The new norms? (communion in hand and face-to-face confession)

[Brendan]

The priest could have been speaking of the general preferred practice in the parish as seen in actual usage at mass.

The real disservice is taking such questions here to basically have the priest put down than to go back and get it cleared up with the priest in question.

Not necessarily. It helps if the lay person is more informed about any relevant Church documents PRIOR to discussing it with the pastor.

In that way, person could have a chance to review them and ask intelligent questions.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of research and asking intelligent questions.

 

[takosan]

The thread does not make sense.

If the OP knows ‘enough’ to question what the priest said why not ask the priest at the time of the conference? That would have been the proper way to handle any situation like this.

Thank you all for your responses.

To answer your question (and the implied questions in other posts): These two comments came up in two different contexts. The comments on communion in hand were in response to a question asked during the parents/priest meeting. I found his response odd, but respect him enough to be reluctant to challenge him in front of all the parents. Challenging a priest’s doctrinal statements in front of a group of people is no doubt the correct course of action in many circumstances, but I did not feel that this was one. As I was waiting to talk to him afterwards, I overheard his comments on confession being made to another parent in a semi-private conversation. At that point, I decided to back off and do a bit of research including posting the question here.

Again, thank you all for your time.

(Edit: I now see that the original post was not clear on one minor point. This was a group meeting with the priest, involving some thirty parents talking to the priest simultaneously.)