Restore central role of Confession, Pope urges [CWN]

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Pope Francis called for a restoration of the central role of Confession, in a March 4 address to participants in an annual course offered by the Apostolic Penitentiary. As confessors, …

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The closing paragraph:

With regard to the issue of what a priest should do if he finds himself unable to give absolution, the Holy Father recommended, “First of all, see if there is a way; many times you will find it. Secondly, do not focus only on spoken language, but also on the language of gestures. There are people who do not want to speak but through their gestures demonstrate their repentance, their pain. And thirdly, if you cannot offer absolution, speak like a father: ‘Listen, I cannot absolve you of this, but I can assure you that God loves you, that God awaits you. Let us pray together to Our Lady, so that she may protect you, and come, return, as I will await you as God does’, and give a blessing. … This is always the point: there, there is a father. … God knows how to forgive things better than we do. But may there at least be the image of the Father”, concluded Francis.
 
I wish that every priest could have the opportunity to participate in this most splendid annual program offered by the Apostolic Penitentiary.
 
I don’t understand why a priest would not be able to offer absolution?
 
Betuchan said:
I don’t understand why a priest would not be able to offer absolution?
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3 possibilities:
  1. The person confessing is not Catholic. One must first be a member of the Church in order to be reconciled to the the Church.*
  2. The individual priest does not have whatever specific faculties he needs to absolve that sinner at that moment (ie what we call “reserved sins” or the remission of the canonical penalty is reserved to a higher Church authority).
    This is only to illustrate the point. I am not mentioning this to get into a discussion of “precisely what is reserved?”
  3. The penitent has no “firm desire of amendment.” This one has a very high standard. The priest is convinced (whatever reason) that the penitent has every intention of committing the same sin again. That’s different from someone who says “I know I’m going to do it again.” but more like “yes, I did it and there’s nothing wrong with it and no reason why I should consider not-doing it.” (I’m being brief here).
Of course, there are other possibilities, I’m just listing 3 likely ones to answer the question.
*There is an exception for times of war, persecution or natural disaster, as well as other conditions which must be met (and cannot be dispensed). That’s a topic for a different thread.
 
FrDavid96 said:
3 possibilities:
  1. The person confessing is not Catholic. One must first be a member of the Church in order to be reconciled to the the Church.*
.
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That is exactly what I was told when I asked, if I could make my first confession before my first communion. But I had just found out that my Baptismal certificate was from a Protestant church. Until then I assumed I was baptized Catholic and have always attended a Catholic church. Still, I first had to make a profession of faith, was confirmed and received the Communion during a weekday mass. That was years ago, and now I hear of people being allowed to make their first confession even before being formally received into the church. :confused:
 
FrancescaMaria said:
That is exactly what I was told when I asked, if I could make my first confession before my first communion. But I had just found out that my Baptismal certificate was from a Protestant church. Until then I assumed I was baptized Catholic and have always attended a Catholic church. Still, I first had to make a profession of faith, was confirmed and received the Communion during a weekday mass. That was years ago, and now I hear of people being allowed to make their first confession even before being formally received into the church. :confused:
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A candidate in RCIA (that is to say, an already baptised Christian) who is being received into full communion with the Roman Church needs to make their first confession, which would be a general confession since their baptism, before the Mass wherein they will make their profession of faith, be received into Full Communion, be confirmed and receive their First Holy Communion. This is done so that they will be in the state of grace when they receive the two sacraments.

The confession can be heard even days before the reception for the sake of practicality, especially if they are being received at the Easter Vigil. If a parish is receiving a large number of candidates, a priest must allow sufficient time (at one of the busiest times of the year for the priest!) so that there is opportunity both for the priest and for the candidate to schedule and accomplish the confession.

I remember one occasion most particularly where I had to begin well before Holy Week because general confessions covering years are necessarily longer, the times working people had available are relatively fewer and primarily after work which meant I had to have sufficient slots available with only a few hours per day being realistically possible, and these appointment slots always had to be outside the normal times I was in the confessional…plus I had to account that in Holy Week I would be hearing across many extra hours the confessions of my own parishioners as well as others who were coming to prepare for the Triduum.

Also, the candidate has the freedom to go to any priest to make their confession…they are not obliged to go to the priest overseeing the RCIA and so adequate time needs to be allotted so they may arrange, with the priest of the choice, to do this and without overburdening the priest during Holy Week. That, of course, also means that I had to include in my calculation of appointment slots preparation to give appointments to RCIA candidates from other parishes who wanted to confess to a priest who was not their pastor.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
A candidate in RCIA (that is to say, an already baptised Christian) who is being received into full communion with the Roman Church needs to make their first confession, which would be a general confession since their baptism, before the Mass wherein they will make their profession of faith, be received into Full Communion, be confirmed and receive their First Holy Communion. This is done so that they will be in the state of grace when they receive the two sacraments.

The confession can be heard even days before the reception for the sake of practicality, especially if they are being received at the Easter Vigil. If a parish is receiving a large number of candidates, a priest must allow sufficient time (at one of the busiest times of the year for the priest!) so that there is opportunity both for the priest and for the candidate to schedule and accomplish the confession.

I remember one occasion most particularly where I had to begin well before Holy Week because general confessions covering years are necessarily longer, the times working people had available are relatively fewer and primarily after work which meant I had to have sufficient slots available with only a few hours per day being realistically possible, and these appointment slots always had to be outside the normal times I was in the confessional…plus I had to account that in Holy Week I would be hearing across many extra hours the confessions of my own parishioners as well as others who were coming to prepare for the Triduum.

Also, the candidate has the freedom to go to any priest to make their confession…they are not obliged to go to the priest overseeing the RCIA and so adequate time needs to be allotted so they may arrange, with the priest of the choice, to do this and without overburdening the priest during Holy Week. That, of course, also means that I had to include in my calculation of appointment slots preparation to give appointments to RCIA candidates from other parishes who wanted to confess to a priest who was not their pastor.
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Thank you for the clarification. I was never advised to make a confession before my profession of faith/confirmation/and first communion and it was not around Easter time, so I don’t think priests being busy was the issue. When I did eventually went to my first confession (6 months later), priest said just to confess what I wanted to work on now after I learned that there was a loving God and about the Ten Commandments, not since baptism. I was baptised in a protestant church as a baby, but was raised atheist in a country where religious education was forbidden. Now, 25 years later, I do not think I could remember my childhood and teenage sins anymore, but I am starting to worry I never made that general confession.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
A candidate in RCIA (that is to say, an already baptised Christian) who is being received into full communion with the Roman Church needs to make their first confession, which would be a general confession since their baptism, before the Mass wherein they will make their profession of faith, be received into Full Communion, be confirmed and receive their First Holy Communion. This is done so that they will be in the state of grace when they receive the two sacraments.

The confession can be heard even days before the reception for the sake of practicality, especially if they are being received at the Easter Vigil. If a parish is receiving a large number of candidates, a priest must allow sufficient time (at one of the busiest times of the year for the priest!) so that there is opportunity both for the priest and for the candidate to schedule and accomplish the confession.

I remember one occasion most particularly where I had to begin well before Holy Week because general confessions covering years are necessarily longer, the times working people had available are relatively fewer and primarily after work which meant I had to have sufficient slots available with only a few hours per day being realistically possible, and these appointment slots always had to be outside the normal times I was in the confessional…plus I had to account that in Holy Week I would be hearing across many extra hours the confessions of my own parishioners as well as others who were coming to prepare for the Triduum.

Also, the candidate has the freedom to go to any priest to make their confession…they are not obliged to go to the priest overseeing the RCIA and so adequate time needs to be allotted so they may arrange, with the priest of the choice, to do this and without overburdening the priest during Holy Week. That, of course, also means that I had to include in my calculation of appointment slots preparation to give appointments to RCIA candidates from other parishes who wanted to confess to a priest who was not their pastor.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the clarification. I was never advised to make a confession before my profession of faith/confirmation/and first communion and it was not around Easter time, so I don’t think priests being busy was the issue. When I did eventually went to mu first confession (6 months) the priest said just to confess what I wanted to work on now after I learned that there was a loving God and about the Ten Commandments, not since baptism. I was baptised in a protestant church as a baby, but was raised atheist in a country where religious education was forbidden. Now, 25 years later, I do not think I could remember my childhood and teenage sins anymore, but I am starting to worry I never made that general confession.
 
I remember as a boy that we were all urged to make weekly confessions. And the 5 priests in our parish spent hours upon hours in the confessional.

Now we have 1/3 of the priests we had then and the Catholic population has increased. I’m wondering just how the priests today would be able to handle all the traffic.
 
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