In his recent book For I Have Sinned, James M. O’Toole observes that the practice of confession was widely observed by American Catholics for much of the 20th century, but went into sudden decline in the 1970s, never to recover. Nic Rowan, in his review, examines the different explanations O’Toole offers for this trend, and in doing so addresses some of the broader changes in attitudes toward religion and morality throughout American society in the past half-century:

By the mid-1960s, many seminaries had in various ways incorporated Freudianism into their curricula. Notions of collective guilt and public morality were in vogue—all to the detriment of the sacrament.

If collective sins against the environment are mortal, then should we confess starting our cars in the morning? Or what about a shopper who buys lettuce picked by non-union migrant workers—is the purchase a sin against justice? The problem with placing more emphasis on the big, abstract evils that plague society is that, for most people, it becomes very easy to write off one’s own peccadilloes in the face of such overawing wrong. “Contemporary man,” said one priest, quoted by O’Toole as summing up the attitudes of the day, “is more liable to think of war before he thinks of masturbation as an example of sin.”

O’Toole proposes that the church adopt a “new form” of confession, more attenuated to contemporary morality. I have to wonder, though, if it is less the sacrament and more the morality that is in need of reform. After all, when sin is taken seriously, it is much easier to be realistic about human nature.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.