From the daily email, Word of Encouragement....

....written by Jeff Cavins and Mark Shea (available from Catholic Exchange--if you don't get it daily, why not?):

One of the many ironies of modernity is that, in pretending there's no such thing as sin, we succeeded in getting rid, not of shame, but of the possibility of repentance and freedom. In the Christian worldview, sin can always be repented of and forgiveness received. But in the current culture, we are stuck with sin that cannot be washed away and can only be excused or shuffled off on somebody else. And so talk shows are awash with babble from rich kids who shoot their parents and then whine that they were "victims". A rock star in Seattle kills herself on heroin and a local paper asks "Did Seattle Kill Her?" (thereby laying shame on a million strangers who have no specific sin they can repent of and no way they can be forgiven it). A book appears explaining that rape is just one of nature's little strategies for propagating the strongest members of the race. In short, Nothing is Our Fault in modernity. It's all the fault of parents, society or chromosomes. But that doesn't mean we don't go on bearing the shame of our sins (as our energetic search for excuses bears witness). It just means that in denying our willed choice to do evil, we have denied the possibility of repentance, forgiveness and liberation from sin. Today, embrace Christ's call to repentance by admitting sin and repenting of it. God calls us to freedom and means to give it to us!