No, the responsibility and repercussions are not removed (as I think you know). Sometimes our best penance is living with the consequences of our own sin, but with the joy of having been forgiven.Is responsibility removed when sins are absolved? What do you do with the aftermath of your sins? There are repercussions for everything said an done. Some transgressions I wonder about - gossip. You cannot take back anything you say. Gossip spreads quickly. Also sex. You cannot undo having sex with someone. Theft - I guess you can return what you stole, but it most cases NO.
The story is often told of the most unusual penance St. Philip Neri assigned to a woman for her sin of spreading gossip. The sixteenth-century saint instructed her to take a feather pillow to the top of the church bell tower, rip it open, and let the wind blow all the feathers away. This probably was not the kind of penance this woman, or any of us, would have been used to!
cuf.org/2010/09/the-art-of-living-the-feathers-of-gossip/But the penance didn’t end there. Philip Neri gave her a second and more difficult task. He told her to come down from the bell tower and collect all the feathers that had been scattered throughout the town. The poor lady, of course, could not do it-and that was the point Philip Neri was trying to make in order to underscore the destructive nature of gossip. When we detract from others in our speech, our malicious words are scattered abroad and cannot be gathered back. They continue to dishonor and divide many days, months, and years after we speak them as they linger in people’s minds and pass from one tale-bearer to the next.
CatechismIs responsibility removed when sins are absolved? What do you do with the aftermath of your sins? There are repercussions for everything said an done. Some transgressions I wonder about - gossip. You cannot take back anything you say. Gossip spreads quickly. Also sex. You cannot undo having sex with someone. Theft - I guess you can return what you stole, but it most cases NO.