Posted on 04/05/2020 6:45:35 PM PDT by marshmallow
Texas Bishop Robert Coerver had declared that 'No priests are to make themselves available to hear Confessions'
LUBBOCK, Texas, April 2, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — A Texas bishop today reversed his Sunday order banning priests from hearing confessions after the Governor of Texas deemed churches as “essential services” on Tuesday.
“No priests are to make themselves available to hear Confessions,” Bishop Robert M. Coerver of Lubbock, Texas, had originally ordered priests within his diocese in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Coerver noted in an April 2 statement that Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order Tuesday “with which we are to comply in carrying out what he defined as our ‘essential services’ as Church.”
The bishop had banned confessions without any explicit directive to do so. The bishop said in his Sunday statement, however, that he had banned confession because Mayor Don Pope had issued a stay-in-place order.
In his executive order, Abbot encouraged essential services be provided “through remote telework,” but said that if religious services “cannot be conducted from home or through remote services,” they should be conducted consistent with the guidelines from the president and the CDC by “practicing good hygiene, environmental cleanliness, and sanitation, and by implementing social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
The order mentioned not only the “providing” of essential services, for instance a priest saying Mass, but also the “obtaining.” Accordingly, Catholics are now in a position to go to church and receive the sacraments, as long as due precautions are taken.
The governor offered as an example a “drive-up service” where people remain in their cars, according to Texas news outlet KBTX.TV.
“That seems like it would satisfy the criteria that we're talking about," he said.
Abbott also prohibited local authorities from going beyond what he had deemed permissible.....
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
Oh well. He tried. Now he’ll have to wait for the next crisis to ban confession.
A good buddy of mine is a retired priest who lives alone on a secluded ranch in a mountain community nearby. His nearest neighbor is about 300 yards away. Members of the community call him and make an appointment, and drive up to his place and receive confession and communion in his carport.
I think Catholics should consider Teleconfess, like Telehealth.
That’s what I was thinking - why couldn’t you do confession over the phone?
The Incarnation matters
Don’t advertise the state. I’d hate for the ordinary to get wind of it.
Ours has banned concelebration—a private Mass means the celebrant only is present and that is all that is allowed.
Fortunately Damian of Molachi style confessions are permitted.
I thought about the incarnation.
I’m not catholic, but maybe you could deliver 8 sets of the bread and wine in sacremental sizes to parishoners and do a Tele Lord’s Supper.
That doesn’t work on the same principle.
Why not?
The gospels just say “Do this in remembrance of Me”.
If your doing it remotely, you’re still doing it in remembrance of Him.
I don’t believe in the incarnation, but God’s powerful enough to pull that off regardless of where you are.
So is there some Catholic requirement that the priest be within a certain distance? And if so, is that a man made tradition or God breathed?
It would not be valid as the penitent and confessor must be in some proximity and phone lines are not secure, the penitent has an absolute right to privacy and that could not be guaranteed via phone. Some priests are doing drive by confessions, one remains in the car and the priest is six feet away.
That make no sense. Why do they have to be in some proximity, where does that requirement come from? Define “proximity” in this context - 3 feet? 10 feet? Within eyesight? And how is this determined? And a phone call is as secure as a confessional Booth. Anyone who wanted to tap one could just as easily tap the other. This all sounds made up on the spot.
I have no idea what the incarnation of God as man has to do with performing confession over the phone.
We are not disincarnate spiritual beings. Our bodies matter. Christ’s body matters.
Through ordination there is a literal bodily connection of the priest reaching back to Christ.
There is a difference between speaking to someone in person versus speaking to them over the phone. One is not wholly present by phone in a very fundamental sense.
There is just as much a physical connection of the confessor to Christ as there is with the Priest. And Jesus/God is omnipresent so physical proximity is immaterial. And in any event, what would “physically present” have to do with the efficacy of a confession in the first place? You are just making this stuff up as you go along.
I’m not sure what your first sentence means.
As to the rest.
The Church has been handing this stuff down, or if you prefer, making it up, since time immemorial— approximately 2000 years according to my belief.
While Christ’s Divine nature is and always has been omnipresent, His human nature came to be at a very defined time and place. He wasn’t baptized everywhere and at all time, and he wasn’t crucified everywhere at all time. He selected 12 defined people to be his first apostles, not everyone, and gave them instructions on how to go about things and pass them on.
While there may be room for discussion about the phone, it strikes me as both dubious and as a departure, and in important things one should not want to depart from what has been handed down unless there is no other option and one knows, as far as possible, what is doing.
I’m inclined to think that there isn’t room for discussion about the phone, but at least one expert who I respect believes that there may be.
And what possible significance would that have with current confessions which deal with a Christ who IS currently omnipresent? Sorry, not connecting those dots.
Christ is High Priest in virtue of His human nature, and while his Divine Nature is present everywhere, his Human nature, like every human nature, is intimately connected with his body, which is not everywhere. The priest is “another Christ” in the sense that he is someone foreseen and commissioned by Christ in His humanity through His Church to carry out actions that He has authorized in a manner that He has authorized.
To the extent that the present confessional practice flows from what Christ initially authorized, alterations to this matter a lot.
I wouldn’t switch over to beer and pizza for Mass, even though I greatly appreciate beer and pizza.
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