Can you have confession if the priest doesn’t speak your language?

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kapp19 said:
Sorry you’re sore that your appeal to authority isn’t going your way.
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This response is disrespectful. Responses like this are why we have had many good clergy leave this forum over the years, to its detriment, and why I too will not be sorry to see it go.

The disrespect to the clergy, lack of humility, rudeness etc etc are not what I come into a Catholic forum to read. It is toxic and unhelpful to Catholics. Fortunately it will soon no longer be an issue.

If you truly feel it is necessary to clarify some point, there are ways of going about it much more diplomatically than was done here.
 
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The priest did not post the meme. I also don’t think pointing a finger at some other poster (who is not even me) adds to your credibility here.

Have a nice day.
 
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kapp19 said:
Yes, well I was not responding to him.
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Memes are funny and you often come across as taking yourself way too seriously. I see it was flagged and removed. :roll_eyes: Someone is a real delicate little flower.
 
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kapp19 said:
I also think precision is important, especially in delicate practical questions on sacramental theology. It matters.
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So is delivery. To be honest, your response makes me appreciate more the idea that academia is an ivory tower. We should be precise so that the main concept isn’t wrong, but the language and precision in academia can only not be understood by those outside of it, but backfire and be viewed as elitist. That backfire is what you are now dealing with. I have to deal with users who are bad with tech all the time at my job and have to explain to them why something failed. Is telling them that the application failed due to something obscure involving different types of string encoding going to ensure that they don’t do it again? No. What good is it to tell them that when they don’t even know what a string is?
 
I actually found your post amusing, and certainly didn’t flag it. But if diplomacy is what people are concerned with…
 
kapp19 said:
one is at least somewhat familiar with things…
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Father is the only one on this thread who actually gets to hear confessions and absolve penitents. He’s not just somewhat familiar with the idea.

I’m not sure why you’re insisting that something cannot be done when a priest can witness to the fact that he does it.

That’s not even about clericalism, that’s about facts.
 
There are several aspects to be considered here. The first situation is the general obligation of confessing grave sins. This is addressed in Canon Law, No. 960:

“Individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the only ordinary means by which a member of the faithful conscious of grave sin is reconciled with God and the Church. Only physical or moral impossibility excuses from confession of this type; in such a case reconciliation can be obtained by other means.”

The lack of a common language between penitent and confessor would enter into the category of a “physical or moral impossibility” which would excuse either the obligation of confession or its integrity, and allow for reconciliation to be obtained by other means.
In the present case we would be dealing with the confessor making a prudential judgment that the penitent is excused in virtue of a physical and moral impossibility and presuming the latter’s sincerity in manifesting those sins confessed in his native language.

Thus in this particular situation the sacrament would be valid.
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So not only are you being rude, my friend, but you’re not really correct either. It is true that in order for an integral confession to take place, the confession must be understood. HOWEVER, the law makes an allowance in the case of physical or moral impossibility.

QED.
 
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kapp19 said:
Lay people can do theology too. It’s sad we couldn’t have an actual discussion.
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A discussion? Aren’t you the same guy who kept arguing back with Father when he was giving pastoral advice to the scrupulous? What does your STL give you that trumps the pastoral discretion of a priest? If you’re so great at theology and pastorship, why aren’t you a priest?

You don’t seem interested in discussion to me.
 
There’s so much to talk about. I get the unfortunate impression that many people think everything in law and sacraments is closed… it’s not. It’s within living memory there wasn’t even clarity on the bare minimum requirements for Extreme Unction.

I love talking about important issues, and wholesome and rigorous dialogue, even with disagreements. I despise the thought that laity are not allowed to do such a thing if they are ontologically outranked. That’s not Catholic ecclesiology, whatever it is.
 
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