Posted on 11/19/2005 12:52:27 PM PST by Antioch
A Catholic friend of mine recently went to confession at her parish church for the first time in years. She had personal reasons for wanting to seek absolution, but there was this, too: She said she'd long felt a little sorry for the priests sitting alone in their confessional boxes, waiting for sinners to arrive.
A generation ago, you'd see a lot of us lined up inside Catholic churches on Saturday afternoons, waiting to take our turn in one of the confessionals. We'd recite the familiar phrases ("Bless me Father, for I have sinned"), list our transgressions and the number of times we'd committed them, maybe endure a priestly lecture, and emerge to recite a few Hail Marys as an act of penance. In some parishes, the machinery of forgiveness was so well-oiled you could see the line move. Confession was essential to Catholic faith and a badge of Catholic identity. It also carried with it the promise of personal renewal. Yet in most parishes, the lines for the confessionals have pretty much disappeared. Confession—or the sacrament of reconciliation, as it's officially known—has become the one sacrament casual Catholics feel free to skip. We'll get married in church, we'll be buried from church, and we'll take Communion at Mass. But regularly confessing one's sins to God and the parish priest seems to be a part of fewer and fewer Catholic lives. Where have all the sinners gone?
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Good for your parish.
It's somewhat a shocker to realize that the people who you've known as good Catholics your whole life are really protestants underneath it all. They don't think they are, but they are.
"What you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven".
Sins absolved by the priest standing in sacramentally for Christ are released. This is true even if he himself is a pedophile in league with Lucifer.
I suspect it's a growing case of 'Religion Lite' - Great Feeling, Less Effort.
&&
LOL and, sadly, so true.
I do not got to Cofession as often as I should, but the last time I went to Confession, the priest basically told me that it was not necessary to go on a regular basis unless I had some really big sins to confess.
Pope Benedict, we need your help here.
**
I second that, Holy Father.
Nothing new under the sun is there, it looks like a sort of donatist heresy revisited.
Thanks. Donatism.
And Fzob, I didn't mean that as a personal affront. Just that the thought has been with us for a very long time.
As soon as I hit the Post button I thought that I wouldn't care to be on the receiving end. I didn't mean it to be a personal insult.
Christ is God. God spoke to Balaam in the Old Testament through the medium of a talking donkey. A God who can use a talking donkey as his intermediary can use a child molester just as well.
The sacraments simply do not get their validity or their efficacy from the righteousness of the priest. They get them from Christ, the True High Priest.
Yes, it's Donatism.
I suspect nowadays most of the priests are like the Priest in the movie "The Commitments."
Steven: Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been a month since my last confession. I've been with this band, and there's been a lot of cursing and blasphemy. And I've been neglecting my exams. And there's these three girls with the band... I've had lustful thoughts. About all of them. And when I studied I used to sing hymns, now I'm always humming When A Man Loves A Woman by Marvin Gaye.
Priest: Percy Sledge.
Steven: Wha'?
Priest: It was Percy Sledge did that particular song. I've got the album.
The sacraments simply do not get their validity or their efficacy from the righteousness of the priest. They get them from Christ, the True High Priest.
If this is true, and I believe it is, why have priests? Why not confess to God directly?
I've gotten some odd looks when I nicely decline to hold hands. I've actuially had a person reach out and grab my hand - and I pulled it away slowly but firmly. Around this time of year, I dread the times when someone who has just wiped their nose with their hand reaches out to grab yours (hand, not nose)...
Because God specifically gave the power to forgive sins to his Apostles, who gave it to their successors, the Bishops (episcopoi, "overseers"), who customarily delegate it to their assistants, the priests (presbyteroi, "elders").
John 20:22 means something, and it's in the Bible for a reason. The very fact that Christ says "if you hold them bound, they are held bound" presupposes that an actual confession is taking place -- otherwise, how could an Apostle know how to hold someone bound?
"Just confess to God directly" isn't in Scripture. That doesn't make it a bad thing to do, but Jesus asks something more from us, and gave us something more.
A personal note. I tried the "just confess to God directly" thing for about 12 years at one point. I found out that I could rationalize any sin I wanted to that way.
When I imposed on myself the discipline of monthly confession to a solid and orthodox confessor who knows me, that option went right out the window. Suddenly, I was forced right up to the line where I had to name sin as "sin" and righteousness as "righteousness".
What kind of penance did you impose upon yourself during this period?
The bottom line is that they who abandon the sacraments abandon the priesthood, they who abandon the priesthood abandon the sacraments, and they who abandon either abandon Christ.
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." ...From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
Chaput and I had a discussion about this a few years ago and he was indifferent about the abuse.
My penance came when I got indirectly acquainted with the lady I quote in my tagline, and was imposed directly by the Holy Spirit.
It seems that the church also loses some of it's control over the individual. If you have to confess embarrassing things, then you would tend to not do these things as much.
Just want to thank you for that post. Well written and meaningful. Thanks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.