Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 95 No. 2, 2025.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.53745/bs.95.2.12
The Sacrament of Reconciliation Amid the Challenges of Contemporary Crises
Milan Dančuo
; Catholic Faculty of Theology University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In the paper, the theological-liturgical analysis focuses on the Sacrament of Reconciliation amid the challenges of contemporary crises. After the experience of the pandemic, society today finds itself in a entirely new reality of political, economic, and war insecurity. It is therefore necessary to reflect on and present a new anthropological and liturgical perspective in the current life circumstances, which are increasingly becoming the norm. Contemporary crises are not only related to current changes and challenges that radically affect people’s lives and existing habits; in recent decades people have been facing crises of modernity that directly reflect on their religious experience and understanding of sacramentality in liturgical celebrations. The response to crises can be the rediscovery of the meaning of sin and the true meaning of the Sacrament of Reconciliation: it brings salvation if people accept it as metanoia, an originally evangelical act of real return to God, and the renewal of Christian communion. The renewed ritual and theological emphases of the Rite of Penance can serve as a starting point for a stronger response of the Church to various crises and insecurities in the world today. Penance revives the baptismal character and enables a return to the condition received in baptism. Thus, the lost grace is restored in the baptized faithful so that, through God’s mercy, he may once again participate in the celebration of Christ’s work of salvation in the Eucharistic communion of the whole Church.
Keywords
liturgy; liturgical theology; sacrament; reconciliation; penance; celebration; rite
Hrčak ID:
335036
URI
Publication date:
5.9.2025.
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