From CNA:
Pope urges Curial officials to hear confessions at local parish
Vatican City, Dec 18, 2013 / 12:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has strongly encouraged the bishops and cardinals of the Roman Curia to spend time hearing confessions weekly at a local parish, according to a priest of the church in question, Santo Spirito in Sassia.
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
Excellent. It’s always good when those of us who work for the church to leave our ivory towers and get into parishes.
I’m a bit naive, I suppose, and it never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be doing that.
Good. A priest is first another Christ bringing people to God.
Sigh, I wish our bishop here would make the priests have more than one hour of confession a week, not ever cancel that (happens),and not have confessions by appointment.
Amen!
Well, each cardinal has his own church in Rome, so that shouldn’t be too hard, right?
And I reckon that all curial officials who haven’t reached that dignity but aspire to it, can find a church whose cardinal is not resident in Rome. And all other curial official can undoubtedly find many churches not assigned at all.
In fact, I would wonder why only confessions (though it’s a good place to start)? With today’s priest shortage, it will never take more than a few phonecalls to find a parish priest who’d love some assitance in celebrating masses, and with just a tiny bit of orgnanization (say 3 curial officials pooling together) enough reliability could be reached to make such a Mass a regular addition to the parish’s schedule.
Along the model of cardinals having churches in Rome, I would argue that each curial priest should be assigned to a parish, nursing home, or hospital, and be listed on the roster as serving there ‘at the request of the Pope’. He should say mass weekly and hear confessions.
It’s things like this that keep me just outside the “really-REALLY-scared-of-this-pontificate” camp. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of other recent stuff is definitely disconcerting and/or inexplicable, but whenever I talk with my “Francis-is-literally-the-antichrist” employer, I can’t help but think of little snippets like this one. Again, what is Pope Francis up to most of the time? I have less than zero idea. But — what kind of antichrist promotes confession this often? Not a very effective one.
I have to say, as much as we may be rightly slapping our foreheads about something different tomorrow, this was a pretty neat thing to read today.
@Phil_NL – great minds apparently think alike…
Amen Father. I finally went after about 9 months this past Saturday. I want to make it a weekly (or is it weakly) part of my life. I once heard that the Pope confesses daily. If he does that, how much more should I confess?
I wish that my church offered it for more than 1/2 hour prior to the Saturday Mass. Last week, there were more standing in line than Father could hear. I don’t know how much bigger the wake up call could be. The sheep are hungry for forgiveness.
A liberal Priest at my local parish (who is in his 70’s by the way) has written in the bulliten that a reason “so many Catholics do not go to confession anymore is because they have found a more mature way of understanding sin.” I hope he reads about this and maybe it will cause him to think a little.
I think this is an excellent idea which I support. I think all bishops should hear confessions of the laity on a regular basis. One reason to do so: the practice will give the bishops an idea of the types of sin which are prevailing in their diocese and which their flock is struggling with.
What a terrific idea.
Now this is humility. Cardinals who run high-level offices, sitting in a confessional for an hour. No computers. No phones. No outside noise. Just doing the very basics of their priestly ministry, like saying the Divine Office, in addition to their well-known office tasks.
Let’s hope the pope’s encouragement on this is listened to, and that more parishes increase their confession times, including on Sunday mornings before and during Mass. There can never, ever be enough confessions heard. If this pope can use his poll numbers to double the number of Catholics going to confession, he can have some actual, tangible results that would make an actual, tangible difference.
McCall1981, that is just plain scary.
” because they have found a more mature way of understanding sin.”
And yet our Lord tells us, “Let the little children come to me.”
This is wonderful news. It’s clear he’s not just about the visuals (fancy cars, etc.) but really about priests living their vocation to help Catholics.
On a slightly related note, I am happy to report that my diocese recently held “The Light is On For You” day which required most parishes to offer confessions for three straight hours. I was very pleasantly surprised that such a thing happened here.
That quote from McCall1981’s post pretty much sums up in one sentence the problem with the Church today, at least that part of it that Michael Voris would call “the church of nice”.
On a happier note our parish is having confessions every day this week, in preparation for Christmas. No Bishops hearing confessions though, it has been 19 months and counting, still no shepherd for our Diocese.
Oops, should have checked “Whispers in the Loggia” – I notice we just had a new Bishop appointed. Deo Gratias!
@ Jerome Vincent, you took the words right out of my mouth. I just never know what a new day will bring.
This is good news.