King Agamemnon, in grief at seeing “mighty Hector killing his Argives,” finally recognized the injustice of his taking the woman Briseis by force from Achilles. He proclaimed, “I was blind, but I will now make atonement.” Is this true repentance? He does admit guilt, but then protests, “the gods struck me mad on that day; what could I do? The goddess Folly shuts men’s eyes to their destruction.” Agamemnon’s destructive “madness” was primed by grief and humiliation when Apollo forced him to return the beautiful Chryseis to her father, and was triggered by rage when Achilles called him “covetous beyond all mankind” (Iliad, XIX). We can scoff at Agamemnon’s moral dishonesty in blaming the gods for his own actions, but do we not exhibit the same tendency to shift blame?; perhaps not onto the “gods”, but onto other people or onto our own psychological makeup: “He made me angry”; “Of course I got angry, I’m only human.” Homer, in his Iliad and in his Odyssey, explores the cause of the Greek civilizational breakdown of the 12^th and 13^th Cent. BCE. He finds the cause in a pervasive denial of responsibility, like that by Agamemnon. Such denial, innocuous in a few people, becomes socially destructive if widespread. Catholic Christians are invited at every mass to confess their sins and to work toward overcome their faults. Scripture makes great promises to those who are holy, promises regarding themselves and their land: “O that Israel would walk in my ways, I would subdue their foes; I would feed them with the finest wheat” (Ps 81).