Free Republic

Padre Pio, shaking with righteous anger, reprimanding the Bishop concerning the Seal of Confession. If a priest is cynical about what the Church wants with the formula for the absolution of a sacramental confession, and changes the words to his own niceness, not really caring because of thinking that sin is no big deal anyway and he’s tired of the whole religion thing… well, well… that priest, it seems to me, is risking rotting in the lowest places of hell for all eternity.The most vulnerable and needful time, the most majestic for the soul, is the moment of kneeling...

Featured Term (selected at random):PENITENT In the sacrament of penance, the person who confesses sins and seeks absolution. And in general, anyone who sincerely repents of wrongdoing, resolves to amend his or her life, and by appropriate means tires to expiate the guilt and punishment incurred for offending God. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Confession – Is It Still Necessary? July 28th, 2009 by Gary ZimakOne of the harsh realities facing the Catholic Church is the fact that many of her members no longer receive the sacrament of Confession on a regular basis. For one reason or another, many Catholics don’t feel the need to go to Confession. Let’s look at some of the common objections and discuss why the sacrament of Confession is still as relevant today as it was when Jesus instituted it 2000 years ago. “I confess my sins directly to Christ. Why do I need to go through a ‘middle...

Featured Term (selected at random):FORGIVENESS Pardon or remission of an offense. The Catholic Church believes that sins forgiven are actually removed from the soul (John 20) and not merely covered over by the merits of Christ. Only God can forgive sins, since he alone can restore sanctifying grace to a person who has sinned gravely and thereby lost the state of grace. God forgives sins to the truly repentant either immediately through an act of perfect contrition or mediately through a sacrament. The sacraments primarily directed to the forgiveness of sins are baptism and penance, and secondarily, under certain conditions,...

Featured Term (selected at random):SATISFACTION The expiation of wrongdoing, especially the penance imposed by a priest before giving sacramental absolution. Essentially the satisfaction consists in the penitent's willingness to accept the penance imposed and its actual fulfillment. The effect of these two elements is to remove more or less the temporal punishment due to the sins confessed. In the early Church, up to the Middle Ages, the penance imposed was generally severe. Later on the severity was mitigated through what have since come to be known as indulgences. (Etym. Latin satisfacere: satis, sufficient, enough + facere, to do, make.) All...

column, you’ll want to either join my bandwagon or run me out of town. If it’s the former, hop on; there’s plenty of room. If it’s the latter, please be gentle with the clubs and hatchets; I bruise easily. Okay, here goes. I don’t participate in Friday fish frys, nor does my family. Sacrilege, you say? Well, hear me out. We did participate in one once, but never again. Bad fish, you wonder? Not at all. In fact, it was delicious and so were the French fries, the cole slaw and the garlic bread. All marvelous. We helped wait tables,...

Adult First Confession Candidates (preparing for Confirmation/First Communion), you need to go to confession sometime this Lent, that is, before the Easter Vigil. The Elect (preparing for Baptism), you don’t have to go to Confession this Lent, because Baptism itself washes away all sins. But sometime after Baptism, you should think about going to Confession, since regular Confession is an excellent habit to get into. Baptism --- by God’s grace -- makes you clean. Confession--- by God’s grace--- helps you stay that way. 1. Absolutely commit to doing it. Set a date. Put it on your calendar (in ink!) And...

Is Confession a late invention of Catholicism, or was it used from the earliest times? Let's see what the earliest writers say.DIDACHE (as early as 70 AD) -- Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life....On the Lord's Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure. (4:14; 14:1) ST. IRENAEUS OF LYONS (180 AD) -- [The gnostic disciples of Marcus] have deluded many women...Their consciences have been branded as with a hot iron [cf....

I offered my five year old son a banana this morning when he came downstairs to get ready for school. It was the last one. And there was a reason it was the last one. It looked like every other banana’s great grandfather. I’d tried giving it to the three year old a few minutes earlier and she backed away all wide eyed with her hands up to fend me off like I was brandishing a weapon. I didn’t want the banana to go to waste so when my five year old came down the stairs I practically jumped on...

Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest? By Father Michael Van Sloun - For The Catholic Spirit    Thursday, 26 March 2009 The following is the third in a 10-part series on reconciliation Penance Father Michael Van Sloun Of all the objections to the sacrament of reconciliation, the one most often voiced, particularly by Protestants, and sometimes by Catholics is:  “I don’t need to go to confession to a priest! The priest is just another human being! All that I need to do is to confess my sins directly to God, and that is enough!”...

The late Pope John Paul II, who has been put on the fast track to sainthood by the Vatican, regularly whipped himself as an act of penance to feel closer to God, and signed a secret document saying that would step down as pontiff if he became incurably ill, according to a new book. Why a Saint? by Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Vatican "postulator" in charge of the canonisation process, says the Polish-born Pope performed self flagellation as a bishop in Krakow and continued to do so in the Vatican after being elected Pope in 1978. "In his wardrobe, among...

Did you know that penance is not only for Lent and Advent? And that we Catholics are not only supposed to be doing penance on the Fridays of Lent? Of course, penance is good to do at many times for many reasons.  But in fact, canon law requires us to do some form of penance every Friday of the year. Canon 1250—All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the universal Church. Canon 1251—Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to...

CMR is known for its parodies. But I promise you, this is not a parody. It comes from a book published by the Liturgical Conference in 1969 called Manual of Celebration by Robert Hovda (who is also widely known as one of the chief authors of the 1978 bishops' document on church architecture, Environment and Art in Catholic Worship.) If you think the choices in your parish are bad today, here's a real trip to 40 years ago..."A Scriptural Service for a Community Experience of the Sacrament of Penance"(The following is a more ambitious penance service than is usual....

Sister Sobodka said: "Several times he (Pope John Paul) would put himself through bodily penance. "We would hear it – we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own." The flagellation is also confirmed by another bishop who has given testimony. Emery Kabongo was a secretary for Pope John Paul. "He would punish himself and in particular just before he ordained bishops and priests," he said. "I never actually saw it myself but several people...

Pope John Paul II regularly whipped himself in a sign of "remorse for his sins", a nun has claimed. The Pope, who died five years ago, is being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church. As part of the Vatican's investigation thousands of documents have been collected and examined by officials from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Among them is the testimony of Tobiana Sobodka, a Polish nun of the Sacred Heart of Jesus order, who worked for Pope John Paul in his private Vatican apartments and at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome. Sister Sobodka...

The Sacrament of Healing Part Three:Perfect and Imperfect Contrition The following is taken from the excellent work My Catholic Faith by Bishop Louis LaRavoire Morrow in 1949 and is one of the most succinct, simple and concise explanations of the doctrines and practices of Roman Catholicism that both Catholic and non-Catholic can easily understand without any ambiguity or relativism. Pure, unadulterated facts and absolutes. Bolded sections and blue type within brackets are by editor for added emphasis.    Perfect contrition implies a fervent love of God. We are sorry for our sins because they offend God Who is so good. Mary...

One of the harsh realities facing the Catholic Church is the fact that many of her members no longer receive the sacrament of Confession on a regular basis. For one reason or another, many Catholics don’t feel the need to go to Confession. Let’s look at some of the common objections and discuss why the sacrament of Confession is still as relevant today as it was when Jesus instituted it 2000 years ago.“I confess my sins directly to Christ. Why do I need to go through a ‘middle man’?” This may come as a surprise to some, but the Church...

Pope: There's an Answer to Empty Confessionals Explains St. John Vianney's "Virtuous Circle" Secret VATICAN CITY, JUNE 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is urging priests to not become resigned to empty confessionals, but to help people rediscover the beauty of the sacrament by deepening their understanding of the Eucharist. The Pope stated this in a letter to the priests of the world, on the occasion of the Year for Priests, which begins Friday in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, the Curé d'Ars. The saint "taught his parishioners primarily by the witness of...

Jesus placed great value on forgiveness By Father Michael Van Sloun - For The Catholic Spirit    Tuesday, 10 March 2009 The following is the first in a 10-part series on reconciliation. Penance Father Michael Van Sloun For Jesus, forgiveness is of paramount importance. It is the flip side of the love coin. Jesus wants us to love one another as he has loved us, and he explained that the way that people will know that we are his disciples is by the love that we have for one another (John 15:12,15; 13:35). But our love is im­perfect. We...

Confession Questions From the Pew A Pastor Speaks About Promoting and Understanding the Sacrament By Genevieve Pollock ANOKA, Minnesota, MAY 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The sacrament of confession was meant to be a source of grace and joy, but many people do not know what it is all about, says a Minnesota pastor. Father Michael Van Sloun, the pastor of St. Stephen's Church in Anoka, authored a 10-part series on confession currently being published in the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. In this interview with ZENIT, Father Van Sloun speaks about his pastoral experience, answering questions about...