Jim Blackburn explains why someone entering the Catholic Church only needs to go to confession beforehand if they have already been validly baptized in another church.
Transcript:
Host: We go to Em, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, listening on Immaculate Heart Radio. Em, you are on with Jim Blackburn.
Caller: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I was confused because, the last hour, you had someone that said that he was joining the Church, and “Where would he go for confession?” On Easter Vigil, I’m to be baptized, confirmed, and take First Communion in the Catholic Church, and I was told that I don’t have to go to confession. Should I be happy or sad about that?
Jim: Okay, Em. Now, I was not the apologist during the first hour, so not sure what you heard; but it could be that the caller in the first hour had not been baptized, but was entering the Church—no, I mean, that he had been baptized. Maybe he was—he or she—was a Protestant who’d been baptized validly in a Protestant church but was becoming Catholic. And in that case, since we can sin after baptism, confession would be required before entering the Church—when entering—in the process of entering the Church.
Now, for yourself, you’ve not been baptized. Baptism washes away all of your sins, the guilt of your sins, and so it forgives all of your sins. So in your case, you’ve been given correct information; you cannot go to confession, in fact, because baptism is the gateway to the sacraments. So you cannot go to confession even before you’re baptized. So you’ve been given the right information, Em, and welcome home, congratulations, and look forward to your baptism. It’s a beautiful thing.
Caller: Thank you. Can I ask one little follow-up?
Jim: Of course.
Caller: Is taking…well, when I was younger, in my early twenties, that’s when the birth control pills came out, and I took them. Have I committed murder by taking birth control pills? Like murdering a child I would have had but didn’t?
Jim: Okay. Well, birth control pills do indeed act as abortifacients. They can cause abortions, and in fact that’s one of the ways many of them work to prevent pregnancy, is by terminating the pregnancy, really. So it’s possible that that happened, you know, in your case, when you were using birth control pills. Were you taking birth control pills for that purpose, for the purpose of contracepting in a sexual relationship?
Caller: Yes.
Jim: Okay. But did you know at the time that abortion was wrong, and that the pills you were on were indeed abortifacient in nature?
Caller: I would never have had an abortion, but I did not realize that the pill was “having an abortion,” kind of. And I’m totally amazed at how much I’ve learned since I’ve been going to RCIA.
Jim: Okay. Well, if that was the occasion of sin for you—and I say that because your level of knowledge and your culpability may have been reduced in all of this—if it was the occasion of sin for you, just know that that’s going to be forgiven when you’re baptized; baptism’s going to wipe away all of that. Now that you know, if you still could use the pill, I would hope that you would stop, you know, knowing that; but you can rest assured that your sins will be forgiven when you’re baptized. Okay, Em?
Caller: Thank you very much.