Posted on 01/12/2021 6:46:22 PM PST by marshmallow
A Supreme Court case about the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church raises concerns among Catholics too.
Eastern Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics in India are watching with concern a Supreme Court case about confession. Last week, the Supreme Court of India agreed to consider a petition by three lay members of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, who argue that the requirement of mandatory annual confession in their denomination violates the Constitutionally protected right to privacy.
The lawsuit follows two criminal cases, which started in 2018, where priests of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Kerala were accused of abusing confession to solicit female penitents into sexual relationships, and blackmail their husbands by threatening to reveal their wives’ secrets. The criminal cases are pending, with some of the priests in jail, but a parallel canonical investigation of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church concluded that the priests were guilty, and they were defrocked.
After this incident, a lay member of the Church filed a lawsuit with the Kerala High Court, asking the judges to declare that the requirement to confess one’s sins to a priest is a violation of India’s Constitutional provisions protecting individual liberty and privacy. The court disagreed, commenting that the freedom of the church members is protected by their right to leave the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and join a different denomination where auricular confession is not required.
This decision was consistent with international case law, which regards as an intrinsic part of religious freedom the principle that secular courts should not interfere on the internal organisation of a religion. Members dissatisfied with how their religion is organised may simply leave it.
Now, however, three laymen have taken the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that they have no chance to prevail in Kerala. The case accepted by the.....
(Excerpt) Read more at mercatornet.com ...
Not a Catholic, but it would appear to me that some people in India need to become Lutherans or something.
Someone should give them the address of the nearest Unitarian Universalist “church”.
The people filing the suit aren’t Catholics either.
Why?
Plenty of Catholics never go to confession. It’s not like there’s anybody who comes around and forces you to do it. Or that they keep track of it.
If there have been problems with certain priests abusing confession, then the church needs to deal with that. Discipline the offenders. See them in jail, as has happened. Get better priests. A faithful priest will keep the confession in absolute confidence.
As the court ruled before, these people are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like confession to a priest. I don’t know how strict the discipline is in this church, but in some Orthodox churches, confession is required before one may receive the eucharist. I know people who are weekly communicants and they go to confession every week. Those who don’t confess and don’t receive the eucharist would seem to have excommunicated themselves.
I prefer to confess my sins to God and leave the middle man out.
yea, no man is learned, no man knows..fake to the bone .
Yep, me and God, thru Christ..don’t need Pollyanna want a fake salvation cracker from fake khabhuki wannabees..
Creation the church we destroy..
Confession in the Lutheran Church
Note that this lawsuit is not only for the Catholics but also for the Assyrian church (the Marthomite Church founded by St Thomas the Apostle) and the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches in India
The people filing the suit are “The three petitioners, Mathew T Mathachan, PJ Shaji, and CV Jose,”
the first (Matthew) and last (Jose) are clear Keralite i.e. Marthomite or Syro-Malabar Catholic names. It could be for the 2nd as well.
Of course they could be atheists as well.
Confession began with Moses when he gave God’s law to the Jews. To atone for their sins they were told to bring certain sacrifices to the Levites to be burnt upon the altar. Of course they had to tell those Levites what sins they were atoning for so they could recite the proper prayers over the holocausts. This is where confession began.
But there was no real forgiveness that came from those Levites
But for us,Jesus died for man’s sins.
The son of God gave Simon Peter the keys to heaven and the authority to ask God to forgive sins on Earth.
He then told his disciples to “confess to one another”. This was basically telling them NOT to confess to the Levites as in the past, as they didn’t have authority to “bind” or “loose” on Earth.
That authority was just given to the leaders of Christ’s new Church, which was headed by Peter.
The other thing about confessing to a priest is that we get immediate answers, and advice on how to actually avoid committing those sins in the future.
God already knows our sins, He wants us to confess them and also truly repent. At the same time some spiritual help is also good
The article says “three lay members of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church”. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is a non-Chalcedonian “Oriental Orthodox” church, in communion with, e.g., the Copts, the Ethiopians, etc. Not in communion with Rome (or Constantinople, or Moscow for that matter).
I am then wrong. I didn’t read that sentence
If it’s part of the belief system and they don’t want to comply, they are in the wrong place.
And that goes for “cafeteria” Catholics too.
Jesus Himself said to eat of His body and drink of His blood - repeated it thrice to ensure that all fully understood that this was literal. And people walked away from Him about this - just as you have, right?
Had nothing to do with sacraments of the pagan church..creation is his body, those who already eat his flesh and drink his blood have life in them...so if we stop limiting God to rituals and truly seek him, we can only eat his body and drink his blood, there is no other life..this comes from a Jewish perspective, communion was to be on Passover, which is what Jesus, an observant Jew did..To me, it ended animal sacrifice as he fulfilled Israel, headed back towards Eden reality..
So wafer addiction for forgiveness of sins past the time of Christ is pagan totally..Mary, the disciples etc..were all Jew, there is no gentile gate on the new Jerusalem, there are no rc priest teaching the world, 144000 Israeli priest..the list is infinite, but man worships his pride first, just like pharasees..
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