Priest deciding Fate

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mm1991

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Hi,

(Really sorry if this is the wrong place to put this!)

I’m a confirmed Lutheran thinking about converting and joining the Roman Catholic Church.

I have a concern though: my mother. When she was younger, she was a catholic. As she got older, she wandered away from the faith and did some bad things. When she realezed she was wrong, she wanted to rejoin the church (and even had aspirations of becoming a nun). But to her dismay, as she was confessing to a priest, he suddenly screamed at her, “You’ll never get to heaven. These sins are too bad, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to ever have them forgiven. They are too horrible and you will go to hell.”
She ran out crying. She then became a born-again christian.
She still cries about the experience to this day.
I’m worried about telling her that I’m tihnking about converting.

But anyways…does a priest have authority to say such a thing?

I’m hoping someone can explain this odd experience my mother had.
😦
 
mm1991 said:
Hi,

(Really sorry if this is the wrong place to put this!)

I’m a confirmed Lutheran thinking about converting and joining the Roman Catholic Church.

I have a concern though: my mother. When she was younger, she was a catholic. As she got older, she wandered away from the faith and did some bad things. When she realezed she was wrong, she wanted to rejoin the church (and even had aspirations of becoming a nun). But to her dismay, as she was confessing to a priest, he suddenly screamed at her, “You’ll never get to heaven. These sins are too bad, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to ever have them forgiven. They are too horrible and you will go to hell.”
She ran out crying. She then became a born-again christian.
She still cries about the experience to this day.
I’m worried about telling her that I’m tihnking about converting.

But anyways…does a priest have authority to say such a thing?

I’m hoping someone can explain this odd experience my mother had.
😦
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No a Priest does not have the authortiy to do this and I have NEVER heard of a case where a Priest did this.
 
Dear Lord!!!
Your mother’s priest had a problem there! He wasn’t personally handling things. You’ll find priests everywhere will groan at this story about your mother’s experience. No matter how bad her sins, God is merciful.

I’ll pray for your mother and for you.
What an amazing grace God has give you in calling you to conversion despite your mother’s lasting grief.

But you know what, dear soul, I believe you are God’s way of bringing healing to your mother, in the future. It could be that this priest deeply regretted his awful mistake and has prayed for your mother to this day.

“No need to recall the past,
no need to think about what was before.
See I am doing a new deed,
even now, it comes to light; can you not see it?
Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness,
paths in the wild.” [Isaiah 43:18-19]

For your mother
“I have dispelled your faults like a cloud
your sins like a mist
Come back to me, for I have redeemed you.” [Isaiah 44:22]
 
One of the most lauded saints of the 20th century wrote this

“If the greatest sinner should repent at the moment of his death, and draw his last breath in an act of love, neither the many graces he had abused, nor the multiplied crimes he had committed, would stand in his way. Our Lord would see nothing, count nothing, but the sinner’s last prayer, and without delay He would receive him into the arms of His mercy.” (Saint Therese of Lisieux)

I’m a cradle Catholic, and go to mass each day etc, but I promise your mother that when I see her coming to the gates of heaven I will rush to her as a Catholic soul and hug her spirit as warmly as my deepest heart can. Tell her that sometime when you get to the point of telling her. In my heart I hug her now…Trishie
 
I have never heard of a priest doing this before either. They know it is Jesus who forgives, and there is no sin too large to forgive – God’s love is greater than anything we do or fail to do. I wonder if someone was impersonating a priest to give your mother a hard time, not realizing how much it would hurt her.

Also, if in fact a priest said these things to your mother, she should have known that what this priest said is not true – and that something was seriously wrong with him. I’m wondering if something might be wrong with your mother’s memory? Again, I’ve never heard of a priest saying this before. It goes against the teachings of the Church.

Priests rejoice when people come to the sacrament of Reconciliation. They are humbled that through their ordination they serve in persona Christi – in the person of Christ.

God has so many plans for each of us. Perhaps one of His plans for you is that you be His instrument to welcome your mother back to Catholicism.

I hope you’ve contacted Catholic parish near you to make an appointment with the pastor or RCIA leader.

Keep praying for your mother’s enlightenment and for her to be able to forgive the priest and the Church she believes hurt her so badly. Be a light of our Lord’s love for her. I suggest you keep praying for the wisdom and gentleness you need when you’re ready to tell her about your journey of faith.
 
Wow, thanks everyone for your kind words!
This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that catholics have passion and sincerity that other christian faiths do not.

Perhaps this was just a rare, unfortunate occurence.
I’m glad to know that it’s not okay for Priests to say such things.

I think next week I will try to go to Mass. I’ll just need to find a church. I’ll probly try a couple.
I’m still afraid of what my mother might say…
 
quiet52 said:
I .

Also, if in fact a priest said these things to your mother, she should have known that what this priest said is not true – and that something was seriously wrong with him. I’m wondering if something might be wrong with your mother’s memory? Again, I’ve never heard of a priest saying this before. It goes against the teachings of the Church.
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I’ve thought long and hard about commentng, because I desperately didn’t want to hurt or worry the OP, but I’ve decided I had to.
Of course, I don’t know how old the OP’s mother is, but this sounds so much like my own mother when she was getting older and (we realise now, but not at the time) developing dementia.

One of the symptoms is becoming convinced that something they dreamt either at night or as a daydream, or even just heard on a tv programme, is actually true - it’s called ‘conflation’ I think. One time, my own mother was adamant that one of my children had called her a ‘silly b**tch’, and wouldn’t be convinced otherwise, even though other members of the family had been in the room at the same time and said it hadn’t happened.

I ended up having to persuade my daughter to apologise to her for ‘saying’ it, even though she hadn’t, just to stop my mother getting increasingly distressed at not being believed.

Dementia can start very early, in the 50’s even. It’s just a thought, and I hope it isn’t true. But it could be an explanation.
 
estesbob said:
No a Priest does not have the authortiy to do this
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I’m going to disagree with SOME of what was said here. It is my understanding that a priest DOES have the authority to say these things. Jesus clearly said that those sins which they forgive will be forgiven and those sins that they retain WILL BE retained / unforgiven – to say otherwise is to call Christ a liar.

That said, a priest is SUPPOSE to treat others as he wishes to be treated for Jesus also said that as we judge, so shall we be judged and while some sins are more serious than other sins, all sin is offensive to God and Jesus died for all of them.

I would SUGGEST that your mother go to confession with another priest and re-confess those original sins as best as she can along with explaining what happened the first time that she confessed these sins with this priest – otherwise those sins MAY indeed remain unforgiven.

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

She may even want to begin the confession by saying that she has been away from the church for X years because the last time she went to confession, the priest told her that she was going to go to hell and that was no way that she would ever go to heaven and let the priest take it from there.
 
No offense, but I do not believe that any priest said such a thing. There is something else going on here beneath the surface…
 
Just a thought - for a priest to deny that there is the possibility of the forgiveness of any sin, other than blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, is outright heresy. By doing so, it is my understanding that he is automatically excommunicated, latae sentiae (sp?). Wouldn’t this call into question the validity of any sacraments he subsequently attempted to perform, or, if he had done this prior, even his authority to grant or refuse absolution in that case?
 
I’d second the suspicions about whether this actually occurred. If so, it is terrible. A priest can refuse one absolution for a serious reason (e.g. if the person seems or says they are unrepentant about a sin), but they cannot consign a soul to hell. Judgment remains with God alone.
 
Timothysis said:
No offense, but I do not believe that any priest said such a thing. There is something else going on here beneath the surface…
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It sounds like one of those horror stories fallen away catholics love to relay to their Protestant bretheren.
 
my grandmother had a bad confession experience as a teenager and it tainted her against the catholic church her whole life. she never left the church, but she wasn’t a big fan of it either. she casually raised her children in the church, but all of them have strange ideas about it. i’m not sure what she shared with them about the church as they were growing up, but except for my dad, most of them don’t go to church regularly, if at all.

so to say that the OP’s mother’s experience is a lie is very uncharitable. we are all sinners and that includes our priests. some priests have damaged souls with their actions. we must pray for them and for the souls that they have damaged.
 
estesbob said:
It sounds like one of those horror stories fallen away catholics love to relay to their Protestant bretheren.
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Very true, and like fishing stories things get bigger and bigger with each telling!
 
chewchoo said:
my grandmother had a bad confession experience as a teenager and it tainted her against the catholic church her whole life. she never left the church, but she wasn’t a big fan of it either. she casually raised her children in the church, but all of them have strange ideas about it. i’m not sure what she shared with them about the church as they were growing up, but except for my dad, most of them don’t go to church regularly, if at all.

so to say that the OP’s mother’s experience is a lie is very uncharitable. we are all sinners and that includes our priests. some priests have damaged souls with their actions. we must pray for them and for the souls that they have damaged.
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No oner is saying it is a lie. just that things like this tend to get distorted over time. The main point the OP whould bear in mind is that this Priest had no authority (or right) to say what it is said he did.
 
I’m not going to say anything about the probability of the story. After all, we only have a second-hand telling of one person’s version — we don’t have the priest’s side of the story.

What I will say though is that the title of the thread is what bothers me.

It is not ‘the priest’ who is deciding anybody’s fate. . .not the poster, and not his mother, either. God knows sometimes we can make mistakes but even if the priest said exactly what he is accused of saying, it was the mother’s decision to leave the faith. She did not HAVE to do so and the priest did not MAKE her do so–she CHOSE to do so.

Attempting to cast all the onus onto one priest’s alleged words as what is ‘keeping somebody’ from doing what he wants to do, or making somebody else do something it is implied she would not have done otherwise, does not sit right with me. We are responsible for our actions–or reactions–ultimately, even if others share some responsibility too.

No, it’s not a priest deciding fate. . .it is a man, the OP, striving to make the right decision and I pray that he does, and I pray for all his family as well.
 
Doesn’t the bible tell us in 1 Tim. 1:20 that our church leaders have the authority to “deliver us to Satan”?
 
It could be true. When my dad was young a classmate of his came out the confessional crying uncontrollably. My dad asked her what was wrong and she said…“I told Father that my mother served meat on Friday and he told me that my mother should have her hands cut off.”

So yeah, there are still priests like that out there. 😦 Very few, but they are still there.
 
mm1991 said:
I’m still afraid of what my mother might say…
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I have heard from several reliable Catholics that they have experienced priests who were not forgiving in the confessional, even to the point of what you originally described.

As for telling your mother, I have found in these situations sometimes if you tell something far worse (like you are going to be join a new age cult, wiccans, or what ever she would be more opposed to) then when you say you were kidding, and that you want to be Catholic then it does not look so bad in comparison in her eyes.
Its similar to introducing a new girlfriend ( or boyfriend as the case may be) who has some characteristic that you know your mother will absolutely hate; First tell her that you are dating a woman your mother’s age and then after your mother calms down , you say not really, but introduce your girlfriend , then in your mother’s eyes she is not so bad.
Humor and putting things in perspective helps.
 
I would just like to say that my mother is not “elderly”, and also that she doesn’t hate the Catholic church because of this.

Our family is made up of mostly catholics and we have many catholic friends. But because of this experience, she herself didn’t want to return to the catholic church. She also is very wary of priests.
But she’s certainly not a “catholic hater”.

Again, perhaps this was an unfortunate rare occurence.
 
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