Posted on 11/15/2014 1:56:37 PM PST by NYer
VATICAN CITY — The secrecy of a confession is maintained so seriously and completely by the Catholic Church that a priest would be excommunicated for revealing the contents of a confession when ordered to testify by a court or even after the penitent dies, Vatican officials said.
“No confessor can be dispensed from it, even if he would want to reveal the contents of a confession in order to prevent a serious and imminent evil,” said Msgr. Krzysztof Nykiel, regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican court dealing with matters of conscience.
The penitentiary sponsored a conference at the Vatican Nov. 12-13 on “the confessional seal and pastoral privacy.”
According to the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, conference participants heard that since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 spelled out the penalties in church law for violating the secret of the confessional, “the discipline of the church in this matter has remained substantially the same,” with the exception of additional protections.
One of those additions, the newspaper said, was a 1988 church law explicitly stating that using an “electronic apparatus” to record, broadcast or otherwise share the contents of a confession also is an excommunicable offense.
Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, told conference participants it is important “to remove any suspicion” that the church’s commitment to the confessional seal “is designed to cover intrigues, plots or mysteries as people sometimes naively believe or, more easily, are led to believe.”
The seal, he said, is intended to protect the most intimate part of the human person, “that is, to safeguard the presence of God within each man.” The effect of the secret, he said, is that it also protects a person’s reputation and right to privacy.
The confessional seal, Msgr. Nykiel said, “is binding not only on the confessor, but also on the interpreter, if present, and anyone who in any way, even casually, comes to know of the sins confessed.”
The church, he said, takes the seal so seriously that it forbids, on the pain of excommunication, a priest from testifying in court about what he heard in the confessional, “even if the penitent requests” he testify.
Not even the death of the penitent can absolve the confessor from the obligation to maintain the secret, Msgr. Nykiel said.
I didn’t quite get your point earlier.
I agree with you: The treatment of pro-abortion apostate Catholics by the hierarchy (with a tiny number of exceptions) is a disgrace. It is a clear sign that most of the hierarchy do not believe in the Eucharist and do not “hunger and thirst for justice.” They are intellectually, morally, and spiritually dead.
I do not agree that this disgraceful behavior by a spiritually-dead hierarchy is somehow evidence of a “secret teaching” of the Church that abortion is hunky-dory. The Church has no secret teachings.
Could you agree that there is 'evidence' that the OPEN teaching isn't very effective at the higher levels of the church?
You still haven’t offered your explanation for the complete absence from history of any corpse or relic, or even any claimed corpse or relic, of Mary.
Despite the assiduousness with which early Christians preserved and venerated the bodies and relics of saints, they completely failed to do so in the case of Mary BECAUSE...(complete the sentence)
sure I did; but you will not except it.
Surely you catholics could have found SOMETHING that at least BELONGED to her while she was 'on earth'.
Why didn't you guys preserve ANY of it?
Her whole HOUSE has been preserved.
You keep telling me that you finished the sentence, and I keep rejecting it.
I have absolutely no memory of your finishing the sentence, and I have been unable to find the post in which you say you did so.
Unless you are referring to your preposterous claim that the early Christians just didn’t care much about Mary. Was that it?
Sure it has!
No.
But saying that the early Christians just didn’t WRITE much about Mary. THAT was it.
You kinda lost the conversation in #163
Except for the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, the Gospel of John, and Revelation.
Still claiming that's Mary?
John didn't VENERATE her enough to write her NAME?
So?
You have decreed (from Mt. Olympus?) that if John failed to give Mary’s name, everything he said is to be disregarded? And we are to disregard everything about Mary in the gospels, too?
Dontcha know?
Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
Lack of physical *proof* of Mary’s existence means they can claim anything they want about her demise or lack thereof.
Course, it doesn’t occur to them that any claimed relic just might be a fake or fraud.
Not to mention that true Christians don’t put any of their faith or trust in this physical world which is passing away since we walk by faith, not by sight.
Dead body parts along with other trinkets, doodads, and artifacts are all going to burn anyway. Nothing in this world is permanent or of value in the spiritual realm, the heavenlies in which we believers sit with Christ Jesus.
Having physical objects to see, touch, feel, kiss, use are talismans are for those whose faith is so weak that they need props.
Yes, rather like those who fill in “white spaces”.....in the Evangelical Community happening today as every impostor of Christianity fills these up with anything and everything that gives the “itchy ears” what they want in order to keep them engaged and the revenue flowing. We are soooo living in an age of deception today...and it's all leading to Rome for all the wrong reasons.
You guys have decreed (from Vatican City) that since the bible (that you guys compiled) has failed to give credence to Mary’s supposed powers, everything Rome (and kids in Portugal) says about her is to be accepted?
Cute!
Lotsa Holy Ghostin' goin' on there!!
Luke Chapter One
15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying,
1 Corinthians 4:6
Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written."
Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.
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