Reconciliation

Over the years, I've posted dozens of times about the nuances of subsidiarity.  Apart from Patrick Brennan and a couple of corporate law types who think I'm talking about the regulation of subsidiaries, folks don't get too fired up.  This weekend I've learned that the way to light up my inbox is to say something heretical about the sacrament of reconciliation.  My question about the exclusivity of reconciliation as the certain path of God's forgiveness prompted a flurry of uniformly helpful (and charitable) responses, all of which concluded that my RCIA training was a bit off the mark.  For those who need a refresher, John Paul II explained:

[F]or a Christian the sacrament of penance is the primary way of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of serious sin committed after baptism. Certainly the Savior and his salvific action are not so bound to a sacramental sign as to be unable in any period or area of the history of salvation to work outside and above the sacraments. But in the school of faith we learn that the same Savior desired and provided that the simple and precious sacraments of faith would ordinarily be the effective means through which his redemptive power passes and operates. It would therefore be foolish, as well as presumptuous, to wish arbitrarily to disregard the means of grace and salvation which the Lord has provided and, in the specific case, to claim to receive forgiveness while doing without the sacrament which was instituted by Christ precisely for forgiveness.