10 SEPTEMBER 1954, Page 14

SIR,—Your correspondent C. S. C. Williams has not got his

facts right about Roman Catholics and confession.

Going to confession is strictly ?speaking obligatory only in case of 'grave sin,' and then it is obligatory in conscience only, not by any outward compulsion or verification. Nor is it true that RCs ' must go to the parish priest or the one appointed,' though in past times this may have been the rule at Easter. Nowadays the ordinary Catholic can go to any priest who holds ' faculties ' from the bishop of his diocese, as almost all priests do. For the sake of exactness, one must add that the faculties hold good only inside the diocese.—Yours faithfully, F. H. D.