An orientation of Don Bosco Technical Institute - Makati on the sacrament of confession (A matching of the styles of faith of Westerhoff with the perceived concepts of reconciliation at different age levels)

• Main Author: Ulanday, Edwin de Leon, SDB
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Confession—Catholic Church; Penance; Religion
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/6820
• Institution: De La Salle University

An essential part of the educative system of Don Bosco schools (Catholic schools mainly for boys) is the frequent reception of the sacrament of confession by the students. This study, through a questionnaire, sought to find out the students’ perceptions about the sacrament of confession from three different age categories – Grade School boys (9 - 12 years), High School boys (13 – 16 years) and TVET boys and girls (17 – 24 years) in Don Bosco Technical Institute (DBTI) -Makati City. The questionnaire included questions pertaining to the five (5) main dimensions or constructs of the sacrament of confession namely: confession, forgiveness of sins, penance, reconciliation and conversion. Furthermore, it aimed to find outif these perceptions correspond to the different Styles of Faith of John Westerhoff according to their age level qualitatively. The mean was used to determine the over-all perception score of the responses. High mean scores generated by the responsesfrom the questionnaire, showed high agreeability with the concepts and a good understanding of the sacrament of confession. The concept with the highest mean score (item #32) is “Christ gave the sacrament of Confession as a sign of forgiveness of our sins.” An item that appeared within the top five items of each age bracket is (item #37) “It is from God who is the Father of mercies that I receive the forgiveness of my sins.” Both concepts came from the construct of forgiveness of sins. For the Grade School, the construct of the sacrament of confession with the highest mean score is forgiveness of sins. For the High School, it is penance while for the TVET it is confession of sins. There are significant differences in the mean scores of the perceived concepts of the sacrament of confession among the different age-brackets. Lastly, there is a matching of the perceived concepts per age-bracket with the Styles of Faith of John Westerhoff with regard to the concepts of the sacrament of confession.