Is taking satisfaction in a person's death a mortal sin...?

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Only a priests can prescribe a penance. As for your satisfaction, it might depend on the situation but I don’t know.
 
Possibly, but in practice I think this could often be a “feeling” rather than a voluntary act of the will. I’d ask my priest in confession.

As for penance, whichever the priest assigns in confession should be completed, but I don’t think it would necessarily require restitution specific to this aside from that; just the required contrition and purpose of amendment.
 
OK, but what kind of penances do priests prescribe in situations like this one? Also, what kind of penances do they prescribe for people who don’t immediately confess all of their sins?
 
Depends on the priest. Depends on the types of sins being confessed. It almost always involves prayer and / or scriptural reading. Sometimes good works.

As to your question, we shouldn’t relish someone’s death, but I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with recognizing that the world may be better off with someone not in it…

It’s a hard question. We especially shouldn’t be happy if they lived a life that appears to have been away from the Church or God. We also shouldn’t hope that they’re damned or anything like that, no matter how awful a life they lived. Maybe the best stance is just to recognize that they’re dead, and use that as a memento mori to focus in on our own mortality and getting right with God.
 
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Assigned penance varies widely among confessors, even if the sin confessed is the same, with the same circumstances. In general (I cannot emphasize that enough), penance assigned in confession falls into one or more of these three categories:
  • pray something
  • read something
  • do something that is neither prayer nor reading
 
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You could have a “nice priest” that’ll ask you pray a Mary or two, or he might ask for a whole Rosary, who Knows?
I’ve never left confession with more than a handful of Hail Mary’s and I’ve confessed a lot…
Don’t worry about your penance, it’ll be just right for you.
 
I would guess it depends on the circumstances. Celebrating the death of someone we don’t like for whatever reason is one thing. Celebrating the death of a loved one who has struggled with pain and terminal illness is quite another.
 
On a lighter note;

“I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
― Mark Twain
 
It could be a human reaction to the death of a person that did heinous things, but does it make one truly happy?
 
From the Vatican’s statement on the death of Osama Bin Laden:
“Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of each and every one of us before God and before man, and hopes and commits himself so that no event be an opportunity for further growth of hatred, but for peace.”
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In that vein, when I saw the headlines that day, it was a feeling of (I want to say) relief. It was the feeling of “he can’t do any more.” A strange mixture of (and this feels like the wrong word) happiness, relief, and solemness. And just thinking about it brings it back.
 
SMEDIA said:
and if it is, what would be the penance required to absolve it?
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There are many causes of death so how can one answer be given?
Certainly the thought is not sinful if it is not uncharitable. There should be no voluntary hatred of a person. There are many deaths that have occurred naturally, and in just wars, and in just executions.
 
mVitus said:
In that vein, when I saw the headlines that day, it was a feeling of (I want to say) relief. It was the feeling of “he can’t do any more.” A strange mixture of (and this feels like the wrong word) happiness, relief, and solemness. And just thinking about it brings it back.
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I believe it’s also acceptable to feel a sense of satisfaction at justice being accomplished. It’s sort of the opposite of feeling glee because of revenge.
 
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