A person, who wishes to remain nameless, showed
me an email yesterday that a parish priest had sent to them in response to an
enquiry about Confession times. The
response was that there were no Confessions being heard in his parish until
after Easter Sunday.
Apparently Confessions were last heard on
Monday of Holy Week and that that was the last occasion for Confessions in his
parish for the rest of Holy Week.
I am an Anglican convert to
Catholicism. I converted about 26 years
ago when I was young (20 years old) and handsome. Now I am, sadly, just handsome. I drive my parish priest absolutely nuts, I
think, because I often lightheartedly use the words, “when
I was in the Anglican Church . . .”, in conversations with him.
One of the comments I have made to him on
occasion, though definitely always tongue in cheek of course, is that it may be far easier to
find a Confessor in the ‘Anglo-Catholic’ Anglican Church than it is in the Roman
Catholic Church.
After hearing and reading this priests written response to Nameless, maybe I shouldn’t be
making this comment quite so tongue in cheek anymore? Maybe it really is easier to find a Confessor
in the ‘Anglo-Catholic’ Anglican Church, than it is in the Roman Catholic Church!
Of course I may in fact be being totally
unreasonable. Help me please.
Am I being unreasonable in my expectation
that this priest should give his parishioners and others who may need to go to Confession at his parish during Holy Week, more opportunities to make their Confession? (I know for a fact that this is not a question of a priest to thinly spread.)
Am I being ridiculous because I consider it
absurd that the next time the Sacrament of Confession will be made available in
that parish is after Easter?
Finally, since Nameless was clearly interested in going to Confession, should this priest not at the very least have offered to hear Nameless' confession, since the enquiry had obviously been made for this reason?
PS: The lighthearted remark I made, about finding a Confessor in the Anglo-Catholic Anglican Church, is most certainly lighthearted. There is no way that you would find it easier to locate a Confessor in the Anglican Church. I suspect there are some Anglican 'priests' who have never made their confession, let alone heard one. (I digress, as always; different subject for a different day.)
PPS: One last point to end off this post. It is a preemptive statement for just in case anyone tries to hijack this subject with that old argument that the Sacrament of Confession is not permitted
during Easter Triduum or more specifically on Good Friday. Here are the words from the Missale Romanum, which, under the instructions for Good Friday,
states: “Hac
et sequenti die, Ecclesia, ex antiquissima traditione, sacramenta, praeter
Paenitentiae et Infirmorum Unctionis penitus non celebrat.”
In English it reads: “Today
and tomorrow, the Church, according to very ancient tradition, except for
Penance and the Anointing of the Sick, does not celebrate at all the
sacraments.”
