Rinse and repeat isn’t repentance. True repentance requires you to reflect in your actions and realise they are wrong, then commit to changing your ways. It’s not something people commonly do.
Humans feel shame when they do bad things shame is incredibly powerful and people will do almost anything to avoid it - but rather oddly they will do anything to avoid it except stopping doing the stuff that causes them to feel shame. You can see the rationale behind confession, it sets the stage for repentance, but Man again fails to do what he should.
All the religious rituals like papal indulgences and chicken swinging (heck, the entire of the Jewish rules lawyering ) are Man’s attempts to wriggle their way out of feeling Shame without actually using it to grow.
I’m not entirely sure that Jesus would be Ok with people saying a few half arsed Hail Marys on Sunday then beating their kids again on Monday again and again. There’s no repentance.
The modern world allows people a million ways to avoid shame. We aren’t allowed to shame people for greed, for lust, or for terrible behaviour. Instead the shame has been used as a tool to modify behaviour in the ways which benefit the state, not the person or the community.
We really need to make shame great again.
OP you might find reading about the penitential type movements in medieval Italy interesting - they were put down as heretics
