Decree of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on Certain Aspects of the Celebration of the Sacrament of Penance

[centurionguard]

Admitting one sin only (In an increasing number of liberated Canadian Catholic Parishes ) when confessing to a priest during the celebration of Reconciliation as foreseen in some parishes is not what the Church and the CCEC teaches. I for one would appreciate if the entire congregation was informed by my parish priest of situations that do not conform to these norms so we can pursue them with the archbishop.

You may be interested to read the recent Decree of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops for the purpose of applying the norms of the APOSTOLIC LETTER IN THE FORM OF MOTU PROPRIO MISERICORDIA DEI on Certain Aspects of the Celebration of the Sacrament of Penance.
i believe that much of what is contained herein echos concerns held by Catholic American brothers and sisters in Christ.

See; cccb.ca/site/images/stories/pdf/misericordia_dei-eng.pdf

 

[benedictgal]

I am not Canadian. In fact, I am at the other border. However, I did take the time to read the document that the CCB issued and I must say that it is consistent with the Circular Letter on the Sacrament of Penance that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued back in 2000.

Obviously, Canada’s needs are vastly different than ours down here (with the exception of Alaska, which, I am sure, has issues that are similar as far as the frequency of priestly visits to Catholic communities within the state and bad weather). However, there are similarities that we share, especially where the availability of the sacrament is concerned.

This is what the 2000 CDWDS document notes:

1. Local Ordinaries and priests, to the degree that it applies to them, have an obligation in conscience to ensure that penitents have regular and frequent scheduled opportunities for individual and integral confession of sins in all parish churches and insofar as possible in other pastoral centres.14 In addition, priests are called upon to be generous in making themselves available outside of those scheduled times to celebrate individual and integral confession whenever the faithful would reasonably ask for it.15 "Other works, for lack of time, may have to be postponed or even abandoned, but not the confessional."16

In fact, this statement is repeated in the Canadian document. Inasmuch as the document bases itself on the Motu Propio issued by the late Pope John Paul II, parts of this document also seem to come wholesale from the Circular Letter.

Here is a link to the Circular letter written in 2000:

adoremus.org/6-72K.Penance.html

For those of you unfamiliar with the document, it was written as a result of a serious reprimand that the late Pope John Paul II had given the Australian Bishops Conference because of the wholesale application of the general aboslution. This letter is similar to the Motu Propio and I assume, having read the Canadian document, that they are pretty much the same thing.

 

[Allen537]

A very nice decree from the Canadian Bishops!

In Carmel,

Br. Allen

 

[Ghoti]

See? We’re not totally Red Secular Canuckistan up here.

 

[Phemie]

My only surprise with the document is its date. I thought the hammer had come down on Form 3 back in 2002 in Canada, that’s certainly the year it came down in our diocese. The previous 10 years had seen General Absolution used in Penitential Services at least twice a year in all the parishes where I was a member.

When I went back to my home parish in 2003, the pastor there questioned me about it, asking if we’d done away with it in the parish where I was a resident. When I replied in the affirmative, he said that only the English part of his diocese had ceased offering GA, the French part was still having it “until some parts of the document are clarified.” I was rather taken aback by that, feeling that it was rather unfair that if you were unilingual English you were stuck with Form 1 and if you were bilingual or French you got to attend a Form 3 celebration. Did it take 4 years for the CCCB to ‘clarify’?