I confess, I am a little afraid of Confession.
For one thing, finding someone you can trust who agrees to do it can be difficult.
Another thing (from a purely hypothetical and not at all experiential perspective) is that you might make your entire confession and then the priest, for whatever reason, decides that you can’t make a valid act of contrition, and denies you absolution.
That is actually horrible. Hypothetically.
The reason for this is, of course, directly related to your confessor’s knowledge and judgment of your life. For example, your confessor may know that you are, say, pro-choice, or that you’re sleeping with someone you’re not married to. If you haven’t (hypothetically) confessed these things, the confessor can decide that you are in an unrepentant state of mortal sin (regardless of whether or not you think these things are sins) and therefore that any absolution would be invalid anyway, since you have not confessed all your mortal sins.
Hypothetically
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If that were, hypothetically, to happen, one should report this person to the Bishop. Or at least to another priest. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, confession is an act of faith in one's confessor. It's a leap!