Vatican newspaper denounces reporter who posed as penitent for expose

Catholic News Service ^ | Jan-30-2007 | John Thavis

[Alex Murphy]

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican newspaper denounced an Italian journalist who posed as a penitent and confessed fake sins in order to write an expose on the sacrament of reconciliation.

"Fake confessions in search of a shameful scoop," the newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, headlined a commentary condemning the cover story of L'Espresso magazine, one of the country's leading weeklies.

"Shame! There is no other word to express our distress toward an operation that was disgusting, worthless, disrespectful and particularly offensive," the newspaper said.

The commentary said the article had exploited the good faith of confessors and offended the religious sentiments of millions of people.

"It was a sacrilege, because it violated the sacred space in which a self-recognized sinner asks intimately to receive God's merciful love," it said.

The reporter made his false confessions to 24 different priests in five Italian cities, including Rome. The magazine said the idea was to see how priests handle difficult pastoral situations and whether they followed the strict norms laid out by church teaching.

The reporter, for example, told two priests he was HIV-positive and wondered whether he should use a condom when having sexual relations with his girlfriend. One told him no, and the other said it was a question of conscience, the magazine reported.

More than once, the magazine said, priests gave quite different advice on his supposed "sins," which included matters relating to homosexuality, divorce, stem-cell research, euthanasia and prostitution.

One issue that found unanimous condemnation by confessors was abortion, the magazine said.

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As St. Padre Pio wisely related, the newspaper is "the gospel of Satan".

Do you have a link? Because if you do, I'm going to mount that on a wall.

Please send me the link too.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Deliberate misuse of a sacrament = sacrilege. Confessing fake sins falls into exactly the same category as a penitent who goes to confession without a firm purpose of amendment simply to have the "slate wiped clean" so that the same sins can then be committed again.

Not only does it invalidate the sacrament it also incurs an additional sin; sacrilege.

It would have been possible to obtain the same information simply by talking to the priests outside the confessional and asking them questions about "hypotheticals" such as is done in moral theology classes, for instance. Of course, that would not have attracted the attention that a stunt like this does for it panders to the curiosity that many people have for what occurs inside a confessional.

I'm just repeating what you wrote because it bears repeating! Very well stated.