The post-synodal apostolic exhortation on reconciliation and penance in the mission of the Church today, following the 1983 Synod of Bishops. Its three parts treat conversion and reconciliation as the Church's own work, the mystery of sin — including the distinction between mortal and venial sin and the careful correction of the notion of merely 'social' or structural sin — and the means by which the Church acts: catechesis, penance, and above all the sacrament of Penance. It insists on the enduring value of individual and integral confession as the ordinary way of reconciling the baptised with God and the Church.