The Miracle of Technology

Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

Here I will tell a story that I suppose is rather personal but what the heck, today’s not a bad day for the personal. Yesterday I went to St. Patrick’s for confession and mass, to start the year off on the right foot. Walking through the cathedral—it was jammed with tourists taking pictures of statues and architecture and also, and with some startling excitement, of the regular New Yorkers in the pews taking part in the noon mass—I remembered something I experienced there last summer, at confession.

I add here that I like going to confession; I always find it quenching or refreshing or inspiring. Usually I go at my local church. But sometimes if I’m walking by St. Pat’s and it’s confession time I’ll go right in, because the great thing about St. Pat’s is that in terms of priests you never know what you’ll get—a gruff old Irishman from Boston, a mystic from the Philippines, a young intellectual just out of seminary in Rome. Once I think I heard, through the screen, the jolly voice of New York’s cardinal. But whoever I get always seems to say something I need to hear.

Anyway, last summer I’m at St Patrick’s on a weekday afternoon and I go to the confessional area and stand on line. In the confessionals at St. Pat’s you kneel in a small, darkened booth and speak through a screen. You can sort of see the shadow of the priest on the other side.

The door opens and I enter and kneel. I outline my sins as I see them, share whatever confusion or turmoil or happiness I’m feeling. Then I was silent, waiting to see what bubbled up. What bubbled up was a persistent problem that was spiritual at its core. We talked about it, and then the priest—American accent, perhaps early middle age—said, “You wouldn’t struggle with this if you understand how fully God loves you.”

There was silence for a moment, and then I said, “Actually, Father, I always have trouble with that one.”

Here I thought the priest would gently explain how wrong I was to doubt. Instead he said, “Oh, we all do! All of us have trouble with that.”

I said, “Even you?”

“Yes, priests too, the love of God is something we all have trouble comprehending and believing.”

This struck me with force.

And then suddenly in the silence, through the screen, I saw a light. It grew and glowed in the darkness, it moved. A miracle? I cleared my throat.

“Father, did you just open up an iPad?”

Yes, he said, and we started to laugh. He keeps particular readings there that might be helpful with certain specific questions. He’d like me to read some verses when I get home.

I’m sorry, I said, I don’t have a pen and paper, I may not remember what you say. Wait—I’ve got my BlackBerry. “Tell me chapters and verse and I’ll email them to myself.”

And so he scrolled down and called out readings—the letters of St. Peter the fisherman, of St Paul—and I thumbed away sending emails to myself.

It was so modern and wonderful. Genius technology enters the confessional in a great cathedral in 2012.

“And God saw the light, and it was good.”

Australian Cardinal: Confessional Seal is Inviolable, Even in Abuse Cases

Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, has said that while the Church will cooperate with a federal commission investigating child abuse, priests will not break the seal of confession.

Someone who confesses sins involving abuse will not be reported to police by his confessor, the cardinal said. He explained that while an admission made outside the confessional would be reported, “the seal of confession is inviolable.”

Cardinal Pell said that if a priest is aware that someone has been guilty of abuse, “the priest should refuse to hear the confession.”

The cardinal said that he welcomed the federal investigation because it will “clear the air” and “separate fact from fiction” regarding the Church’s response to sex-abuse complaints. He has said that media reports have portrayed the Church’s role unfairly.

Source

 

Sign of the Times

 

Man Confesses Horrific Murder to Priest, Who Calls Police

In the Huffington Post:

Jonathan Smith drove from Columbus, Ohio, to New York City with a burden on his conscience so heavy that he unloaded on the first Catholic priest he saw: “Someone is dead, and I feel really bad about it.”

According to the New York Post, the priest in the midtown Manhattan Catholic Church of St. Francis of Assis quickly called the police, who then took a formal confession from Smith: “I killed my girlfriend in Columbus, Ohio.”

• Visit the New York Post to read the more about Jonathan Smith’s murder confession.

WSNY radio reported on July 23 that murder charges were filed against Smith in connection with death of his girlfriend, Darlene Hart, whose beaten body was found in his burning home on July 14.

The priest who heard the initial confession clarified to the New York Post that Smith was not giving formal religious confession, which would have prohibited the priest from sharing any information.

Instead, the priest explained, Jonathan Smith was telling the priest with a desire to turn himself in.

 

Australia: Priests Could be Ordered to Report Crime Confessions

The prospect of government forcing priests to report what was said in confession is the sign of a “police state mentality”, says a priest and law professor.

News.com.au:

Hundreds of years of Catholic tradition in the confessional could be overturned by Victoria’s inquiry into child sex abuse.

Priests would be ordered to reveal crimes told to them in private confessions under one proposal before the inquiry.

But priests say they will resist being forced to reveal secrets of the confessional.

Priest and law professor Father Frank Brennan said the move would be a restriction on religious freedom.

“If a parliamentary inquiry were to recommend a law by parliament saying that priests were forced to disclose anything revealed to them in the sacrament of confession I think that would be a serious interference with the right of religious freedom,” Father Brennan said today. 

“Indeed it would be a very sad day if we moved to a police state mentality, it’s almost of Russian dimensions to suggest Catholic priests would have to reveal to state authorities what went on under the seal of the confessional.

“I am one of the priests who, if such a law were enacted, would disobey it and if need be I would go to jail.”

Father Brennan said disclosures to priests in the confessional were different to those made to doctors or counsellors, or even when a priest was acting in a counsellor role.

“If it were in the sacred realm of the sacrament of confession which in Catholic theology is akin to the penitent being in conversation with God, where the priest is simply an agent, then definitely the state has no role of interference in that.”

Father Brennan said he expected police would have other more important leads when investigating crime than what was said in the confessional.

“They probably don’t have much of an idea about what people confess in confessions anyway, I think most of it, if not all of it would be of no interest to police.”

A parliamentary committee also will look at radical new laws that would see bishops face criminal charges for the misconduct of their priests.

Founder and coordinator of Melbourne Victims Collective, Helen Last, welcomed the proposal.

“I think it’s great, I think it’s very important,” Ms Last said today.

The Melbourne Collective works with survivors of clergy and/or religious abuse and Ms Last said she had recently spoken with a survivor of alleged abuse by a Catholic priest who had reported it in confessions over a 10-year period.

“She spoke to them, while the abuse was happening, in the confessional … many of the priests just told her to stay away from him, one priest fell asleep while she was telling him and others basically said ‘go away and change your behaviour’,” Ms Last said.

“Priests need to be mandated to report from within the confessional and without the confessional and they urgently need to be trained about appropriately referring victims.”

Submissions are being accepted for the inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious groups.

Ms Last said the collective was working with 100 people to help them complete submissions.

The inquiry was set up by the Baillieu Government in April.

The inquiry is being conducted by State Parliament’s Family and Community Development Committee, chaired by Liberal MP Georgie Crozier, with Labor MP Frank McGuire as deputy.

A guide released by the committee asks those making submissions to consider whether mandatory reporting rules should be imposed on the confessional.

“Should the sacrament of the Catholic confessional remain sacrosanct in these circumstances?” the paper says.

It also asks whether tough new laws should be imposed on the church hierarchy.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne declined to comment on the guide, saying it do not want to pre-empt the work of the inquiry.

“The Catholic Church will co-operate with the inquiry,” archdiocese spokesman James O’Farrell said.

But the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, has previously said the confessional must remain sacrosanct.

In Ireland, where similar laws have been introduced, priests have vowed to defy the orders, which could see them jailed for up to 10 years.

The Reverend Father John Walshe, chairman of the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, said the confessional was not a place of counselling.

“The universal response of priests to any attempt to demand they pass on information they have received in the confessional will be absolutely negative,” said Fr Walshe, parish priest of St Patrick’s, Mentone.

“Priests have in the past history of the church been martyred for refusing to break the seal of the confessional andI believe that priests today would continue to do the same.”

A spokesman for the Baillieu Government said the committee had sought submissions on a wide range of issues.

The sex abuse inquiry is due to present its report to State Parliament by April.

Australia’s cardinal George Pell has been approached for comment.

 

Teen Trashes Church, Then Goes to Confession

The Austrian Times:

A teenage vandal felt so guilty after trashing a church that he went to confession in the church before turning himself into police in Katsdorf, Upper Austria.

The 17-year-old went to the priest on Sunday morning to confess that he and a friend had broke into the church the night before and vandalised the church, breaking windows and smashing furniture and holy symbols.

After confessing to the priest, the 17-year-old and his accomplice turned themselves in to the police.

The pair claim they completely flipped out after getting into a row with guests in a pub.

They went to the church and in their rage kicked over the old baptism font, which was built in 1645 and then damaged some of the benches.

They also destroyed some of the wall surrounding the church and took some of the stones and threw them through the church windows breaking thirteen windows.

 

Everyone Knows your Sin… On Facebook

HT

 

The Titanic’s Priest Who Went Down Hearing Confessions

Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told.It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favor of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel.

A 42-year-old English convert, Fr. Byles was on his way to New York to offer the wedding Mass for his brother William. Reports suggest that he was reciting his breviary on the upper deck when the Titanic struck the iceberg in the twilight hours of Sunday, April 14th, 1912.

According to witnesses, as the ship went down the priest helped women and children get into the lifeboats, then heard confessions, gave absolution, and led passengers in reciting the Rosary.

Agnes McCoy, one of the survivors, says that as the great ship sank, Fr. Byles “stood on the deck with Catholics, Protestants and Jews kneeling around him.”

“Father Byles was saying the rosary and praying for the repose of the souls of those about to perish,” she told the New York Telegram on April 22, 1912, according to the website devoted to his memory, FatherByles.com.

In the words of the priest’s friend Fr. Patrick McKenna, “He twice refused the offer of a place in a boat, saying his duty was to stay on the ship while one soul wanted his ministrations.”

Nearly two weeks after the disaster, The Church Progress in St. Louis, Missouri wrote this moving tribute to the heroic priest:

In almost every line that has been written, and in every sentence that has been spoken, there stands boldly out above every other expression a picture of sublime heroism that will be copied into the pages of history. And well it may, for it is deserving of that honor.

But when it is, mention should be made of one whom pens and tongues have almost forgotten in their accounts of this awful sea tragedy. Among those who safely reached the land again no one seems to have been aware of his presence on the ship, but we may hope that many who meet him in a blissful eternity will praise God that Father Thomas Byles was there to administer absolution.

 

Lent is Almost Over. Have you made it to Confession?

Asks Msgr Charles Pope.

It’s Holy Week and Lent is drawing to a close. Have you made a good confession? It just doesn’t seem possible that any Lent can be complete or even proper without going to confession. In many diocese there is a “Light is On for You” outreach wherein confession is available in all the parishes of that diocese every Wednesday night from 6:30 pm – 8:00pm. That is surely the case here in the Washington Area. I’ll be in the box waiting for people this Wednesday! So will all the other priests in the Washington and Arlington Dioceses. I am aware that Boston and other dioceses are doing something similar. But wherever you are it’s not too late to get to confession.

There are a number of reasons people postpone or even refuse to go to confession. Here are a few, plus a helps and suggestions…

Read on here.

 

Tips for Making a Good Confession, Lent is Near

Fr John Zuhlsdorf has a helpful list.

Fr. Z’s 20 Tips For Making A Good Confession o{]:¬)

We should…

1) …examine our consciences regularly and thoroughly;
2) …wait our turn in line patiently;
3) …come at the time confessions are scheduled, not a few minutes before they are to end;
4) …speak distinctly but never so loudly that we might be overheard;
5) …state our sins clearly and briefly without rambling;
6) …confess all mortal sins in number and kind;
7) …listen carefully to the advice the priest gives;
8) …confess our own sins and not someone else’s;
9) …carefully listen to and remember the penance and be sure to understand it;
10) …use a regular formula for confession so that it is familiar and comfortable;
11) …never be afraid to say something “embarrassing”… just say it;
12) …never worry that the priest thinks we are jerks…. he is usually impressed by our courage;
13) …never fear that the priest will not keep our confession secret… he is bound by the Seal;
14) …never confess “tendencies” or “struggles”… just sins;
15) …never leave the confessional before the priest has finished giving absolution;
16) …memorize an Act of Contrition;
17) …answer the priest’s questions briefly if he asks for a clarification;
18) …ask questions if we can’t understand what he means when he tells us something;
19) …keep in mind that sometimes priests can have bad days just like we do;
20) …remember that priests must go to confession too … they know what we are going through.