sins. "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy
Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and
whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." As to how in detail,
this commission is to be exercised is a matter for the Church to order
as the circumstances of its life require. As I read my Bible certain
facts emerge: I am a sinner; Christ died for my sins; He left power in
His Church for the forgiveness of sin--of my sin. And then the question
arises: What is the bearing of all that on my personal practice? Have I
settled a practice for myself to which I am subjecting the teaching of
the Bible and the Church? Or am I alert to see a contrast or a
contradiction between my practice and the teaching of the Bible and the
Church, if such exist? Now there are many people in the Church who make
no use of the sacrament of penance, and there are many others who make
use of it very sparingly. It is clear that either they must be right, or
the Bible and the Church must be right. It is clear that such persons,
to press it no farther, are imposing the interpretation of their own
conduct on the teaching of the Christian Religion and asserting by
their constant practice that that interpretation is quite inadequate,
notwithstanding the contrary practice of the entire Catholic world.
That, to put it mildly, is a very peculiar intellectual and
spiritual attitude.

We can most of us, I have no doubt, find by searching somewhere in our
religious practice parallel attitudes toward truth. We have settled many
questions in a sense that is agreeable to us. We cannot tell just how we
got them settled, but settled they are. Take a very familiar matter
which greatly concerns us in this parish dedicated to the Blessed Virgin
Mary, the question of the honour and reverence due to our Blessed
Mother. We had got settled in our practice that certain things were
right and certain wrong. I doubt if a very intelligent account of
this--why they were right or wrong--could, in many cases have been
given. But the settled opinion and practice was there.

And then came the demand for a review; that we look our practice
squarely in the face and ask, "What is the ground of this? Does it
correspond with the teaching of Scripture and of the Catholic Church?
And if it does not, what am I going to do about it? Have I only a
collection of prejudices there where I supposed that I had a collection
of settled truths? Do I see that