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How (And Why) Martin Luther Destroyed The Sacrament of Confession
What happens if you don’t get your proper last rites?
Just 20% of the US population is Catholic, which means that 80% of Americans likely have never participated in the act of confession. Confession is an important part of Catholicism. Catholics believe that if you do not confess your sins to a priest, then you are at risk of not having them forgiven. That can lead to an awkward exchange with the powers that be when you die.
Most American Christians are Protestant, that is to say not Catholic. Protestants believe that you should engage in private or personal confession. Martin Luther argued that people do not need a priest to confess their sins to God and that they could do it privately, and silently, on their own. These ideas horrified the Catholic Church during the Reformation but they were seen as a necessary evolution by people like Martin Luther.
There was a massive amount of existential dread circulating in the High Middle Ages surrounding the idea of confession. The Black Death killed millions of people. Many priests died. Other priests fled. This left millions of people without access to a priest in order to get their penance through confession. What happens if you die without receiving confession or last burial rites? To the devout…
