Fake Confessions

  • Thread starter Thread starter PeteZaHut
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

PeteZaHut

Guest
I know this is something that would happen in a movie, but I guess it could happen in real life too.

If someone goes to confession, and the person hearing the confessions is not really a priest, he is an imposter, and the confession goes as normal, the person confessing never finds out that anything went wrong, were his sins forgiven by God?
 
We leave that up to God’s mercy. God can work outside the sacraments if He wants to.
 
PeteZaHut said:
I know this is something that would happen in a movie, but I guess it could happen in real life too.

If someone goes to confession, and the person hearing the confessions is not really a priest, he is an imposter, and the confession goes as normal, the person confessing never finds out that anything went wrong, were his sins forgiven by God?
Click to expand...
Heh, I immediately thought of that eerie scene in Ingmar Bergmann’s “The Seventh Seal”, where the knight goes to confession and he finds out he was confessing his sins to the Grim Reaper, who’s been dogging his footsteps all along…
 
Matrix_Refugee said:
Heh, I immediately thought of that eerie scene in Ingmar Bergmann’s “The Seventh Seal”, where the knight goes to confession and he finds out he was confessing his sins to the Grim Reaper, who’s been dogging his footsteps all along…
Click to expand...
That’s funny (not like haha funny but, well you know what I mean)…I thought of that episode of “Combat!” when a German soldier disquises himself as a priest and one of the American soldiers asks him to hear his confession.
 
There was an episode of “Mork and Mindy” about this, too.
 
That was on “The Simpsons” on the “Who shot Mr. Burns” episode. Smithers went to confession to confess to the crime and the police were in the priest’s side of the confessional.
 
At some level, wouldn’t the principle of *ecclesia supplet *apply here – that with respect to a sincere person with no knowledge that the “priest” was an imposter, their sins would clearly be forgiven?
 
First off, the Confession would be invalid. That’s a given, and there’s no getting away from it.

Second, ecclesia supplet supplies jurisdiction, not the sacramental power.

So no, the person’s sins would not be forgiven in this confessional forum. But God in his mercy would supply the necessary graces for the penitent who did his part of the bargain. Either he would provide the penitent (usually through natural or human means, such a newscast) with the knowledge that the man he confessed to was an impostor, and so make the penitent realize that he must re-confess, or should the penitent die, God can (and I don’t see why he won’t, in his mercy) remit the man’s sins, as God is himself not limited to his sacraments.

But if the penitent realizes that the man was an impostor, he would be bound to re-confess.
 
This happens more often then one might think. While the fake priest does not happen that much, a priest requires faculties from the local Bishop to validly hear confessions. If a priest, for what ever reason, hears confessions when he is not given the faculties by the local ordinary, then in the case would be the same as porthos described.
 
pnewton said:
This happens more often then one might think. While the fake priest does not happen that much, a priest requires faculties from the local Bishop to validly hear confessions. If a priest, for what ever reason, hears confessions when he is not given the faculties by the local ordinary, then in the case would be the same as porthos described.
Click to expand...
pnewton,

You mean the first part of porthos’ post would apply, right? Ecclessia supplet – jurisdiction would be supplied and the priest would validly absolve.

VC
 
Verbum_Caro said:
pnewton,

You mean the first part of porthos’ post would apply, right? Ecclessia supplet – jurisdiction would be supplied and the priest would validly absolve.

VC
Click to expand...
I believe that the absolution by the priest would still be invalid, but forgiveness would be available apart from the actual Sacrament. This presumes that the pentitent was ignorant of the fact the priest did not have valid faculties, like he wanders into the wrong Church. But this is not something I am an knowledgeable. In a real life situation, one should consult a priest of canon lawyer. I am going from memory on an article I read by Jimmy Akin.
 
The penitent would still be forgiven by God.

Absolution would not happen though, because absolution is a juridic act of the Church, and a non-priest, or a priest without proper faculties cannot impart absolution. Remember absolution and forgiveness are not synonymous.

As an aside, all priests who have the faculties to hear confessions from their own ordinary have those faculties all over the world unless they are denied on an individual basis.

This might happen more often than readers here might think because there are many non-Catholic ministers who make a practice of impersonating Catholic priests with regard to the Sacraments. I’m not going to mention the denomination, but I’m sure our dear readers know what I’m talking about.

PS yes, ecclesia supplet is the principle.
 
Here is the canon law for ecclesia supplet:

Can. 144 §1. In factual or legal common error and in positive and probable doubt of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and internal forum.

§2. The same norm is applied to the faculties mentioned in cann. ⇒ 882, ⇒ 883, ⇒ 966, and ⇒ 1111, §1.
 
This is a good question. We had this discussion with our Priest once and he said the confession was valid, it was not required of the sinner to know who is hearing the confession and check their credentials. Same as someone else said there are reasons even a priest might not be allowed to hear confessions. Part of his logic to us was the Priest is not forgiving you of the sin, God is through the Priest. So you receive the forgiveness from God. Otherwise you walk out wondering was the Priest valid and if your confession was valid.

Obviously the faux Priest is in big trouble. I look forward to doctrine on this.

Leroy
porthos11 said:
First off, the Confession would be invalid. That’s a given, and there’s no getting away from it.
Click to expand...
 
This did happen once. I remember reading a few months ago in the Vatican they found an imposter who’d been dressing up like a priest and hearing confessions untill a Swiss Guard got suspicious and asked for his ID. I think they put him on church trial or something, either that or they handed him over to Italy’s justice system, I can’t really remember what happened to him.
 
LeroyCRHP said:
This is a good question. We had this discussion with our Priest once and he said the confession was valid, it was not required of the sinner to know who is hearing the confession and check their credentials. Same as someone else said there are reasons even a priest might not be allowed to hear confessions. Part of his logic to us was the Priest is not forgiving you of the sin, God is through the Priest. So you receive the forgiveness from God. Otherwise you walk out wondering was the Priest valid and if your confession was valid.

Obviously the faux Priest is in big trouble. I look forward to doctrine on this.

Leroy
Click to expand...
This gets into some tricky vocabulary here. The Sacrament isn’t valid. Forgiveness occurs (assuming everything else is there like contrition, etc.), but there’s no valid Sacrament because there’s no valid priest. The penitent however is still forgiven because as you said, it’s not up to the penitent to check the “credentials” of a priest hearing confessions–unless of course it’s obvious or the penitent otherwise knows that he isn’t a real priest, or doesn’t have faculties.
 
Fr. David,

I couldn’t tell from your posts exactly (probably my poor reading comprehension skills), if this is what you meant:

In the case of someone who was not a priest – no sacrament / no sacramental grace / no absolution is had. Forgiveness would be had, however (in most cases). Ecclesia Supplet doesn’t factor into a case like this; forgiveness is given extra-sacramentally by God.

In the case of a priest who does not have faculties – valid (but illicit) sacrament / sacramental grace / absolution + forgiveness is obtained. *Ecclesia supplet *provides for the jursidiction/faculties of the priest.

Is that right?
Thanks,
VC
 
Kielbasi said:
That was on “The Simpsons” on the “Who shot Mr. Burns” episode. Smithers went to confession to confess to the crime and the police were in the priest’s side of the confessional.
Click to expand...
I saw an episode on some show where a criminal won’t confess to the police, so the police bring in a priest, and say, “You don’t know how hard it was to arrange this” (yeah, in real life, the priest wouldn’t be a priest for long, much less for what he did next). Then the crook confesses to some gruesome murder, and the priest gets wide eyed then says (in increasing anger), “WHY… YOU… LITTLE… !$&%*!%$(!@&#$!!!” (it was a bit worse than that, actually - along with a swear word) while proceeding to lunge across the table to strangle the crook. Definately not what would happen in a confessional. 🤷
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Fr. David,

I couldn’t tell from your posts exactly (probably my poor reading comprehension skills), if this is what you meant:

In the case of someone who was not a priest – no sacrament / no sacramental grace / no absolution is had. Forgiveness would be had, however (in most cases). Ecclesia Supplet doesn’t factor into a case like this; forgiveness is given extra-sacramentally by God.

In the case of a priest who does not have faculties – valid (but illicit) sacrament / sacramental grace / absolution + forgiveness is obtained. *Ecclesia supplet *provides for the jursidiction/faculties of the priest.

Is that right?
Thanks,
VC
Click to expand...
Not quite. Ecclesia Supplet applies in both cases. But it applies only to the penitent receiving forgiveness from God and the graces of the Sacrament (absolution as such does not happen). Both of those apply because the penitent is ignorant of the fact that the “priest” cannot absolve, and is therefore acting in good faith. Jurisdiction is only one of the many applications of Ecclesia Supplet.

Because absolution is a juridic act of the Church, faculties goes directly to validity. If a priest does not have faculties, absolution cannot be given and therefore there is no valid sacrament. Keep in mind though, that faculties are given by the law itself in unusual circumstances.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top