Bearing blog: Asking for forgiveness. When I was a kid, I got into trouble for ordinary kid-sort of things. Not cleaning my room, backtalking (usually I didn't mean to backtalk, but somehow, I was told, things came out sounding that way), staying out too late, lying about where I'd been. I often got myself into worse trouble for refusing to say "I'm sorry. " I was one of those people who reasoned, "I don't really feel sorry -- so it would be lying to say so. I don't really think I was wrong -- no way am I going to 'admit' that I was wrong, since I wasn't. " (I had not yet learned the fine art of the fake apology, so well practiced by public figures, the "I'm sorry that you were offended," or the "I'm sorry that you had to see this," much of which boils down to "I'm sorry that you got caught. ") After a while I figured out that it was sometimes in my best interest to apologize, and I did understand that.
Perhaps I was overthinking it, but I felt that it mattered. Let's say that Billy believes Alex has harmed him, and is angry. Patheos | Hosting the Conversation on Faith. Bad Catholic — Catechism of the Catholic Church.