Lack of absolution

[Denise_Shae]

Oh my! Michael, you went through all this trouble just to help me ( a stranger ) out?
I don’t even know how to begin to thank you**.**

BTW, I’m sorry if that I got a wrong inference from your OP. I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry.

Hey, no problem. I suppose a lot of people use that old, “I got this friend”, line.
Unfortunately, I have many of them; coming from a non-practicing family. (Which also includes extended family members and friends who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s)

On something like this, it’s better to talk privately to your priest and to remind them to talk to their priests, because the ladies are breaking the Seal of the Confessional, and it shouldn’t go further than that. Under no circumstance do you want to be a partner to that, even if they are insisting.

I agree, and I do. However, remember – these are ladies who apparently do not take the Sacrament very seriously; as you can obviously see, or else I wouldn’t have posted to begin with.

Oh, and I’m very glod to see that you’ve come back. Congratulations!

Okay, please forgive me my lously memory. It’s obvious, from the above quote, you remember me. And I’m embarrassed to admit; I’m drawing a complete blank.
My computer crashed at least a year or so ago, and I was finally able to save up enough money to purchase a laptop and get high-speed cable Internet.
So, please refresh my memory?

[SIGN]And thanks for the warm Welcome back and Congrats![/SIGN]

 

[Joan_M]

On something like this, it’s better to talk privately to your priest and to remind them to talk to their priests, because the ladies are breaking the Seal of the Confessional, and it shouldn’t go further than that. Under no circumstance do you want to be a partner to that, even if they are insisting.

May God richly bless you for your efforts in living the faith. Oh, and I’m very glod to see that you’ve come back. Congratulations!

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

Michael, I believe you are mistaken here. It is my understanding that each one of us has the liberty to speak to anyone at any time of what was told to us in confession. We are not bound by any seal of the confessional - only the priest or anyone who may have heard (as in a translator) or overheard (as in someone outside the confessional who could not help hearing what was being said) are bound by the seal.

I’m sure one or other of our resident deacons or canon lawyers can correct me if I am wrong.

 

[puzzleannie]

Puzzleanne:

It’s my suspicion that either our OP is using the Pill and has gone through what’s she’s described or has had a few women break the Code of the Confessional and tell her they weren’t absolved but not exactly why.

I have no opinion at all on OPs actions, conscience or state of soul or what he or she is or is not doing. that speculation is not the topic of this thread. I answered OP’s original question, which has been adequately addressed by other posters. the thread should be closed because the question has been answered.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

I have no opinion at all on OPs actions, conscience or state of soul or what he or she is or is not doing. that speculation is not the topic of this thread. I answered OP’s original question, which has been adequately addressed by other posters. the thread should be closed because the question has been answered.

Puzzleanane:

I agree, and so does the OP.

I hope you’ll look at my post to the OP immediately after the one you quoted where I corrected my erroneous and uncharitable assumption.

As this thread has taken an uncharitable turn off topic, I hereby ask the MODS to close it down.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Michael, I believe you are mistaken here. It is my understanding that each one of us has the liberty to speak to anyone at any time of what was told to us in confession. We are not bound by any seal of the confessional - only the priest or anyone who may have heard (as in a translator) or overheard (as in someone outside the confessional who could not help hearing what was being said) are bound by the seal.

I’m sure one or other of our resident deacons or canon lawyers can correct me if I am wrong.

Joan,

If I’m mistaken, then so is my pastor who corrected me when I asked someone if he had told his confessor about something. According to him, I’m not even supposed to ask when you last went to Confession, let alone what you talked about when you went, and you’re not supposed to volunteer. and, The same rule applies for volunteering information. Except for saying something vague such as, “I try to make my Confessions monthly,” I’m not supposed to say anything.

1467 Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents’ lives.72 This secret, which admits of no exceptions, is called the “sacramental seal,” because what the penitent has made known to the priest remains “sealed” by the sacrament.

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4E.HTM

The Seal of the Confessional

However, a priest may ask the penitent for a release from the sacramental seal to discuss the confession with the person himself or others. For instance, if the penitent wants to discuss the subject matter of a previous confession — a particular sin, fault, temptation, circumstance — in a counseling session or in a conversation with the same priest, that priest will need the permission of the penitent to do so. For instance, especially with the advent of “face-to-face confession,” I have had individuals come up to me and say, “Father, remember that problem I spoke to you about in confession?” I have to say, “Please refresh my memory,” or “Do you give me permission to discuss this with you now?”

*Another interesting side to this question is the obligation of the laity: An interpreter needed for someone to make a confession or anyone who gains knowledge of a confession (such as overhearing someone’s confession) is also obligated to preserve secrecy (Code of Canon Law, No. 983.2). For such a person to violate the secrecy of another person’s confession is a mortal sin and warrants “a just penalty, not excluding excommunication” (No. 1388.2). A person who falsely accuses a priest of breaking the seal of the confession incurs a mortal sin and perhaps other canonical penalties, including excommunication.

Clearly, the Church regards the seal of confession as sacred. Every person — whether priest or laity — must take the obligation to preserve the secrecy of confession absolutely seriously.*

catholicherald.com/saunders/99ws/ws991118.htm

I think this later article should make more clear what my pastor was thinking when he told me as a layperson not to share my own confssions or ask about those of others.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Denise:

It’s what Christians do - A lot of people have done it for me, starting with an Orthodox Rabbi who risked his life to place a prayer request of mine in the Kotel a little over 3 years ago, and a lot of people have helped me here and elsewhere.

We’re a BODY and not just a collection of individuals, although it’s often easy to feel that way…

Oh my! Michael, you went through all this trouble just to help me ( a stranger ) out?
I don’t even know how to begin to thank you**.**

…So, I’m sure it’s no more trouble than many others have gone through for me, and definitely did not include risking my life.

That doesn’t make it right. There are ways you could have phrased your OP that would have made such a stupid, uncharitible act more unlikely, but I still should have remembered the, “Be quick to hear, slow to speak,” rule in the Epistle…

Hey, no problem. I suppose a lot of people use that old, “I got this friend”, line.
Unfortunately, I have many of them; coming from a non-practicing family. (Which also includes extended family members and friends who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s)

…Having most of your family and frinds be a mixture of non-believers and Cafeteria Catholics doesn’t make it any easier to practice the faith, although the feedback your getting tells me that the priests are probably preaching the Gospel and the Faith, and that will make it a little easier.

One thing you can do to help yourself is to start getting to know some of the more faithful members of the parish. Get involved in a choir, or in layreading, or in the coffee hour, or in any other activities your parish might be offering (going out to breakfast/lunch with some of the attendees after either daily or the Sunday Mass is also a good idea if some of them do that). I have a friend who goes to the TLM’s in this archdiocese, and about 20 of those who attend go together for lunch after Mass (I joined them once & met a guy who’s written several books on the faith).

You will find that you will less and less in common with some of your unbelieving friends and that you’ll need new believing friends to take their place, and that your new friends will be a more edifying influence on your life…

Okay, please forgive me my lously memory. It’s obvious, from the above quote, you remember me. And I’m embarrassed to admit; I’m drawing a complete blank.
My computer crashed at least a year or so ago, and I was finally able to save up enough money to purchase a laptop and get high-speed cable Internet.
So, please refresh my memory?

[SIGN]And thanks for the warm Welcome back and Congrats![/SIGN]

Thank you for the enthusiastic welcome, but I didn’t remember you from here. It’s just that I believe that everyone who has been gone from the Church needs a good, “Welcome Home!” If you look in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Father is sending people looking for his wauward son and scanning the horizon looking for the slightest sign of him. As soon as he sees something he recognizes as his son, he leaps off his perch on the roof and sprints down the road. The words of repentence and self reproach weren’t even out of the poor disheveled lads mouth before he was embraced by his father in a bear-hug and showered with kisses, because, “He who was had once been lost was now found, and he who had once been dead was now alive.”

I didn’t know if anyone had welcomed you back home to the Church, or if anyne else did that when you stared posting here, so I wanted to make sure that it was done, and that you felt what I felt when I wasn’t thrown out after being gone for nearly 25 years, but welcomed instead.

Welcome home.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael