A PUBLIC Confession... "I Have A Public Confession To Make"…

 I wonder how many Catholics -- including myself -- are guilty of these sins??

From lifesitenews.com and written by John-Henry Westen Tue Jun 17, 2025 - 8:00 pm EDT John-Henry Westen: I have a public confession to make... - LifeSite

See if this confession doesn't hit you in the gut!

"(LifeSiteNews) — My friends, I have a public confession to make. A confession of my sins.

I know that’s going to sound weird, but it’s true.

I’m not suggesting that public confession is a good thing for everyone. But in this case, I actually feel the Lord has called me to do this…

I felt I should make this public confession to serve as a warning for sins stemming from embarrassment. Have you ever even heard that spoken of before in the past: sin that comes from embarrassment?

Well, it’s actually in the teaching of the Church, but under different terms that you may not have thought were related.

The Catholic Church does address the matter of sinning due to embarrassment or shame, and this is something that is termed “sins out of fear of human respect,” or just “human respect.” The saints and moral theologians have written about it quite clearly.

So what does the Church teach?

When someone sins or omits a good action, it falls under the sin known as “human respect,” which means putting fear of others’ opinions above the fear and love of God. It’s when we fail to do what is right or say what is true because we’re worried about being judged, mocked, or disliked by other people.

So here are some practical examples of what I’m talking about…

We skip grace before meals in public because we don’t want to draw attention or seem too religious.

We stay silent when our coworkers mock the Church because we’re afraid of being judged, labeled, or left out.

We attend immoral celebrations like same-sex “weddings” because we fear offending people, maybe our own family, more than offending God.

We dress immodestly to fit in because we want to be admired and accepted, even if it costs us our purity.

We use crude or blasphemous language in conversation because we want to be part of the group, not the uptight one.

We avoid correcting loved ones who are in serious sin because we’re afraid of being rejected or causing tension, even when their souls are at stake.

We put off going to confession because we’re embarrassed someone might see us in line or we fear admitting what we’ve done, even to the priest.

READ: The hardest days in the battle for life and truth are still ahead of us

We hide our Catholic faith when it’s inconvenient. We take off our scapular or avoid talking about Church teaching and stay quiet when moral truth is under attack.

We compromise our vote or values to avoid conflict, supporting evil policies or candidates because we don’t want to lose friends or be called names.

In the Holy Bible Jesus Himself says, “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory” (Luke 9:26).

He also says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28).

St. Thomas Aquinas, discussing the virtue of fortitude in his Summa Theologica, says it belongs to fortitude to curb fear and not to allow one’s soul to be disturbed by it.

And St. Alphonsus Liguori gave a whole sermon on human respect. In it he highlights the danger of conforming to expectations from friends, parents, relatives, peers, classmates, colleagues, and spouses at the expense of one’s faith. He says that many individuals “kill their own soul by losing the grace of God through human respect and to please worldly friends.”

But even more than that, he says this: “Oh, how many souls has human respect, that great enemy of our salvation, sent to hell?”

Wow.

How much of this goes on in the world today, do you think? There’s tons of it.

And it makes a real difference, not just to Christians.

A very clear warning against being ashamed or embarrassed to do the right thing for Christ, despite it being socially awkward, came from a very unlikely source back in 2008, and it was so stark that these quotes have remained with me all these years…"

End of very revealing article...

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla 

(For the full version, please tune in to tonight’s episode.

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Follow John-Henry

John-Henry is the co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com. He and his wife Dianne have eight children and they live in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada.

He has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout the world. John-Henry founded the Rome Life Forum, an annual strategy meeting for life, faith and family leaders worldwide. He is a board member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family. He is a consultant to Canada’s largest pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and serves on the executive of the Ontario branch of the organization. He has run three times for political office in the province of Ontario representing the Family Coalition Party.

John-Henry earned an MA from the University of Toronto in School and Child Clinical Psychology and an Honours BA from York University in Psychology.