealthy attachment to creatures", purification from which is called the temporal punishment for sin (as opposed to the eternal punishment merited by mortal sin). The satisfaction required of the penitent is not an ''essential'' part of the sacrament, because the primary effect of remission of guilt and eternal punishment is obtained without it; but it is an ''integral'' part, because it is required for obtaining the secondary effect of this purification or remission of temporal punishment.〔 The 1983 Code of Canon Law states: "A priest alone is the minister of the sacrament of penance."〔(Code of Canon Law, canon 965 )〕 While in the English language, the term ''priest'' usually means someone received into the second of the three holy orders (also called the presbyterate) but not into the highest, that of bishop, the Latin text underlying this statement uses the Latin term ''ラテン語:sacerdos'', which comprises both bishops and, in the common English sense, priests. To refer exclusively to priests in the more common English sense, Latin uses the word ''ラテン語:presbyter''.〔(Dennis Chester Smolarski, ''The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 1969-2002: A Commentary'' (Liturgical Press 2003 ISBN 9780814629369), p. 24 )〕 In order to be able to be absolved validly from sin, the priest (''ラテン語:sacerdos'') must have the faculty to do so granted to him either by canon law or by the competent Church authority.〔(Code of Canon Law, canon 966 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sacrament of Penance (Catholic Church)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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