This paper examines the meaning and practice of forgiveness in the context of clergy sexual abuse, critically analyzing how the discourse of forgiveness has functioned within the Church. Since 2018, independent commissions and scholarly research have increasingly emphasized the systemic character of abuse in ecclesial contexts. Sexual and spiritual violence are no longer understood as isolated acts but as phenomena embedded in complex institutional, theological, cultural, and juridical dynamics. Within this context, several investigative reports have identified a distorted or instrumentalized understanding of forgiveness as an obstacle to truth, justice, and accountability, at times serving to conceal wrongdoing or diffuse responsibility. How do we talk about forgiveness in such contexts? Is it forgiveness even possible? To address these questions, the paper examines how practices of confession and penance have shaped a certain rhetoric of forgiveness within the Church and it and it proposes a path for rethinking the discourse and significance of forgiveness, especially in the Christian tradition.