Franciscan Friar Daniel P. Horan, in a response to the USCCB’s March 20th document “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to the Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” refers to the Note as a “disaster”. […]
null / Credit: NaruFoto/Shutterstock
Denver, Colo., Mar 28, 2023 / 11:30 am (CNA).
Religious student groups on many college and university campuses will lose key federal protections for their ability to organize on campus and set their own stan… […]
null / L’Osservatore Romano.
Denver, Colo., Feb 23, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
Lent is supposed to be a time of penance in the Catholic Church. This year, it’s a time when priests in the confessional will use a revised translation of the sacrament of penance and reconciliation to forgive the sins of Catholic penitents.
The changes are noticeable in the formula of absolution, when the priest speaks in the person of Jesus Christ to absolve a Catholic from his or her sins. The “essential words” of the priest’s absolution formula have not been changed, but there are “two minor modifications to the preliminary part of the prayer,” according to the April 2022 newsletter of the Committee on Divine Worship of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Here’s the new approved text, with changes in bold:
God, the Father of mercies,
through the Death and Resurrection of his Son
has reconciled the world to himself
and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins;
through the ministry of the Church may God grant you pardon and peace,
and I absolve you from your sins
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, [sign of the cross]
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The line “poured out the Holy Spirit” previously read “sent the Holy Spirit among us.” The phrase “may God grant you pardon and peace” is only a one-word change: It previously read “may God give you pardon and peace.”
The changes add “a little bit more richness to the language,” according to Monsignor Richard Hilgartner, a former executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Divine Worship who is now pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Cockeysville, Maryland.
“God’s granting something that we don’t deserve, and that’s what forgiveness is. It’s something that we don’t earn or deserve,” Hilgartner told the Archdiocese of Baltimore newspaper The Catholic Review.
The sacrament of penance, also called reconciliation or confession, is the means through which God grants pardon for sins through the priest’s ministry. In the sacrament, the contrite penitent discloses his or her sins to a Catholic priest who grants sacramental absolution. The penitent makes an act of contrition in which he or she resolves to not sin again. The priest generally instructs the penitent to perform an act of satisfaction, usually called a penance. This can take the form of prayer, such as praying three Hail Marys, for example.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2021 fall general assembly voted in favor of the new translation of the prayer, with 182 votes in favor, 6 against, and 2 abstentions. The Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments approved the translation in April 2022.
The new language for the priest’s absolution is allowed as of Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Priests must use the new language starting on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 16, the first Sunday after Easter 2023.
Hilgartner noted that the liturgical season of Lent is a penitential time when many Catholics especially seek out the sacrament of reconciliation. He told the Catholic Review that many Catholics feel peace and relief after going to confession, especially if they have been away from the sacrament for a long time.
“Inevitably, people say, ‘I feel so much better. I feel like a burden has been lifted,’ because that’s what’s happening. God is casting behind his back all our sins, taking them away from us in a way that we don’t know how to do for ourselves,” he said. “I hear often about how people feel literally unburdened by this happening. And it’s the great gift — that the Lord’s taking this upon himself. For us, this is what the cross is all about, that he takes all of our sins to the cross so that we don’t have to.”
Under Church law, every Catholic has the right to an anonymous sacramental confession. In practice, priests often do not even know the identity of a penitent. In the Catholic understanding of the “seal of confession,” the contents are “inviolable.” Any priest who discloses the contents of a confession faces among the harshest penalties of the Church, an automatic excommunication.
Pope Francis has frequently encouraged Catholics to receive God’s forgiveness in the sacrament of penance.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan. / Stephen Driscoll/CNA
Boston, Mass., Feb 17, 2023 / 15:15 pm (CNA).
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) responded Thursday to a leaked document from the FBI that appears to reveal that the bureau’s … […]
Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where he delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech during the Aug 28 1963 march on Washington DC. / null
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 16, 2023 / 08:00 am (CNA).
… […]
null / ivanko80/Shutterstock
Washington D.C., Jan 9, 2023 / 14:30 pm (CNA).
The U.S. Catholic bishops are challenging the Biden administration after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced for the first time that pharmacies can di… […]
Pope Francis meets with the United States bishops at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2015. / L’Osservatore Romano.
Rome Newsroom, Nov 28, 2022 / 08:01 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has emphasized the difference between bishops’ conferences and bishops in a new interview with America Magazine.
“The bishops’ conference is there to bring together the bishops, to work together, to discuss issues, to make pastoral plans. But each bishop is a pastor,” the pope said in a lengthy interview conducted at his Vatican home on Nov. 22 and published Nov. 28.
“Let us not dissolve the power of the bishop by reducing it to the power of the bishops’ conference.”
The conversation with the Jesuit publication covered a wide range of topics, including the role of bishops, racism, polarization, sexual abuse, the Vatican-China deal, and whether he has any regrets from his time as pope.
In the interview, Pope Francis was told about a 2021 America Magazine survey that found that Catholics in the United States consider the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to be the least trustworthy out of the groups listed — 20% of U.S. Catholics surveyed found the USCCB to be “very trustworthy.”
Francis was asked: “How can the U.S. Catholic bishops regain the trust of American Catholics?”
“The question is good because it speaks about the bishops,” he responded. “But I think it is misleading to speak of the relationship between Catholics and the bishops’ conference. The bishops’ conference is not the pastor; the pastor is the bishop. So one runs the risk of diminishing the authority of the bishop when you look only to the bishops’ conference.”
“Jesus did not create bishops’ conferences,” he added. “Jesus created bishops, and each bishop is pastor of his people.”
Pope Francis said the emphasis should be on whether a bishop has a good relationship with his people, not on administration.
He gave the example of Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas: “I do not know if he is conservative, or if he is progressive, if he is of the right or of the left, but he is a good pastor.”
In the U.S., the pope said, there are ‘some good bishops who are more on the right, some good bishops who are more on the left, but they are more bishops than ideologues; they are more pastors than ideologues. That is the key.”
“The grace of Jesus Christ is in the relationship between the bishop and his people, his diocese,” he said.
A bishops’ conference, instead, is an organization meant to “assist and unite.”
Pope Francis was also asked whether the USCCB should prioritize the fight against abortion over other issues.
To which he said: “this is a problem the bishops’ conference has to resolve within itself.”
The pope pointed out that the activity of a bishops’ conference is on the organizational level, and in history, conferences have at times gotten things wrong.
“In other words, let this be clear: A bishops’ conference has, ordinarily, to give its opinion on faith and traditions, but above all on diocesan administration and so on,” he said, again emphasizing the sacramental nature of the pastoral relationship of a bishop to his diocese and its people.
“And this cannot be delegated to the bishops’ conference,” he added. “The conference helps to organize meetings, and these are very important; but for a bishop, [being] pastor is most important.”
In the interview, Pope Francis also denounced polarization as “not Catholic,” and said the Catholic way of dealing with sin is “not puritanical” but puts saints and sinners together.
He also said in the U.S., where there is a Catholicism particular to that country, something he called “normal,” “you also have some ideological Catholic groups.”
On the topic of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis was asked about the apparent lack of transparency when it comes to accusations against bishops, compared with the handling of accusations against priests.
The pope called for “equal transparency” going forward, adding that “if there is less transparency, it is a mistake.”
To a question about Black Catholics, Francis said he is “aware of their suffering, that he loves them very much, and that they should resist and not walk away” from the Catholic Church.
“Racism is an intolerable sin against God,” he added. “The Church, the pastors and laypeople must continue fighting to eradicate it and for a more just world.”
Asked if he has any regrets, or if he would change anything he has done in nearly 10 years as pope, Francis said in English, as he laughed, that he would change “all! All!”
“However, I did what the Holy Spirit was telling me I had to do. And when I did not do it, I made a mistake,” he added.
On his seeming constant joyfulness, the pope said he is not “always like that,” except when he is with people.
“I would not say that I am happy because I am healthy, or because I eat well, or because I sleep well, or because I pray a great deal,” he explained. “I am happy because I feel happy, God makes me happy. I don’t have anything to blame on the Lord, not even when bad things happen to me. Nothing.”
He said the Lord has guided him through both good and difficult moments, “but there is always the assurance that one does not walk alone.”
“One has one’s faults,” he said, “also one’s sins; I go to confession every 15 days — I do not know, that is just how I am.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has elected a host of new leadership positions this week. Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services has been elected president. Archbishop William E. Lori […]
Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, California. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.
Baltimore, Md., Nov 16, 2022 / 12:45 pm (CNA).
Editor’s note: Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, the outgoing president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bis… […]
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the newly elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, meets with reporters in Baltimore on Nov. 15, 2022. / Joe Bukuras/CNA
Baltimore, Md., Nov 15, 2022 / 17:50 pm (CNA).
In his first press… […]
© Catholic World Report