If there’s something good that the conflict over the FSSPX ordinations is leaving us, it’s the reminder of what all this means: salus animarum suprema lex. Neither the climate, nor Trump, nor Iran, nor artificial intelligence, nor the cayucos. The salvation of souls. Superior Davide Pagliarani is explaining it in various forums with a clarity that, whatever one thinks about the ordinations, puts at the center the great question that the Church has stopped asking in its ordinary practice. Are we here so that souls are saved or are we managing a structure that has lost sight of its purpose? It’s not a rhetorical or identity question. It’s an existential question.
If I had to make a first decision as Pope, it wouldn’t be to open a theological debate or reorganize dicasteries. It would be to impose an immediate universal practice: in all Masses around the world, at the beginning of the homily, it would be announced that the priest will remain at the end until attending to the last faithful who requests confession and, if impossible, information on the nearest place or scheduling an appointment as soon as possible would be offered. It’s not rigorism or nostalgia, but basic coherence with what the Church has always claimed to believe: that mortal sin breaks communion with God, exposes us to eternal damnation, and that confession is the ordinary means to recover grace. If that’s true, there’s nothing more urgent than ensuring that this means is real, visible, and accessible.
The problem is that this chain today doesn’t work at all. And not because of a conscious rejection by the faithful, but because of a combination of doctrinal silence and practical inaccessibility that has emptied confession of its natural place in Catholic life. Grave sin is not preached about. Conscience is not formed with objective criteria. And when someone wants to confess, ninety-five percent of the time they find themselves chasing the priest through the sacristy. In some cases there are confessions during Masses (with the limitations that entails) and it’s very strange exceptions for temples where fixed hours of open confessional are available. The implicit message is devastating: this is not a priority. And if it’s not a priority, the faithful concludes that it’s not necessary, even if no one has said it explicitly.
To that disconnection is added a second, more subtle but equally effective distortion: the absolutization of “lack of conscience” as a criterion that ends up neutralizing any objective reference to grave sin. It’s true that for there to be mortal sin, knowledge and consent are required. But that theological precision has become in practice a general alibi that avoids clearly stating that objective grave matters exist, and that, without real formation of conscience, the constant appeal to subjectivity doesn’t generate mercy, but indeterminacy. The result is predictable: no one recognizes themselves in grave sin. No one perceives the need to confess. And everyone receives Communion, not out of bad faith, but because the framework that allowed discernment has been eliminated.
The data confirm that this is not an impression, but a structural mutation. Pew Research surveys in the United States say that fewer than one in four Catholics confess at least once a year and nearly half never do, even among those who attend Mass regularly. That indicates that the disconnection between Eucharist and penance is no longer marginal, but systemic. And yet, where confession is facilitated in a clear, accessible, and constant way, people come. That dismantles the idea that the problem is a rejection by the modern faithful. What there is is disuse, lack of habit, and absence of structures that make it possible. That’s why the question is not whether confession is important, but whether the Church is willing to truly organize itself around what it claims to believe. Because if the end is the salvation of souls, the practical disappearance of the sacrament that restores grace is not just another problem. It’s the clearest symptom that the center has been lost.