How did they preserve the anonymity of the confessional? Just curious.
Well he’s right - the common thing would be to use ABC.
I don’t think anonymity is a requirement. I’ve been to quite a number of confessions, at several different parishes, where there was no barrier between the priest and me at all.
It was just a blank slip, in Polish — both times, I had to explain to the priest what it was, and IIRC I made an X to indicate where they were supposed to sign. It was two different priests. Both times I confessed behind the screen (which is my preference, though I’m not rigid about it) and just handed the slip around the wall.HomeschoolDad:
How did they preserve the anonymity of the confessional? Just curious.
No, he meant that the common thing was for couples to be open to life, and to have that first child a year or so after the wedding. I confessed at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (Washington DC), where my experience has been that the priests run pretty conservative. I always found that Catholic life in greater DC (especially Arlington!) was like that, generally speaking. At the pre-Cana conference (again, Arlington diocese), they spent a lot of time talking about NFP. That’s the way it should be everywhere.HomeschoolDad:
Well he’s right - the common thing would be to use ABC.
I just confessed to two different priests, neither of whom I knew, for the sake of convenience. The diocese in Poland didn’t care who you confessed to, just so long as you went to confession somewhere and had the priest to sign the little slip they gave to both of us at the pre-marital interview.
Still I think most couples start by using ABC - not that I’m condoning it, but having a couple willing to use any form of NFP is probably very rare. And I don’t thing it’s entirely unreasonable for a newlywed couple to start with NFP. They’re going through a big life change, and I think it’s reasonable to not want to add a baby to that. Also, presumably NFP takes time to learn, and starting when you have zero kids and can afford a misstep is better than trying to learn at five kids and not being able to afford a misstep.
If you’re not ready for at least the possibility of having a child nine months after the wedding, you shouldn’t be getting married in the first place.HomeschoolDad:
Still I think most couples start by using ABC - not that I’m condoning it, but having a couple willing to use any form of NFP is probably very rare. And I don’t thing it’s entirely unreasonable for a newlywed couple to start with NFP. They’re going through a big life change, and I think it’s reasonable to not want to add a baby to that. Also, presumably NFP takes time to learn, and starting when you have zero kids and can afford a misstep is better than trying to learn at five kids and not being able to afford a misstep.
I had never thought of this — a priest signing his name to a slip certifying that a penitent has been to confession being tantamount to breaking the seal of the confessional. One solution might be that many Europeans sign their names in such a way that you can’t even read it, and can’t tell who signed it unless you already know that person and know what their signature looks like. I’m not European (descent, yes, birth and citizenship, no) and sometimes I sign my own name in a barely-legible manner when I’m signing a credit card slip or similar. Guess I picked that up over there.
I’m not saying it is fine, but i think that saying that most couples don’t even bother with NFP is an uncontroversial statement
That’s sort of my point. It’s better to start learning it at the beginning of the marriage, where any failures can be accounted for, then to pay immediately start having a bunch of kids and only starting the learning process at kid 5, when you can’t afford any failure.
No, it’s always been my understanding that a priest cannot tell a third party that so-and-so has even been to confession. Seen that way, the “confession affidavit” used in Polish dioceses does, indeed, present a problem.
It is indeed uncontroversial. You are just stating a fact.HomeschoolDad:
I’m not saying it is fine, but i think that saying that most couples don’t even bother with NFP is an uncontroversial statement
Agreed. Any faithful Catholic contemplating marriage, however, needs to go into marriage with their eyes wide open, and realize that fertility could be much more abundant than they’re counting on — in which case total or near-total abstinence might have to be the way to avoid having tons of children — or, sadly, it may not be abundant at all, God forbid, there may be no children.HomeschoolDad:
That’s sort of my point. It’s better to start learning it at the beginning of the marriage, where any failures can be accounted for, then to pay immediately start having a bunch of kids and only starting the learning process at kid 5, when you can’t afford any failure.
, my means are very modest, I am going with the assumption that my earning years are pretty much over, and even if I were as rich as Croesus, I would be in my 80s when those children were entering adulthood. You can’t buy back lost youth. (The closest you can get is a candy-apple-red Mustang convertible with a five-speed manual transmission.)True. Ordinarily I wouldn’t say anything about whether or not a person had been to confession because of the chilling effect, ias well as the risk of scandal. However, there are “confession slips” like are being referred to here which verify that a person has been to confession (I’ve heard about them but never seen one). There’s nothing wrong with a priest filling one of these in.
Openness to children is a necessary part of Catholic marriage so the question about plans for children does come up even if only indirectly. However, when it comes to matters like NFP the reality is that most couples who approach a priest about marriage tend not to be churched and so asking about their sex life is simply too much too soon. I’m not saying that it’s not important but just that there’s a need to build a relationship of trust first and foremost - to put it another way, we want them to have a Catholic marriage and asking deeply personal questions is more likely than not going to scare them off. Even if a couple admit to using contraception, that’s not a reason to refuse to marry them provided they’re open to having children.
Yes, even as much of a hardnose as I am about it, I do concede that a couple’s plans to use contraception should not forbid them a Catholic wedding. The only wrinkle there, is that it is a sacrilege to receive a sacrament in mortal sin, and if someone’s got their mind made up that they’re going to commit a sin, it is as though they’ve already committed it. But that part, I will leave between them and their priest. Father John Hardon did speculate, I believe, that couples who begin their marriage by using contraception continuously, may never truly consummate their marriages until and unless they quit using it, so that’s something else to consider. (Sorry, I don’t have a source for this, interested readers might Google it.)HomeschoolDad:
Openness to children is a necessary part of Catholic marriage so the question about plans for children does come up even if only indirectly. However, when it comes to matters like NFP the reality is that most couples who approach a priest about marriage tend not to be churched and so asking about their sex life is simply too much too soon. I’m not saying that it’s not important but just that there’s a need to build a relationship of trust first and foremost - to put it another way, we want them to have a Catholic marriage and asking deeply personal questions is more likely than not going to scare them off. Even if a couple admit to using contraception, that’s not a reason to refuse to marry them provided they’re open to having children.
