Each year the Sacred Penitentiary (the Church’s venerable tribunal for all things concerning the internal forum, indulgences, etc.) hosts a workshop for deacons and priests about confession and censures. I attended this several times. It is a highly instructive course. I have made use of it several times. It is critical that priests know what to do about censures when they have penitents who have incurred them.
I got this from a priest who attended the course.
I thought you might be interested/amused by these picture of Fr. Manlio Sodi meeting the Pope today. He does some work for the Apostolic Penitentary and gave a presentation (which wasn’t all bad… wasn’t all good either… I diagnose a little touch of Pelagianism…) as part of the annual course on the Internal Forum organised by that dicastery. In the Q&A that followed, a priest asked him whether he thought the penitiental aspect of the liturgical year mightn’t have been weakened by the elimination of rogation/ember days and whether something of the sort might be restored either at a diocesan or a universal level. He waffled and totally avoided the question, but did have some worthwhile things to say about preaching and the formation of the congregation’s conscience.
FWIW this fellow is not a fan of the TLM or Summorum Pontificum.
BTW… I don’t include here the links he sent me to the photos.
Father,
Just curious. What do you mean by “a touch of Pelagianism?”
hieromonk: Did you notice that I did not write that comment?
Sorry, Father, i didn’t. Forgive me! What do you think he meant by the comment? Perhaps I am asking you to do something that isn’t prudent.
I think elimination of the Ember Days and the Rogations was a mistake, and their restoration is a topic worth serious discussion. I wonder, however, how seriously they were taken by the American church prior to the 60s. Did the parishes actually perform the litanies on the Rogation Days and on April 25? Did the laity actually keep the fast days?