"The family of Jesus Christ is incomplete so long as one of us is missing. Won't you please join us?" Responding to this half-page newspaper ad and similar appeals, 12,000 Roman Catholics in the Memphis area—one-fourth of the local diocese's membership—turned out at the city's Mid-South Coliseum. They created a rare Sunday afternoon traffic jam that delayed the rites for a half-hour. The event, unprecedented in U.S. Catholicism, was a "Day of Reconciliation." It offered sacramental absolution without individual confession to all participants, both practicing Catholics and those who had become alienated from the church, including those who had divorced and...
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