Changing rules for confession during an epidemic

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During the Black Plague, few priests were available to administer the last rites. So Pope Clement VI allowed laypeople, both men and women, to hear confessions of the dying when no priests were available.

Drawing on Pope Clement VI’s decision as a precedent, could the church temporarily allow telephone or video confessions?
 
I find that extremely hard to believe given that the reason why Deacons cannot administer it is because they cannot give absolution, which is part of the last rites. It is impossible to hear confessions and give absolution without being ordained a priest. I would want to see the entire quote she has in there, in the document it’s in, because she has cut out pieces of it in there.
 
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I don’t find any Church source of this claim, seems the original source is a quote of an English bishop of the 14th century in Barbara Tuchman’s Distant Mirror.

Where is my copy when I need it? I know I have that book somewhere. So without it I don’t know what her source is.

Anyhoo, that would not have been a sacramental confession. So not sure what the aim was, perhaps simply comfort to the dying. The article also claims Pope Clement gave remission of sins to the dying, so maybe either a plenary indulgence or a general absolution.

At any rate, what he did not do is give lay people the authority to hear sacramental confession because that isn’t possible.
 
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@Daniellee1228: I take it you’re not Catholic. The forum rules forbid proselytizing.

@1ke: I provided a link above which includes a nihil obstat and imprimatur. It focuses on women’s contributions. But it does substantiate the decision.


@babochka: All I’ve read about laypeople says they heard confessions. I can find no evidence of them absolving penitents. Pope Clement VI proclaimed an apostolic pardon after the plague ended.

@Fauken My question is has been resolved. So I’m locking the thread. But here’s a link to the page with the quote.

@Fauken: Here is another source for you

Hatcher, John. Black Death: A Personal History. (page 117) Hatchett Press, 2009.
 
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@Daniellee1228: you might want to check out John 20:23, where Jesus gives the apostles the authority to forgive or retain sins. That is the basis for the Catholic sacrament of confession/reconciliation.
 
You’ll have to forgive Catholics for thinking that they should go to a priest to confess sins, and hear the priest say ‘I absolve you of all your sins…’

Catholics approach the Eucharist and eat the body of Jesus, the Lamb of God. They like to make sure they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb before eating his body, as he commanded us to do.
 
njlisa said:
@Fauken: Here is another source for you

Hatcher, John. Black Death: A Personal History. (page 117) Hatchett Press, 2009.
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I’m sorry but I don’t have access to that book. I’d want to see the page.
 
Again, you are proselytizing here in violation of forum rules.
 
njlisa said:
During the Black Plague, few priests were available to administer the last rites. So Pope Clement VI allowed laypeople, both men and women, to hear confessions of the dying when no priests were available.

Drawing on Pope Clement VI’s decision as a precedent, could the church temporarily allow telephone or video confessions?
Click to expand...
Lay persons can hear any confession that a soul is willing to give, but they cannot give absolution. There is nothing in the source that you cited that indicated that this was intended to be the sacrament. I think that desperate times call for desperate measures, and if somebody’s soul is burdened by sin, some might find it helpful to the process of asking God for forgiveness to speak those sins aloud to another human being. Desperate times call for desperate measures , but this is not the sacrament.
 
To @babochka and all the rest.

Pope Clement issued an apostolic pardon after the plague. So maybe people just heard the confessions. I’m sorry I dragged the Black Plague into this discussion.

God bless you all.
 
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