Dubliners, by James Joyce - A thought on sins, and reparation

An illustrated edition of Dubliners

"Dublin is such a small city: everyone knows every one else's business" ...as James Joyce depicts scenes of pre-WWI social life, the choking atmospheres of a narrow-minded catholic society, where form and sternly instilled rules regulate all human interactions, a subtle question inexorably must pop to the modern, savvy reader's mind. Isn't today's western society, incomparably more phoney, notwithstanding the glorious [?] abatement of all social, religious and sexual taboos?

As noted in the "Boarding house" short tale: thus, at confession, the priest would then magnify the sin, and the sinner "was almost thankful at being afforded a loophole of reparation..."

What reparation is it possible nowadays, as our glamorous free world knows no longer sin or shame, but magnifies the sinner itself instead?