I’m currently reading The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession by John Cornwell, and it’s enlightening and depressing, as one might imagine. The crux of the argument is that confession has been damaging in a lot of ways throughout history, but it has been most damaging in the last 100 years to children. When Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto (Pope Pius X), at the start of the twentieth century, mandated that first communion and first confession shouldn’t happen at age fourteen but rather age seven, he opened a door to the potential emotional abuse of children. Seven year olds don’t really have a good conception of what “sin” might be, and they get conflicting ideas from various people. Therefore, we’ve had several generations of cradle Catholics who have grown up suffering from guilt over the silliest thing, tormenting themselves mentally about “sinning.” For instance, one young boy was terrified that he was going to hell for breaking the pre-communion fast because he’d opened his mouth to catch some raindrops in his mouth on the way to church.

“But wouldn’t these priests hearing these confessions realize this and apply the child psychology they’d learned in seminary to help teach these kids what the church considers sin to be and how to deal with guilt constructively?” one might ask.

Child psychology classes? What are you thinking? That’s not what the pre-Vatican II seminarians learned.

What did they learn?

It was taught that to break the fast and receive the Blessed Sacrament, as we have seen, was a mortal sin. The textbooks enlarged on the circumstances in which the fast might or might not be broken. The rule admitted, it was pointed out, of no exception, and it extended to the smallest quantity of food or drink taken as such’.

So what does it mean to ‘eat’ or ‘drink? The thing consumed must be ‘taken exteriorly. So it is not a violation of the fast, for example, ‘to swallow blood from the gums, or teeth, or tongue, or nasal cavities’, although it would be a violation of the fast to swallow blood flowing externally from the exterior parts of the lips, or from a cut finger, or from the nose, or to swallow tears, unless in each case only a few drops entered the mouth and were mingled with the saliva.’ To violate the fast, moreover, requires that a substance ‘must pass from the mouth into the stomach, so that the fast is not broken if liquid is taken into the mouth, as an antiseptic or for gargling, and is not swallowed. A third condition insists that violation of the fast occurs by the action of eating and drinking, and inadvertence ‘has no bearing on the matter even if it is a ‘drink given to a patient during sleep?

Davis declares that the ‘divines are still disagreeing whether a ‘nutritive injection’ is food, but certainly the introduction of soup or milk through a stomach pump is not allowed, whether the injected liquid be intended to nourish or merely to flush.’ Turning to the vexed question of nail-biting, Davis reports that he believes that this does not affect the fast, but biting off and swallowing pieces of finger skin might do so, if the particles were more than the smallest and not mixed with saliva.’

Such useful information.

My hope is that in the sixty years since Vatican II there has been a change. Surely there’s been a realization that some basic psychology might be necessary. When I look at a seminary’s course offerings at random, though, I don’t see that. I see courses like this:

• CHUR 501 The First Millennium: Patrology (3)
• LITY 501 Introduction to the Liturgy (3)
• MORL 501 Fundamental Moral Theology (3)
• SCRP 501 Introduction to Biblical Studies: Wisdom & Psalms (3)
• SYST 501 Revelation, Faith, & Theology (3)
• ORDN 501 1T Formation Seminar: Celibate Witness (0)
• PAMU 501 Pastoral Music I (0.5)
• PFED 502 1T Field Ed Placement: Catechetics & Teaching Ministry (1)
• PFED 599 Pedagogy seminar (0)

Or like this

• CANL 601 Code of Canon Law (3)
• CHUR 601 Modern & Contemporary Church History (3)
• SCRP 601 The Prophets (3)
• SYST 605 Protology & Anthropology (3)
• ORDN 601 2T Formation Seminar: Personal Conduct/Character of Priest (0)
• PAMU 601 Pastoral Music II (0.5)
• PFED 601 2T Field Ed Placement: Health Care or Social Justice Ministry (1)

Or this:

• HOML 701 Models of Preaching (3)
• LITY 701 Deacon Practicum (1)
• SCRP 701 Luke & Acts of the Apostles (3)
• SYST 707 Ecclesiology (1)
• SYST 709 Ecumenism (1)
• SYST 711 Mariology (1)
• ORDN 701 3T Formation Seminar: Parish Admin/Human Resources (0)
• PAMU 701 Pastoral Music III (0.5)
• PFED 701 3T Field Ed Placement: Evangelization or Parish Ministry (1)

All very practical. All very helpful. All a bunch of lofty-sounding nonsense.

With each passing year, my disgust at the Catholic church grows.