Auricular Confession

AURICULAR CONFESSION (From Lat. auricula, ” the external ear” ): Confession into the ear of a priest in private, enjoined by Leo the Great (440-461) as a substitute for public confession. The twenty-first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), under Innocent III, makes it obligatory every year upon all Catholics, on pain of excommunication, and consequently the loss of Christian burial. See Confession of Sins.