Now I think I've heard everything RE: Confession!

[Feanor]

Though I do not care for communal penance service- if they also contain individual confessions this would constitute a sound confession. This whole burning of the lists thing is just too weird. I would also be nervous about all of these sins written down.

Though there would likely be no abuse it just opens up too many doors. I do know that deaf people can confess this way but that is individual and the priest simply gives back the list.

I could also see something like this at a retreat- but not as a substitute for the sacrament.

I mean do these priests just sit around and say, “Hey that would be neat- Lets try it!!”

 

[samovila]

This is the second really weird thing I have read happening in Pennsylvania this week…and I always thought of Pennsylvania as being so traditional. …

I assure you that we are quite traditional compared to what I have seen and heard of going on elsewhere! This did in fact take place in New Brunswick. I don’t know which parish, but my mother-in-law lives in Saint John.

 

[BSHoop96]

**It didn’t happen in Pennsylvania but in New Brunswick, Canada. ** I’d love to know in what diocese. It does sound like some of the ideas I’ve heard bounced around when I was on the liturgy committee of my parish and we had general absolution each Advent and Lent.

After my diocese, and indeed most dioceses in Canada, stopped having routine general absolution about 6 years ago I had a priest in NB say to me that, as far as he was concerned, anyone who showed up for a Reconciliation Service was showing repentance and deserved to not have obstacles put in his path, obstacles like oral confession. Half of his diocese (based on language) was still using G.A. “until a question we’ve asked is answered”.

Oh…well that makes more sense.

 

[Phemie]

I assure you that we are quite traditional compared to what I have seen and heard of going on elsewhere! This did in fact take place in New Brunswick. I don’t know which parish, but my mother-in-law lives in Saint John.

I would have thought that diocese would be more orthodox.

 

[BSHoop96]

I assure you that we are quite traditional compared to what I have seen and heard of going on elsewhere! This did in fact take place in New Brunswick. I don’t know which parish, but my mother-in-law lives in Saint John.

Is is true that there are Catholic schools in Pennsylvania that have made religious education “optional” so as not to offend their non-Catholic students?? That’s what I read in a thread on here.

 

[Phemie]

There’s nothing wrong with Form 2 of the sacrament of Penance: Penitential Service with private confession. I prefer it myself since it underlines that reconciliation with God also involves reconciliation with community & family.

We will be celebrating ours tomorrow night.

 

[Ginger2]

I was recently on another thread discussing priests forgiving sins.

Someone said the priest doesn’t need to see into a person’s heart to absolve them for their sins, because Christ is right there and Christ knows the condition of their heart - if they are truly repentant.

So I am wondering why the priest would be required to read the sins for it to be a valid confession, since God knows what was written on those pieces of paper.

 

[JVSantos]

This also happened to a retreat I attended.
Before the start of the retreat Mass (Sat.pm), the Priest ask us to write all our sins in a piece of paper and placed it in a box. The box is then place next to the Altar, the Mass was celebrated. He then said a prayer for the absolution of sins for all the people that wrote their sins in the box. After the Mass the papers are burned outside the Church. I did not think anything of it. Coz Im truly repentant and sincere with all my heart. I wrote it all out from the bottom of my heart asking for forgiveness of my sins from God.

Later on I was able to confess my sins face to face to a Priest.

 

[JVSantos]

I was recently on another thread discussing priests forgiving sins.

Someone said the priest doesn’t need to see into a person’s heart to absolve them for their sins, because Christ is right there and Christ knows the condition of their heart - if they are truly repentant.

So I am wondering why the priest would be required to read the sins for it to be a valid confession, since God knows what was written on those pieces of paper.

The Priest on the retreat I went to did not read the sins.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I was recently on another thread discussing priests forgiving sins.

Someone said the priest doesn’t need to see into a person’s heart to absolve them for their sins, because Christ is right there and Christ knows the condition of their heart - if they are truly repentant.

So I am wondering why the priest would be required to read the sins for it to be a valid confession, since God knows what was written on those pieces of paper.

The Sacrament requires that the sinner communicate his or her sins in person to the priest. That can be done verbal, in any language, in sign language, in writing, thru an interpreter.

 

[samcarter14]

I have read about this practice at Catholic retreats, especially ones in which it’s supposed to be a “healing mass” where you heal from sins your ancestors and family members have committed. Supposedly, if you have had Masons in your family, or anybody in your family has used a ouija board (for example; there were many other things on the list I read online), it can “interfere” with your own spiritual growth.

So they have you write down all your family’s connections with such things, or sins, and then they get collected and burned.

My sister in law and mother in law signed up to go such a retreat. My SIL’s plane kept getting delayed until finally she only got to the retreat in time for the very last bit on Sunday; she missed the “healing Mass”.

Some would see that as coincidence, i like to see it as God kind of intervening there.

 

[Shai22]

How on earth could this be a valid sacrament of reconciliation?

That is only for GOD to decide!

 

[Ginger2]

The Sacrament requires that the sinner communicate his or her sins in person to the priest. That can be done verbal, in any language, in sign language, in writing, thru an interpreter.

Thank you

 

[Ginger2]

How on earth could this be a valid sacrament of reconciliation?

That is only for GOD to decide!

Then who are you to suggest it’s not valid. If God forgives the sins, It would be valid whether they confess to a priest or not, correct?

 

[Sir_Knight]

John 20:23 – *"Whose sins YOU shall forgive, they **are *forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."

 

[quiet52]

Several years ago someone invited me to her parish’s Advent Mission, during which there was a communal penance service followed by individual confessions. During the communal part, we were to write the sins we wanted to confess on a slip of paper handed to us, and we were instructed that we were to bring these to the urn in front of the altar after our individual confessions, and to burn them. There were several priests (only one from that parish). I approached a visiting priest, to whom I handed my paper, and I began my Confession (“Bless me Father, for I have sinned…”) He interrupted me to ask if I’m sorry for all my sins. I said “Yes, Father.” He didn’t even look at my paper (and I doubt he could have read my writing – he told me my sins are forgiven and told me to recite an act of contrition, and handed my paper back to me. I was too stunned to say anything. Afterwards, I felt cheated. But I did not learn until a couple of years later that it was an invalid Confession. I couldn’t even remember what sins I had wanted to confess, so had to presume that because of my sincere contrition, God did forgive me.

The Sacrament requires that the sinner communicate his or her sins in person to the priest. That can be done verbal, in any language, in sign language, in writing, thru an interpreter.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must “confess with the lips” (#1450). We’re not to look for loopholes to get out of this requirement. The Code of Canon Law has several references to the priests’ faculty (permission) to “hear” confessions. Of course those who cannot speak may use sign language and have an interpreter who speaks for him/her, and those who cannot speak or sign (usually because of a medical condition) may write, if they’re able to. This is what has been explained to me.

 

[Ginger2]

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must “confess with the lips” (#1450). We’re not to look for loopholes to get out of this requirement. The Code of Canon Law has several references to the priests’ faculty (permission) to “hear” confessions. Of course those who cannot speak may use sign language and have an interpreter who speaks for him/her, and those who cannot speak or sign (usually because of a medical condition) may write, if they’re able to. This is what has been explained to me.

If the church law says that, then that is how it should be done.

 

[benedictgal]

I was recently on another thread discussing priests forgiving sins.

Someone said the priest doesn’t need to see into a person’s heart to absolve them for their sins, because Christ is right there and Christ knows the condition of their heart - if they are truly repentant.

So I am wondering why the priest would be required to read the sins for it to be a valid confession, since God knows what was written on those pieces of paper.

No. He is not to read the sins; he is to hear them directly from the penitent’s lips, or, in the case of the hearing impaired, through some other means.

I posted the circular letter concerning the Integrity of the Sacrament of Penance. This was written back in 2000. Why some folks are still trying to be creative eight years later is beyond me.

 

[benedictgal]

How on earth could this be a valid sacrament of reconciliation?

That is only for GOD to decide!

What the OP described is not a valid form of confession. Through the Petrine Ministry, Jesus delegated the authority to Peter and his successors to bind and loosen. In this case, Peter, in the person of the Servant of God Pope John Paul II, effectively said, in the circular letter on the Integrity of the Sacrament of Penance, that such services are ilicit and invalid.

Here is the document for you to read in its entirety:

adoremus.org/6-72K.Penance.html

Inasmuch as the link is from Adoremus, the document is from the Holy See.

 

[michaeldaniels]

Rest assured…this is as invalid a sacrament as if the Rev. Al Sharpton tried to consecrate the bread and wine and then claim it was the Eucharist

My mother-in-law told us that she went to a group confession on Saturday at a Catholic church in New Brunswick, Canada. Instead of individually confessing to the priest, they had everyone write down their sins and put them in a box at the front of the church. The priest said some prayers over the box, burnt the contents and gave a group absolution. They said they were trying to make it easier for people to return to the Church who were uncomfortable with confessing their sins. I asked her if the priest reads the sins and she said, no, he just burns them. How on earth could this be a valid sacrament of reconciliation?!