Catholic school stopped offering Reconciliation to kids?

[OraLabora]

If they had been performing a reconciliation rite with general absolution they were violating the clear directives of the Vatican. Since you say the reconciliation service occurred during the mass, I can’t imagine individual confessions were heard.

I was under the impression that this Liturgical abuse had stopped. It is not only illicit but in cases of mortal sin, invalid

I don’t know how it works there but in our parish, there are reconciliation services before Christmas and Easter. There is a liturgy of sorts, however all the priests of our pastoral unit are always present (usually 3 or 4). They hear individual confessions, which are encouraged. It must work, because there are always long lines to see one of the priests. I guess those who do not have no mortal sins to confess.

 

[tombai]

If they had been performing a reconciliation rite with general absolution they were violating the clear directives of the Vatican. Since you say the reconciliation service occurred during the mass, I can’t imagine individual confessions were heard.

I was under the impression that this Liturgical abuse had stopped. It is not only illicit but in cases of mortal sin, invalid

Aha!

I’d have to check and ask my son how confession was done at the school service. I had assumed that it was with individual confessions, but perhaps I am assuming too much–perhaps there wasn’t time to have individual confessions in conjunction with the school mass, and they were thus only performing a general absolution with the intention that parents would still be taking their children to individualized confession outside of school.

You bring up a great point that I will have to check on-- perhaps this is the reason behind discontinuing the Christmas/Easter reconciliation services during the school mass, in lieu of parents taking the children to reconciliation service outside of school.

Thank you!

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I don’t see any reason why the school has to be responsible for offering Reconciliation. If the parish offers it, the parents are responsible for taking their children. Children are in school to learn, not to confess.

What an odd thing to say about a Catholic school.

 

[Phemie]

It is fascinating to learn how differently things work in Canada. Do you still have a similar system, or has it changed since you were in school?

As OraLabora said, each province was different. I grew up in New Brunswick. There, after 1875, there were no separate school boards for Catholics (your question just sent me searching and I got a fascinating history lesson). The School Act simply gave Catholics the right to gather most Catholic kids in one local school and teach religion and have teachers who were religious in habit. I remember that our parish priest was a frequent visitor, as he lived next door.

The school board that oversaw my grade 1-9 village school had both schools where the Catholic religion was taught and schools that would be deemed “public” in other provinces. This was all “public” education in that Catholic kids had equal opportunity for education and parents didn’t have to pay a fee for it, it was all paid by taxes. Some schools were actually started by religious congregations/orders.

The town next door, where I went to high school, originally had at one end of town a coed elementary/girls only high school (French/English) run by the “Filles de Jésus” congregation of Sisters, a boys’ high school (French/English) run by the Christian Brothers, at the other end of town a coed primary/elementary (French/English) Catholic school like my village school. It also had a non-Catholic unilingual Grades 1-12 English school serving the entire town. In case you’re wondering, there was no Kindergarten in that province until 1991.

 

[commenter]

I get your point, but I disagree. I almost always call it “Confession”, as do most Catholics colloquially, but the Church calls it Penance or Reconciliation. I really think the term “Reconciliation” is the best term for it, because it does not describe what we do in the sacrament, but what the Church does. We repent, we confess, the Church reconciles us to God and to the Church.

“Confession” is still a valid term, along with others, for this sacrament, per the CCC:

1424 “It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a “confession” - acknowledgment and praise - of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.”
Another term I really like in the CCC is the sacrament of conversion.

A lot of changes in catechetics years ago were made based on assumptions true then, but not now. In 1970 people could argue "of course, it means confessing your sins. People already know that. We don’t need to repeat it. " In 2016 many Catholics are barely aware of the reality of sin at all. Concepts like confession or repentance, once familiar, are unfamiliar.

I see your point. After Catholic children or adults have mastered the basics (confession), then further explore the finer points of reconciliation.

 

[bluerose]

I attended Catholic grade school through 8th grade in the late '70s–early '80s. We attended Mass every Friday at 8 a.m. (first period class for all grades was Religion, so it made sense that Mass took the place of this class on Fridays.)

On First Fridays, the students went to confession at the church during the last two hours of the day. Each grade was scheduled to go at staggered times. We had two, sometimes three, priests who heard confession on those days. With about 20 kids per grade and having First Communion celebrated in either second or third grade, we had about 100-120 kids going to confession. One priest was always the pastor who was a monsignor. NO ONE wanted to go to confession to him… he was the one who handed out our grade reports every six weeks!

Everyone wanted to go to the 80+ year old associate pastor who always gave the same confession to everyone whether they confessed to chewing gum in class or being a serial killer–three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys! If Monsignor found no one in his confessional, he’d pop his head out of his door and pick people out of the other priest’s line and tell them to get in his line!

Ah, the memories…

 

[babochka]

“Confession” is still a valid term, along with others, for this sacrament, per the CCC:

You’re right; that was a careless choice of words on my part.

Another term I really like in the CCC is the sacrament of conversion.

I like this one, too.

A lot of changes in catechetics years ago were made based on assumptions true then, but not now. In 1970 people could argue "of course, it means confessing your sins. People already know that. We don’t need to repeat it. " In 2016 many Catholics are barely aware of the reality of sin at all. Concepts like confession or repentance, once familiar, are unfamiliar.

I see your point. After Catholic children or adults have mastered the basics (confession), then further explore the finer points of reconciliation.

Anybody with even the most basic understanding of the Sacrament of Confession/Penance/Reconciliation knows that confession of sins is a part of the sacrament. If you’ve ever been, it is kind of inescapable. But Reconciliation is a 3 part process - repentance, confession, absolution. How is it possible to focus exclusively on confession without also teaching the other two parts of the Sacrament?

 

[commenter]

Anybody with even the most basic understanding of the Sacrament of Confession/Penance/Reconciliation knows that confession of sins is a part of the sacrament. If you’ve ever been, it is kind of inescapable. But Reconciliation is a 3 part process - repentance, confession, absolution. How is it possible to focus exclusively on confession without also teaching the other two parts of the Sacrament?

No disagreement with what you wrote!

Except, ignorance really is not inescapable, given the reality that Catholics going to confession dropped enormously, especially among younger Catholics, when preaching and religion classes moved away from the concept of personal sin.

Re: “reconciliation”
(I don’t want to kill my first thread in the New Year by going off topic, but I tutor students who previously had Common Core which tends to put forward more subjective, subtle, sophisticated concepts early, but omits the more basic, factual, objective foundation material that students need, and suffer from neglect of it).