the.com/confession
the moment your secret weighs more outside your mouth than in
means a statement in which you admit to something you've done wrong, believe, or have kept hidden, often under pressure of guilt or formality
from From Latin 'confiteri' — 'con-' (together, fully) plus 'fateri' (to acknowledge, admit), itself related to 'fari,' to speak. So at its root a confession is a full speaking-out, an owning aloud. It entered English through Old French 'confession,' carrying a strong religious charge — the sacrament where sins are spoken to a priest — before broadening to any reluctant admission of truth.
- legal weight
- false confessions appear in roughly 25% of wrongful convictions
- booth invented
- private confessional box dates only to the 1500s
- brain chemistry
- unburdening secrets measurably lowers stress and physical pain
- clergy shield
- priest-penitent privilege protects confessions in many courts
- social bait
- online confession pages farm millions in anonymous traffic
catholic sacrament of penance — catholic ritual where believers confess sins to a priest, practiced since the 12th century across 1.3 billion catholics worldwide
central park five confessions — five teenagers who confessed to the 1989 assault of a jogger in new york city, later exonerated by dna evidence in 2002