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FrDavid96
Guest
Well, that depends. It depends upon just what sort of criteria one is applying to determine if it’s a sin or not. That’s why I’m limiting myself here to just addressing the original question about whether or not it was a sin to attend that Mass in a place falsely claiming to be a Catholic parish. As I’ve said a few times now, it isn’t a sin to be the victim of someone else’s lies (unless one is intentionally ignorant of the truth, or otherwise participates in the lie itself). Once we know it’s not a sin, then it shouldn’t be confessed. Sometimes this is a ‘grey area’ where it might or might not be, and in that case, then yes, a person should go to confession (or at least at the next confession) bring it up to the confessor and ask him. But in this particular instance, there’s no grey area. The OP clearly wanted to go to a valid and licit Mass, and made every reasonable effort to do so–that’s critical.
There’s a reason why I generally don’t participate in confession threads (several reasons). But I don’t see this so much as a confession thread as one asking whether or not the action itself was a sin–and certainly not something even remotely close to being a matter of excommunication (which was likewise part of the OP’s question). In this particular instance, the matter is so clear that there’s really no question but that there was no sin, so there’s nothing to confess; not even “just in case.”
I hesitate even to say that because this forum should never be seen as a replacement for the in-person counsel of a priest-confessor, but given the circumstances of the thread, and the obvious conclusion that it can’t be a sin to be the victim of someone else’s lies, I posted anyway.