T
tvdxer
Guest
About 10 years ago, when I was 16, I made a vow to not let myself exceed 2 hours of non-religious internet usage…ever.
I probably was not thinking about, or at least minimizing, the fact that the internet would be ubiquitous, always on, and hard to avoid (watching TV shows or listening to the radio). Back then, it was easy to monitor my internet usage - I simply watched how long I was dialed up.
Under a month later, I got wireless broadband, and began to re-consider the validity of my vow, due to lack of knowledge. I also didn’t think of things like massive downloads, etc. A few months later, a bout of severe scrupulosity struck me and I adhered to it…and then at the end of the year I began to go back to my past way of thinking.
To be safe, I consulted a priest in the confessional about it, and he said that it did not bind me. I’m not sure if he actually dispensed me or not, but it was an implicit dispensation. The only problem is this priest was not my parish pastor, but a pastor who worked at a church near my place of work then. I do not like / did not like confessing to my parish priest, as we know one another.
But today, while facing a bout of conscience problems, I re-read the canon:
Can. 1196 In addition to the Roman Pontiff, the following can dispense from private vows for a just cause provided that a dispensation does not injure a right acquired by others:
1/ the local ordinary and the pastor with regard to all their subjects and even travelers;
2/ the superior of a religious institute or society of apostolic life if it is clerical and of pontifical right with regard to members, novices, and persons who live day and night in a house of the institute or society;
3/ those to whom the Apostolic See or the local ordinary has delegated the power of dispensing.
Can I licitly assume that my “implicit” dispensation was valid? Or do I have to treat the “vow” like nothing ever happened to it?
I probably was not thinking about, or at least minimizing, the fact that the internet would be ubiquitous, always on, and hard to avoid (watching TV shows or listening to the radio). Back then, it was easy to monitor my internet usage - I simply watched how long I was dialed up.
Under a month later, I got wireless broadband, and began to re-consider the validity of my vow, due to lack of knowledge. I also didn’t think of things like massive downloads, etc. A few months later, a bout of severe scrupulosity struck me and I adhered to it…and then at the end of the year I began to go back to my past way of thinking.
To be safe, I consulted a priest in the confessional about it, and he said that it did not bind me. I’m not sure if he actually dispensed me or not, but it was an implicit dispensation. The only problem is this priest was not my parish pastor, but a pastor who worked at a church near my place of work then. I do not like / did not like confessing to my parish priest, as we know one another.
But today, while facing a bout of conscience problems, I re-read the canon:
Can. 1196 In addition to the Roman Pontiff, the following can dispense from private vows for a just cause provided that a dispensation does not injure a right acquired by others:
1/ the local ordinary and the pastor with regard to all their subjects and even travelers;
2/ the superior of a religious institute or society of apostolic life if it is clerical and of pontifical right with regard to members, novices, and persons who live day and night in a house of the institute or society;
3/ those to whom the Apostolic See or the local ordinary has delegated the power of dispensing.
Can I licitly assume that my “implicit” dispensation was valid? Or do I have to treat the “vow” like nothing ever happened to it?