S
Sacramentalist
Guest
Hey, gang.
I’m writing to you to ty to get some perspective in a debate I’m having with my parents.
Both are fallen-away Catholics; my father an agnostic, and my mother something of a Liberal Protestant . . .
My father grew up in Sicily; my mother was born in Chicago, grew up in Sicily for a few years, when to Catholic schools all through University. She and my dad attended Loyola in Chicago.
My folks claim that, growing up, they were taught, through the 1960s and early 70s, that before one received communion he had to have all his sins confessed, even venial sins. A person who had commited venial sin could not receive Communion, and this was taught to them by clergy and religious.
I explained to them that this was never the teaching of the Church, and that I could cite and/or obtain documentation (from every age in the Church’s history) to this effect. They refuse to even consider it; they claim that this is was virtually all Catholics were taught while they were growing up, and this all over the world.
I suggested to them that they either misundrstood the Church’s teaching, or else it was poorly explained. They insist it’s simply “another example” of the Church changing her teachings.
My father is 48 years old; my mother is 44.
I do know that the Jansenist heretics in the 17th century taught doctrines to the above effect, but I understood that this, and the sacramental misconceptions associated with it, had been virtually quashed by Pope Saint Pius X.
Anybody 40 or over: Were you taught, as my parents claim they were, that one could not receive Holy Communion if they had unconfessed venial sin on their souls?
Please, leave the country, state, and/or diocese where you grew up, so I have an idea of how widespread, if at all, this error was.
Thanks!
I’m writing to you to ty to get some perspective in a debate I’m having with my parents.
Both are fallen-away Catholics; my father an agnostic, and my mother something of a Liberal Protestant . . .
My father grew up in Sicily; my mother was born in Chicago, grew up in Sicily for a few years, when to Catholic schools all through University. She and my dad attended Loyola in Chicago.
My folks claim that, growing up, they were taught, through the 1960s and early 70s, that before one received communion he had to have all his sins confessed, even venial sins. A person who had commited venial sin could not receive Communion, and this was taught to them by clergy and religious.
I explained to them that this was never the teaching of the Church, and that I could cite and/or obtain documentation (from every age in the Church’s history) to this effect. They refuse to even consider it; they claim that this is was virtually all Catholics were taught while they were growing up, and this all over the world.
I suggested to them that they either misundrstood the Church’s teaching, or else it was poorly explained. They insist it’s simply “another example” of the Church changing her teachings.
My father is 48 years old; my mother is 44.
I do know that the Jansenist heretics in the 17th century taught doctrines to the above effect, but I understood that this, and the sacramental misconceptions associated with it, had been virtually quashed by Pope Saint Pius X.
Anybody 40 or over: Were you taught, as my parents claim they were, that one could not receive Holy Communion if they had unconfessed venial sin on their souls?
Please, leave the country, state, and/or diocese where you grew up, so I have an idea of how widespread, if at all, this error was.
Thanks!
