My wedding officiant is leaving the priesthood?

[mandajane]

I’ve been planning my wedding for a while, and my FH and I are pretty well into our prep. I was a little shocked, then, to receive a phone call from my priest, who has been my priest since I was a child, letting me know he had decided to leave the priesthood, and needed to make other arrangements for my wedding.

I’m not sure how to feel. On the one hand, he’s more than entitled to make his own decisions about his life, and if he has discerned that the priesthood is not the road for him, then so be it. On the other hand, it makes me uncomfortable that the priest I’ve been confessing to almost every month since I converted at 13, is going to not be my confessor anymore, or that since he wont be a priest, he might tell people things I have confessed (he is good friends with some of my family members, and my FH’s family members, whom I have not been as charitable towards as I could have been.)

Aside from the wedding concerns ( we have to find a new officiant at this late hour, who may or may not be satisfied with what we’ve already done as far as pre-cana classes, who may or may not be what we’re looking for.) These personal concerns leave me very… uneasy.

Has anyone had a priest they were close to/and or comfortable with leave the priesthood? How did you handle it?

 

[triumphguy]

The soon to be laicised priest will still be bound by the seal of confession.

 

[Petergee]

I have never heard of a laicised or no-longer-practising priest blabbing about what he had heard in confessions.

Generally such men are anxious to demonstrate that they are still “good Catholics” despite having broken their sacred promise.

Priests are trained to try to forget what was confessed to them and they hear thousands of confessions, much of them being much the same. I doubt very much whether your priest friend even remembers anything that you have told him in confession. What we said sticks much more in our own minds than in the priest’s mind.

 

[mandajane]

You’re right, of course.

I just worry since he’s drinking buddies with my Future Father in Law.

Thank you for your reassurances.

 

[superamazingman]

Priests are trained to try to forget what was confessed to them and they hear thousands of confessions, much of them being much the same. I doubt very much whether your priest friend even remembers anything that you have told him in confession. What we said sticks much more in our own minds than in the priest’s mind.

this is very true, so I’d be at peace with your confessions.

When I’ve talked to priests about it, I often hear that they have the “grace of forgetfulness,” and they honestly don’t remember the sins once they leave the confessional.

 

[Petergee]

this is very true, so I’d be at peace with your confessions.

When I’ve talked to priests about it, I often hear that they have the “grace of forgetfulness,” and they honestly don’t remember the sins once they leave the confessional.

I get quite a lot of that grace and I’m a layman!

Actually our womenfolk assure us that a man never remembers anything that a woman tells him until she has told him at least twice!

 

[Joannm]

It really should not be up to you to find a new priest. The parish should provide one. Of course you are free to ask a priest from another parish with permission of the pastor.