What is Confession?
[[File:The_Progress_of_Love_-_Love_Letters_-_Fragonard_1771-72.jpg|thumb|''Confession of Love'' by [[Jean-Honoré Fragonard]] depicts a subject confessing feelings that had been concealed up to that point.]] In general, a '''confession''' is is when a person tells someone a thing that the other person usually does not know. In different [[Context (language)|context]]<nowiki/>s, the word has slightly different meanings: * In [[law]], it is about [[Legal confession|telling a police officer or a lawyer about a crime]]. It might also about being a [[witness]]. In many law systems, people who confess a crime they committed will be punished less severely. * A [[confession of faith]] is usually when people say that they belong to a specific religious group or [[religion]]. This is usually done as a [[ritual]]. * In some [[Christianity|Christian faiths]], most notably, [[Roman Catholicism]], [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox]], and [[Oriental Orthodox Church|Oriental Orthodox Churches]], a confession is telling a [[priest]] about one's own [[wrongdoing]] (which may be [[Sin|sinful]]). In certain circumstances, the priest can then forgive the sinful behaviour. Among the criteria are that the person who did wrong must be able to see that he or she did wrong, and they must be willing to correct the wrong to the best of their abilities. Often, a confession is associated with an admission of a [[Morality|moral]] or legal wrong: {{Quote|In one sense it is the acknowledgment of having done something wrong, whether on purpose or not. Thus confessional texts usually provide information of a private nature previously unavailable. What a sinner tells a priest in the confessional, the documents criminals sign acknowledging what they have done, an autobiography in which the author acknowledges mistakes, and so on, are all examples of confessional texts.<ref>Jorge J. E. Gracia (1995), ''A Theory of Textuality: the logic and epistemology'', pp. 94–95.</ref>}} Not all confessions reveal wrongdoing, however. For example, a