Benefits of Confession

16. When they have dwelt on the virtue of penance, they should then preach on the sacrament of Penance redoubling their exhortations and advice to the faithful to enter on the year of Jubilee with the proper dispositions, fortified by this most wholesome sacrament. Then they should teach the people how to make a beneficial confession and explain the absolute necessity for repeating former void confessions. Furthermore they should encourage even those who do not consider themselves obliged to do so, to confess again their past sins in the sacrament of Penance and to make a general confession of their sins. "Although it is not necessary to confess the same sins twice, still We consider it salutary to do so on account of the shame felt, which is so large a part of repentance", as Our predecessor Benedict XI wrote in his decretal Inter cunctas de Privilegiis, to be found among his general Occasional Decretals. St. Charles Borromeo writes in agreement with this view in his ad Confessarios Monitis, a work which Our predecessor Innocent XII had reprinted in Rome to be an example and pattern for those who hear confessions. "Confessors", says St. Charles, "should encourage their penitents to make a general confession, having regard to the nature of each person and the suitability of time and place. This way, in reviewing their past, they may return to the Lord with greater eagerness, making good any mistakes from previous confessions".