Question About Confession During Covid

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Phemie said:
It started when one Pastor announced that since no one came to Confession he was no longer wasting his time sitting in the reconciliation room for an hour each Saturday.
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That’s a pretty backwards way of looking at it. Of course no one was coming, he only offered it an hour a week. If he had confessions multiple times a week, he’d not hurt for traffic. My previous parish was the “confession parish” since we were only a few miles from the uptown area of our city, and lots of people would come before the noon Mass while they were on their lunchbreak. If you saturate the environment, then people have no excuse, and more people will come.

I’ve always found that kind of thinking odd and fatalistic. “We did this one thing, and it didn’t work, so we’re just not going to do it at all.” There are varying degrees of doing something, in this case offering confessions. Nobody comes an hour on Saturday–the answer is not to cut it out completely, but be more strategic in doing it.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The confusion is coming from the fact that some people here think the pandemic creates a danger of death and hence a “grave reason” to receive, even if you haven’t had an opportunity to confess. Other people don’t think just having a pandemic going on while you’re not sick and are social distancing, etc presents such a “grave” situation.
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I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but it’s an interesting question.

Anointing is proper for folks “in danger of death”. It’s also proper for the elderly. The reasonable conclusion is that – even in a time of pandemic – they’re “in danger of death.” For those who are “at high risk for more severe symptoms” of COVID-19, and whose job puts them in regular contact with those with the virus, it would seem reasonable to say that they’re “in danger of death”. For all of these, it seems that there’s sufficient “grave reason”, wouldn’t you think?
Jen7 said:
I’m confused. How is it okay to receive to prevent desecration, when it’s a desecration to receive in mortal sin?
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It’s not a desecration of the Eucharist – Jesus isn’t ‘harmed’ when a person receives unworthily. What you’re thinking of is sacrilege. And, if the intent is to avoid desecration, then I think we’d say it’s not a sacrilegious reception, would we?
 
edward_george1 said:
That’s a pretty backwards way of looking at it. Of course no one was coming, he only offered it an hour a week. If he had confessions multiple times a week, he’d not hurt for traffic. My previous parish was the “confession parish” since we were only a few miles from the uptown area of our city, and lots of people would come before the noon Mass while they were on their lunchbreak. If you saturate the environment, then people have no excuse, and more people will come.

I’ve always found that kind of thinking odd and fatalistic. “We did this one thing, and it didn’t work, so we’re just not going to do it at all.” There are varying degrees of doing something, in this case offering confessions. Nobody comes an hour on Saturday–the answer is not to cut it out completely, but be more strategic in doing it.
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This is so true. We have a couple of those parishes around here. The FSSP parish offers confession daily, as does the Cathedral downtown. We have another parish that offers confessions at two different times on Saturday (in the afternoon and again in the evening), and two that have confessions scheduled at more unusual times, like Thursday evening or Tuesday afternoon. Every one of those parishes has lines for confession. They are the go-to parishes for many people
 
Do you really think the average PIP knows the requirements for the efficacy of General Absolution? In the years when, in my area, G.A. was all we had, never once was the need for subsequent confession of grave sins ever mentioned.
 
Gorgias said:
It’s not a desecration of the Eucharist – Jesus isn’t ‘harmed’ when a person receives unworthily. What you’re thinking of is sacrilege . And, if the intent is to avoid desecration, then I think we’d say it’s not a sacrilegious reception, would we?
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It doesn’t sound obvious to me! Isn’t that like saying it’s okay to poison someone if you know they’re about to get hit by a train and die? I mean… no to both??
 
Yes, this is frankly bizarre. We’ve had public Masses suspended twice - back in March to June and now again now (November and counting)… but confessions have never stopped. If you’re super super worried about the risks… you could even do something like both wearing masks and standing ten feet apart in an empty parking lot…
 
Here is an example of receiving communion to avoid desecration of the Eucharist even though you would not normally be receiving because of unabsolved grave sins. Someone goes up and receives communion but you do not see them conceal the host in their hands. However, you walk out of the church behind them and see them throw the host onto the street. You could pick it up and consume it. That avoids desecration of the Eucharist and would not be inappropriate whatever the state of your soul.
 
Assuming that you can go to mass in your dioscese I think you can make it happen. If the rectory is oprn just give the priest a call and do it in his office. We’ve been allowed to have confession in oir diosece as long as we go behind a screen. If you wear a mask and sit across the room from the priest then you should be fine! Or do it outside!
 
Jen7 said:
It doesn’t sound obvious to me! Isn’t that like saying it’s okay to poison someone if you know they’re about to get hit by a train and die? I mean… no to both??
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“No” to the ‘train example’, but “yes” to the distinction between sacrilege and desecration.

From the Catechism:
Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God.
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From the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia:
Desecration is the loss of that peculiar quality of sacredness, which inheres in places and things in virtue of the constitutive blessing of the Church. When material objects are destined for purposes of Divine worship they are set aside with a view to this end by the solemn form of consecration or by the simpler formula of a blessing, so that they assume a sacred and inviolable character which renders unlawful their employment for profane uses. Now when they lose this stamp or character of sacredness they are said to become desecrated.
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So… the Eucharist is not “an object blessed by the Church” and not “for purposes of Divine worship”, so to speak. So, properly speaking, the Eucharist cannot be desecrated (that is, it cannot be lose its sacred character).

However, sacrilege is a sin. A person who takes the Eucharist for evil purposes is committing the sin of sacrilege. However, a person who attempts to save the Eucharist from an act of sacrilege is neither “profaning” the Eucharist nor “treating [it] unworthily”.
TomH1 said:
However, you walk out of the church behind them and see them throw the host onto the street. You could pick it up and consume it.
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Me? I’d take it to the priest. He’ll take care of treating it properly and it’ll put him on notice that someone who comes to his Masses is treating the Eucharist sacreligiously. That’s just me, though…
 
Gorgias said:
Me? I’d take it to the priest. He’ll take care of treating it properly and it’ll put him on notice that someone who comes to his Masses is treating the Eucharist sacreligiously. That’s just me, though…
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This is what I’d do too. And if I was in mortal sin I’d ask for Confession while I was there - two problems solved at once!!
 
Gorgias said:
However, a person who attempts to save the Eucharist from an act of sacrilege is neither “profaning” the Eucharist nor “treating [it] unworthily”.
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Unless he’s receiving it in mortal sin.
 
TomH1 said:
However, you walk out of the church behind them and see them throw the host onto the street. You could pick it up and consume it. That avoids desecration of the Eucharist and would not be inappropriate whatever the state of your soul.
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If you’re in mortal sin the offense against God isn’t avoided, it’s just changed. Christ being abandoned in the street is changed to Christ being inside someone who has sided with the devil via mortal sin. Hardly better. Just carry the Host to a priest. There isn’t a NEED to consume Him unworthily. I can’t see there EVER being a NEED. Take Him to someone in the state of Grace if a priest isn’t around. They can consume Him.
 
Jen7 said:
Unless he’s receiving it in mortal sin.
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He’s not. His act of perfect contrition has forgiven the sin (while nevertheless still requiring that he goes to confession when he’s able to do so).
 
Gorgias said:
He’s not. His act of perfect contrition has forgiven the sin (while nevertheless still requiring that he goes to confession when he’s able to do so).
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Okay, true. But he’s also required to Confess before receiving Communion. And I can already hear you saying “except for in grave circumstances!” so I’m pretty sure we’re just going to have to agree to disagree about what constitutes a grave circumstance. The only one I can think of might be in danger of death where a Eucharistic Minister was bringing Communion but no priest was around to hear one’s Confession first.
 
Jen7 said:
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Gorgias:
How do you define “danger of death”, then?
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Like an ER doctor. :woman_shrugging:t2:
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Then you’re misunderstanding how it’s used in the context of Catholic canon law.

If you walk into a hospital for a scheduled operation, I doubt that the ER doctor would say “you’re in danger of death”, but that would meet the criteria in the theological sense.

What it doesn’t mean is that you’ve taken some sort of turn for the worse and your prognosis is dire. From a CNA article, dealing with the suspension of confession during the pandemic:
“Danger of death” is a technical canonical term, referring to the proximate danger of death from a particular cause. In that technical sense, “danger of death” does not include a generalized fear of danger of death, even if well founded.
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So, the mere fear of death wouldn’t count, but a ‘proximate danger’, from a ‘particular cause’, would.

Therefore, “in danger of death” should be interpreted more broadly than narrowly.
 
I really appreciate this! So “danger of death” sounds like any objectively “major” medical event that could go poorly? A high-risk labor & delivery even if you truly don’t expect to die, a child’s sedated-MRI, a person hospitalized for a minor heart attack…? Very fascinating.
 
Jen7 said:
So “danger of death” sounds like any objectively “major” medical event that could go poorly?
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That, and more!

The typical example is a soldier getting ready to head off to war. So, it’s proximate danger of death, and not only immediate or impending danger.

That’s why the canon that we’re discussing here – regarding those who might wish to receive Eucharist – is more inclusive than might initially seem to be the case.
 
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