According to New Advent, the sacrament of penance is "a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ in which forgiveness of sins committed after baptism is granted through the priest's absolution to those who with true sorrow confess their sins and promise to satisfy for the same."
Double-talk.
Personally I am not enjoying the argument over predestination. I think Calvin is not to be discarded so easily. While conceptually it is easy to distinguish between foreknowing and fore-causing, it is not so easy when the foreknower is the Sovereign of all Creation who asks, in that book Catholics supposedly never preach from (despite the excellent sermon on Amos I heard today), "Can there be evil in the city and I have not done it?" and who declares in the greatest prophet before our Lord became a man, "I create weal and I create woe.
But I can tell a hawk from a handsaw and I know why your arguments are not given the hearing they might otherwise merit.
Gargantua saith:
Yet what does Catholicism preach? Say 10 "Our Fathers and 12"Hail Marys" and you'll be forgiven!!??The assignment of some pious act is generally called the "penance". My priest says, "For your penance, why don't you .... [the next time you say a Rosary, offer a decade for such and such]?" A couple of weeks ago I told him I was about to go to the chapel and say a full rosary (20 decades, 4 sets of mysteries) and suggested we work my penance into that.
So what Gargantua was talking about in the line I quote was not the Sacrament of Penance but the "penance" assigned during that sacrament. And penances are not given or performed to obtain forgiveness.