There is a conversation going on down there in the "Penance" thread about the question of doing penance because of/for the sins of others. Zadok has a pertinent post:

He is not the first person to suggest this, and I must confess that the first time I heard that suggestion my reaction was to think, "I’ve done nothing wrong, it’s those horrendous clerics who should be doing penance!" However, I had an insight recently which has changed my thinking on this.

The Fathers of the Church present Isaac (ed – should be Jacob) as being a prefiguration of Christ, and one of the ways in which he pre-figures Christ is that scene in Genesis (Gen 27) when Jacob secures the birthright of his brother Esau by covering himself in goatskins, and thereby deceiving his blind father Isaac into thinking he is his hirsuite son Esau. Now, we might have some difficulty associating this act of deception with the redeeming work of Christ. But of some of the patristic authors noted the use of goats in the Old Law as sin offerings, and as symbolising sinners in the New Testament. (c.f. Matt 25, for example) Isaac putting on the goatskins is a foreshadowing of Christ taking on the burden of our sins. Christ became sin, although He was sinless. (c.f. 2 Cor 5:21)

And so it seems to me, a willingness to do penance for the sins of another, without regard for the merits of the one who sinned, is a very powerful way of imitating Christ and conforming our minds to His. Obviously, our penance does not have the redemptive value of Christ’s sufferings, but as we form members of His Body the Church, it seems to me that such penance is certainly a participation in the redemptive work which only He can truly accomplish. (c.f. Col 1:24)

We must resist this awful temptation to think that by doing penance of this kind we are somehow getting abominable sinners ‘off the hook’. What a horrid way to look at things.

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