Which sins can only bishops absolve?

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edjlopez23

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I heard that only the bishop can only absolve certain sins. So that may mean that I need to go to a bishop to confession. Does anyone have a list of sins that only a bishop can absolve?
 
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I’m not Catholic but I’ve never heard of this. I believe a priest who is not a bishop can absolve any sins. Perhaps I am wrong.
 
It used to be abortion but Pope Francis recently extended the power to absolve abortions to priests.
 
No and no. It is a discipline. It can be adjusted. Since there are so many women who have dealt with abortions opening up the faculty (the ability) to absolve the woman to priests gives many more chances for women to come forward and be absolved.
 
A priest breaking the seal of confession might be one. I think these situations are dealt with directly in Rome, though I don’t know how the priest could receive absolution or if another ordinary priest could forgive him if he confessed it.
 
MasterHaster said:
Is that an infallible teaching or could he be wrong?
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For a priest to validly absolve any sin, he has to have been granted jurisdiction to do so by his bishop or the Church’s supreme authority. This tends to be granted to priests very broadly, but for various reasons a bishop or the Pope will “reserve” either the absolution and/or the removing of canonical penalties for certain sins. Nowadays these handful of sins tend to be defined in canon law.
 
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There are certain sins that result in excommunication, that may require a bishop to absolve. It’s a “may” because in some cases the bishops can authorize priests to absolve them. Also, if you are in danger of death, any priest can absolve any sin.

You are best off asking your priest if you think you may have committed a sin that bad. If you need to confess it to a bishop, or to someone other than the priest, the priest will let you know.

And no, I’m not going to provide a list of all the sins because I don’t want to feed anyone’s scrupulosity. They are listed in the current Code of Canon Law. As someone said, the big one used to be abortion, but Pope Francis has extended indefinitely to priests the ability to absolve that one.
 
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Weserthy said:
A priest breaking the seal of confession might be one. I think these situations are dealt with directly in Rome, though I don’t know how the priest could receive absolution or if another ordinary priest could forgive him if he confessed it.
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I’m under the impression that that’s an automatic excommunication.
 
stpurl said:
No and no. It is a discipline. It can be adjusted. Since there are so many women who have dealt with abortions opening up the faculty (the ability) to absolve the woman to priests gives many more chances for women to come forward and be absolved.
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Don’t let men off the hook so easily. Male abortion doctors, and of course often the men who got the woman pregnant in the first place have either directly provoked an abortion, or collaborated with it by paying for it, or pressuring, threatening or even beating their girlfriends or wives to force them into an abortion. In some cases they may even bear greater moral culpability while leaving the woman to suffer from the guilt. Mind you I don’t know that many of these men are lining up at confession seeking absolution.
 
edjlopez23 said:
I heard that only the bishop can only absolve certain sins. So that may mean that I need to go to a bishop to confession. Does anyone have a list of sins that only a bishop can absolve?
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For and Eastern Catholic there are still reserved sins and the only penalties are ferendae sententiae, but for a Latin Catholic there are reserved penalties, such as latae sententiae excommunication.

Most reserved penalties can be lifted by the local bishop, but some are reserved to the pope, such as latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. Others could life them by indult or delegation. Five are reserved to the Apostolic See.

In the danger of death, see CIC 976 below (also for Eastern Catholics CCEO 725):
Canon 976 Even though a priest lacks the faculty to hear confessions, he absolves validly and licitly any penitents whatsoever in danger of death from any censures and sins, even if an approved priest is present.

Canon 725 Any priest can validly and licitly absolve any penitent in danger of death from any sin, even if there is present a priest endowed with the faculty of administering the sacrament of penance.
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Canon 1364 - An apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.
Canon 1367 - A person who throws away consecrated species, or takes (or retains) them for a sacrilegious purpose, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the apostolic see.
Canon 1370 - A person who uses physical force against the Roman pontiff incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the apostolic see.
Canon 1378 - A priest who acts against the prescript of Canon 977 incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the apostolic see.
Canon 1382 - A bishop who consecrates a bishop without a pontifical mandate, and the person who receives the consecration, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the apostolic see.
Canon 1388 - A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the apostolic see.
Canon 1398 - A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.
 
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So, are you saying that you have committed a sin on the list in your link?I don’t mean for you to answer here, I just mean the instances of sin listed seem pretty rare. If you have committed one of them perhaps you need to be absolved by a Bishop.
 
I’m not quite sure. Is joining a religious cult count as one of those sins? That’s what I’m wondering about. I think I read somewhere that Freemasonry counts.
Vico said:
Canon 1364 - An apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.
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Please talk to your priest. I somehow doubt that joining the Masons makes you an “apostate”, a “heretic” or a “schismatic” unless you were joining it with the intent of overthrowing the Church.

Having said that, there was one bishop in USA recently excommunicating Catholics who were members of Masonic organizations.
 
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ThomasMT said:
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Weserthy:
A priest breaking the seal of confession might be one. I think these situations are dealt with directly in Rome, though I don’t know how the priest could receive absolution or if another ordinary priest could forgive him if he confessed it.
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I’m under the impression that that’s an automatic excommunication.
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It is - I know that the canonical procedure goes to Rome and only the Pope can lift the excommunication, but I am unsure who a priest would confess this sin to or who could forgive it. I guess since the Pope has to lift the excommunication and if you’re excommunicated you can’t receive the sacraments, it’s essentially requiring a bishop (Bishop of Rome) to forgive the sin, even if the priest ultimately confesses to another priest to actually receive absolution. But maybe some else here is more knowledgeable about the exact process for this.
 
edjlopez23 said:
I’m not quite sure. Is joining a religious cult count as one of those sins? That’s what I’m wondering about. I think I read somewhere that Freemasonry counts.
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Vico:
Canon 1364 - An apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.
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Initiation into Freemasonry was included in the 1917 canon law but is no longer.

CIC Canon 1323 requires that:
1. The individual must be at least sixteen years old.
2. The individual must know that his action was a violation of Church law.
3. The individual must have acted freely without threat of force or grave fear, have the use of reason, and not have acted mistakenly.

However, note the the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published this in 1984 a declaration on Masonic associations and this appeared in 1985 in L’Osservatore Romano:
… the Declaration of the Sacred Congregation affirms that membership in Masonic associations «remains forbidden by the Church», and the faithful who enrolls in them «are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion».
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https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/...19850223_declaration-masonic_articolo_en.html
 
edjlopez23 said:
I heard that only the bishop can only absolve certain sins. So that may mean that I need to go to a bishop to confession. Does anyone have a list of sins that only a bishop can absolve?
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There’s an important difference between absolution of sin and lifting of penalties - in the Western Church at least, they’re not the same thing but this is often where a lot of people get confused.

As a priest, I can absolve all sins; however, there’s a difference between absolving sins and remitting penalties. Although there are not reserved sins as such (at least not in the western Code of Canon Law), there are reserved penalties (such as excommunication) for some sins under canon law which can only be lifted by the local bishop (or, in rare cases, the Holy See). Formal cooperation in an abortion used to be reserved for the bishop but in 2016 this was extended to all priests by Pope Francis (many priests already had this anyway).

Reserved penalties don’t really tend to come up - mainly because there are so few of them but also because, it’s not possible to be automatically excommunicated (the only really significant penalty for those who aren’t clerics) for any offence if a person wasn’t unaware of the law (through no fault of their own) or that there was a penalty! So when something like abortion comes up in the confessional, the person probably hasn’t actually incurred a penalty but, just for the sake of completeness, I remit it anyway. In the extremely unlikely event that somebody had actually incurred a reserved penalty, I would absolve them, basically tell them to come back next week and, in the meantime, contact the Bishop / Holy See as the case may be (without revealing the person’s name or identifying particulars) with the details asking for the penalty to be lifted.
 
OraLabora said:
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stpurl:
No and no. It is a discipline. It can be adjusted. Since there are so many women who have dealt with abortions opening up the faculty (the ability) to absolve the woman to priests gives many more chances for women to come forward and be absolved.
Click to expand...
Don’t let men off the hook so easily. Male abortion doctors, and of course often the men who got the woman pregnant in the first place have either directly provoked an abortion, or collaborated with it by paying for it, or pressuring, threatening or even beating their girlfriends or wives to force them into an abortion. In some cases they may even bear greater moral culpability while leaving the woman to suffer from the guilt. Mind you I don’t know that many of these men are lining up at confession seeking absolution.
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And parents who force their daughters to have abortions are just as guilty. Try getting most of them to admit it, though.
 
So, not having known that up until recently only a Bishop could absolve the sin of abortion, are those whose priests absolved them of it before Pope Francis said they could still carrying that sin on their souls? Would they need to confess it again, now that priests can absolve it, or would the first absolution be valid because those penitents didn’t know otherwise?
 
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