It is a curious thing that just as the sacrament of confession is, historically, on the decline, so the confessional mode of public discourse is booming. It is apparently impossible to turn on the television in America now without seeing some celebrity in full...

WITH AN INTENSE lobbying campaign, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick managed to kill in 48 hours a proposed Maryland law that would require priests to report suspected child abuse they heard about in the confessional. The law, he argued, would force a priest to violate...

In the summer of 1978, my mother accidentally flooded her boss’s apartment, and got sued. It’s a long story. The important part is that the young lawyer/aspiring rock star she hired to represent her later became her husband— my father. They settled the case out...

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that Islamic militancy was increasing across Pakistan and said tough measures were needed to counter it, as religious students from a pro-Taliban mosque abducted four police officers.Musharraf made his remarks in an interview aired late Friday by the private Aaj...

In the following essay, Atkins provides a biographical and critical analysis of Tolstoy's Confession.

In the following essay, Patterson presents an analysis of the steps through which Tolstoy moved in his religious conversion, as outlined in his Confession.

In the following essay, Matual discusses the structure and form of the Confession in terms of classical poetics.