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Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God . And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: For...

Much has been written about the sacrament of reconciliation — the theology behind it, the scriptural evidence for it, the power and benefits of it for penitents. But what’s it like, experientially, for a priest to hear the sins of others week after week and month after month? Can it be a burden? Does it affect a priest’s spiritual life? Aleteia’s lifestyle editor, Zoe Romanowsky, asked Msgr. Charles Pope about what it’s been like to hear confessions over his 24 years as a priest. Msgr. Charles Pope is the pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian in Washington DC. He is a...

If only it were possible to avoid what has become an almost continuous commentary on the sayings and doings of Pope Francis. But one does not ignore the public statements of a Pope, especially from this Fatima perspective. And at this point in the Bergoglian pontificate, the landscape of the Church is cratered by the bombshells Francis has been dropping almost weekly in off-the-cuff homilies, meditations, press conferences and other settings outside the four corners of an encyclical or other formal papal pronouncement. Here is one bombshell from February, on Ash Wednesday. It was dropped in a sermon given to...

The Catholic blogosphere is alight with the latest heresy (that's what it is) to come to light. On February 11, eve of Ash Wednesday, the pope met with those priests designated to be "missionaries of mercy" and gave them instructions and I use the word "instructions" loosely. The text of the message can be found on Zenit. Within that address are directives to the priests which, if followed, would render any confession invalid. I quote below the heresy: "If someone comes to you and feels something must be removed from him, but perhaps he is unable to say it, but...

Pope Francis, in his recent address to the priests who will act as “Missionaries of Mercy,” once again placed himself at odds with established (and infallible) Catholic teaching, when he undermined the very matter and form of the sacrament of confession (all emphasis in the following quotes is mine):

SchenectadyIn the darkest hours of the night and the soul, the Rev. Bob Longobucco will be ready for you to share your sins.Longobucco will hold a marathon, 24-hour confession session starting Friday morning to give people a chance to seek mercy before Easter.Pastor of the Roman Catholic St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Longobucco decided to make himself available for a full day as part of the Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis. "When do you always think about your worst sin? At 3 o'clock in the morning, and you can't do anything about it," he said. "For one night, you'll...

A Louisiana judge has ruled unconstitutional a new state law requiring priests to report sexual abuse that is mentioned in a sacramental confession. Judge Mike Caldwell made his ruling in a long-running and complicated case in which Father Jeff Bayhi had been directed to testify about what a young woman reportedly told him in a confession. The young woman has said that she told Father Bayhi about being molested by a member of his parish. Father Bayhi had refused to testify, citing the inviolability of the confessional seal. Judge Caldwell ruled that the state law making priests mandated reporters of...

And the Lord said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the...

Transcriptions of the interrogation proceedings in the lethal Duma arson case were released on Thursday night, revealing that one minor suspect was forced into making a false confession due to the brutal torture used against him. The transcriptions were received by Channel 10, and revolve around the case of A., a 17-year-old from Samaria. Under torture he admitted to committing the arson last July - but he was not indicted for doing so, showing how the torture induced false confessions. Officials including Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud) and Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) had admitted prior to the confessions...

The German bishops are making their ad limina visit. Every few years diocesan bishops have to go to Rome to meet with offices of the Roman Curia and, usually, the Pope. Pope Francis gave an address to the German bishops that was clear, coherent, well-crafted and, in many respects, stinging. He painted a dire portrait of the Church in Germany. At one point he said: One notes in particular in traditionally Catholic regions a very strong decline in participation at Sunday Mass, not to mention the sacramental life. Where in the 1960's everywhere just about all the faithful still participated...

Ironically, Beza found his "signal example"8 of how to deal with tyranny and resistance not so much in the work of early Calvinists as in the work of later Lutherans—particularly the Lutheran jurists and theologians who had drafted the Magdeburg Confession of 1550. The Magdeburg Confession was a major distillation of the most advanced Lutheran resistance theories of the day.9 The leaders of the small Saxon city of Magdeburg had drafted this Confession in response to the order of the Holy Roman Emperor to impose by civil law the uniform Catholic doctrines and liturgies being crafted by the Council of...

"Heresiarch Cupich persecutes traditional Latin Mass. Does he believe Confession is about "forgiveness" - Bring it on baby, we'll out you all!" Thanks to Ann Barnhardt for digging up this little gem. If you want to read what Heresiarch Cupich thinks about the Sacrament of Non-Confession, read it all here. “We use that word “reconciliation” all the time. It doesn’t mean about giving people forgiveness. It comes from an anatomical root, namely the eyelash, it is called a cilia. So you begin to see eye-to-eye with people.” Who appointed this heretic to Chicago anyway? Oh, and speaking of Chicago, the...

 "When did you stop beating your wife?" is the position of the logical fallacy, the Loaded Question. The answer "I never started" improperly grants the question the dignity of the reasonable. "Pope tells priests to pardon women who have abortions ... overruling hardline traditionalists within the Catholic Church" screams the headline from APF by Jean-Louis de La Vaissiere. He writes from the Vatican, without knowing anything about his subject. Prior to this declaration, only the Pope himself could pardon the sin of abortion. "Sins which the priest has no authority to absolve are called reserved sins. Absolution from these sins can be obtained only...

1. Jesus asked for it. St. Faustina Kowalska, was a young member of The Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Lodz, Poland. In the early 1930s, she received a series of messages from The Lord expounding His desire to extend mercy upon humanity. He asked her to write these messages down. Among the messages was the request for an image of Himself to be commissioned: "Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus I Trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and throughout the world."(The Diary of St. Maria Faustina...

From a reader…QUAERITUR: I’m 49 and haven’t been to confession since I was about 9 I say prayers every day and pop into church now and then to light candles the thing is I’ve not been to well recently and would like to make a confession but not to sure what to say could you please help How about, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been about 40 years since my last confession. I think I’m going to need some help from you for this confession.” It would probably be best to make an appointment for this...

Mercy! So Great a Gift – Why Many Parishes Need to Reconsider When They Offer the Sacrament of Confession By: Msgr. Charles PopeAt tonight’s Chrism Mass, the Cardinal chose to focus his remarks to the more than 300 priests in attendance on the beauty of the Sacrament of Confession and the power of mercy. What a magnificent gift the Lord gave His Church through the ministry of priests, that we can hear His blessed words, I absolve you from your sins … go in peace.My mind goes back to a beautiful story of St. John Paul II and a certain bishop (not of...

A parish priest on the troubling news he's learned from kids in the confessional The Need for Questions in Lent Lent is a penitential season, a time of purification and of clarification: of being purified of our sins and of clarifying the roots of what has been keeping us from God in the first place. Purification and clarification can come about through the typical Lenten observances: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Fasting, for example, not only acts as an immediate purification of something (ie, a thing is taken away), but it can also clarify in that, as we are feeling the...

Reflects on the Sacrament of Penance During General Audience Continuing his catechetical series on the Sacraments, Pope Francis reflected on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which along with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick form what he described the “Sacraments of Healing”. “The Sacraments of Penance and Reconciliation [...] flow directly from the Paschal mystery,” he told pilgrims attending his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. "In fact, the same evening of Easter the Lord appeared to the disciples, closed in the Cenacle, and, after addressing to them the greeting ‘Peace be with you’, he breathed on them...

All over the Catholic world, statements are being made by the pope, cardinals, bishops, religious and priests about compassion for people in adultery and homosexual relationships. This is giving people arms to attack any priest or bishop who may uphold true Catholic and biblical teaching on the sinful nature of these sexual unions. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh....

ROME — An Italian newspaper came under fire from the Catholic Church on Thursday for publishing details of priestly advice given to an undercover reporter posing as an ordinary parishioner during secret confession. "I find this perverse from the point of view of professional ethics, and unspeakable from a human point of view," the segretary general of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Monsignor Nunzio Galantino, said in Rome. A day earlier, the Archbishop of Bologna Carlo Caffarra, speaking on behalf of other bishops from the northern Emilia-Romagna region, issued "the strongest protest" against "serious violation" of a Catholic sacrament. The editor...