Posted on 07/19/2011 11:05:19 AM PDT by massmike
Yeah, I never could understand confessing sins to another human being rather than to Jesus himself. And then for penance, you have to pray (repetitive prayers, no less). Prayer should not be used as a punishment. Oh well.
I don’t know about Ireland, but face-to-face confession is an option in the United States.
"Tell my son Joseph that he will meet my divisions in the next life!"
While it's quite true that you often get assigned a number of prayers as a penance, you do so while meditating on a virtue that will counteract your particular sinful tendencies, or you pray for the intentions of the Holy Father. Think of it more as getting your mind right than punishment.
Younger priests tend to assign creative penances - like reading particular religious works or doing a particular activity. A little harder to remember!
But repetitive prayers? How many times have you said the "Our Father" or the "Jesus Prayer"? Repetitio mater memoriae.
What they are proposing to do involves a matter of religious worship. A sacrament is a religious ritual. So it is rather a question of religious freedom. That seems to be taking second fiddle to the “rights”of others these day. If they can meddle in the sacrament of penance, they can meddle in the sacrament of marriage. All in the name of justice, of course.
Actually, one is confessing to Jesus. Or rather his representative,or a representative of his Church, who have been empowered to give absolution.
Both are not done.
But which sacraments should the law protect? All of them for all religions, or some of them for some religions? Who gets to decide?
I'm concerned that folks who want to inject religion into the law will want to inject religion that is foreign to me. that is sacrilege to me.
I'm concerned when man's law is subservient to God's law in the public square...in a multicultural society.
Next thing you know we'll be working on Sundays and praying on Fridays.
Of course that problem could be solved by making the country unicultural, something I am not at all opposed to. My only concern with that approach is the great loss of human life it entails.
Thank you for your learned analysis. I appreciate someone who has read history.
The Irish can choose to do, in whatever manner they choose as a nation, whatever they will.
Around these parts we have put Human law above any religious doctrine. For better or worse.
We ARE a multicultural society, both our blessing and our curse. We have to figure out what to do about it.
Of course no other society in history has found it necessary to deal with the question...on this enormous scale...in the history of mankind.
Damn spooky if you ask me.
The first Article of Magna Carta guaranteed the rights of the Church, and the First Amendment does also, while recognizing not a single Church but a pluralism of churches. The irony is that Hugo Black changed all of this around by twisting the meaning of Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation,” The Baptists to whom he wrote understood it to mean a protection of each church community within its own sphere. Church leaders were not to be Lords of the realm but servants of the congregation and good citizens like the other members. James Madison devised this scheme for the new nation, which was described in 1840 by Justice Storey and by the Frenchman Tocqueville. It provided for the first time a place where rival theologies and institutions could exist in peace. The federal government was secular, but society was not. Religious neutrality did not mean that the laws would not reflect the relgious values of the people.
Well, we’ll just have to disagree on this.
Let God decide.
I believe in confessing to someone you’ve wronged. Sin as a wrong against God, and should be confessed to Him.
If you cheat on your wife, are unfair to someone, or unjust, or lie to them, then yeah, they are entitled to a confession.
Covetousness, now. Besides God, who do you confess to. Well, IMO, as long as you don’t act on it, i.e., violate another commandment, such as theft or adultery or false witness, it harms only you. Confess to yourself and get over it. My opinion.
Confess to the entire congregation? Where did you get that idea?
Although it does happen. It could also be in the case of sins you committed before you accepted Christ.
No, confess to God in prayer. If you have wronged another, confess to him and try to make it right. Don’t do it again.
“Confess to the entire congregation”
I see where you’re coming from. James 5:16.
Where does it say to the entire congregation? The wronged person would be sufficient. Unless maybe perhaps the sim became public, like, oh say the preacher getting it on with the choir director. That would probably call for public confession.
Sorry about that. I was having a bad day, too. Wife had just called and told me the air conditioner was down again, and us with temps in the nineties.
I’m probably going to have to replace both units at a cost of over $10,000. So maybe I should just confess to you that I was already feeling cranky.
AGain, I apologize
Sin is a wrong against others. If you are a member of the Church, it is a wrong against the body of Christ, before whom you swore to obey God’s law and accept the discipline of the Church. That most people do not accept that is one reason why the concept of sin has been attenuated to an offense against good order. Abortion is defended on the grounds that the woman owns her body and by extension the child within. But no one owns his/her body, for he/she did not produce it nor nourish it, although he/she now freely enjoys/abuses it, but owes its existence to others—mother, father, the larger community—not to speak of God who gives life to all. No man is an island as the poet says.
Not that I disagree with what you said, but I did not grasp what point you were trying to make. Sorry.
Lawyers are most certainly NOT required to report their client's past crimes (even those being currently litigated) to legal authorities. There is a dangerous theory that they may be required to report the planning of FUTURE crimes to authorities. The attorney/client privilege is far too important to be transgressed for practical governmental concerns. It is up to the government to competently investigate crimes and prevent them if possible with NO HELP whatsoever from defense counsel.
The priest/penitent privilege is still FAR MORE IMPORTANT.
The lawyer simply cannot present what he knows to be specific lies to the court. A NOT GUILTY plea is a constitutional right and not a lie for such purposes since it means "not guilty in the contemplation of our law" and every defendant is not guilty until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
There is no bartender/barfly privilege, has never been and likely never will be.
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