Last Rites

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If I understand everything I have learned and read correctly, the Catholic church believes that Jesus has given it direct authority over it's members. By that I mean that priests are authorized to forgive sins, give pennance etc., on behalf of Jesus, essentially working as spiritual subcontractors for God.

I understand that deviants exist everywhere, not just the Catholic church. However it does happen that people who have no belief in God whatever, become clergy to get easy access to children, teens, distraught wives etc.. Because priests have the power to absolve sin, give pennance etc., it goes without saying that a priest who had alterior motives for becoming such can detrementally effect the eternal soul of the Catholics he comes into contact with.

What happens if you confess to someone like this? Receive communion? Receive last rights? What happens to your soul?

Would God actually punish me because I confessed to phony? If he would what does that say about God? If he wouldn't what does that say about the churches claim of being the only way to get to God?

-- Mike (auto_man@excite.com), July 12, 2001

Answers

No. You will hear a statement now and then like "The Church provides what is lacking". In other words God will make up for what would be lacking in the intentions of a misguided priest. Assumming the proper Form and Matter of the Sacrament. Otherwise the Sacrament is invalid. Now if someone "knowingly" receives a Sacrament from a priest without the priest have proper jurisdiction or faculties they committ a sin against the Sacrament.

-- Br. Rich SFO (repsfo@prodigy.net), July 12, 2001.

Br. Rich SFO,

"God will make up for what would be lacking in the intentions of a misguided priest."

By this do you mean that in these situations God, knowing that that the priest is "misguided", does not hold it against the person confessing and absolves the sins of the person directly? By directly I mean does it without the help of an additional mediator (another priest)? The confession and pennance would be considered valid in the eyes of God because the confessor did not know the priest was misguided?

I hope I made that clear (not as mud).

Thanks,

Mike

-- Mike (auto_man@excite.com), July 12, 2001.


Jmj

I think that what you had in mind, Rich, was not that "God will make up ...," but that the Church can sometimes make up (through its faith) for what is lacking, when a Sacrament is not carried out perfectly. (I have heard the Latin phrase, "Ecclesia supplet -- the Church supplies" for this.)
But I don't think that is exactly what Mike is after here.
'Way back in the first millennium, I believe that an ecumenical council concluded that Sacraments could be carried out efficaciously even by a priest who was in the state of mortal sin or who no longer had faith in what he was doing. The reason? The primary minister of the Sacrament is Christ himself, and he makes it efficacious -- e.g., absolution from sins, confection of the Eucharist, etc..

But I want to go back to a couple of things Mike said and dispute them strongly.

He wrote: "However it does happen that people who have no belief in God whatever, become clergy to get easy access to children, teens, distraught wives etc.."
I have never seen such a claim before, and I doubt that it has any validity. I especially doubt that Mike can produce any evidence of this. Realize that he is saying that psychologically ill ATHEISTS are going to Catholic seminaries, putting in a grueling five years of study and service, denying themselves all kinds of worldly pleasures --- just so that they can "get easy access to children, teens, distraught wives, etc.." This is PREPOSTEROUS.
We acknowledge that a very small number of Catholic priests (no greater a percentage than in the public at large or in the married non-Catholic clergy) get involved in sexual abuse, fornication/adultery, etc.. But I would be willing to bet everything I own that none of these guys were atheists when they entered the seminary and none (or almost none) of them went in with the hope of getting their jollies in parish life five years later.

Mike also wrote: "Would God actually punish me because I confessed to phony? If he would what does that say about God? If he wouldn't what does that say about the churches claim of being the only way to get to God?"
Rich is right to say that Mike would not be punished, for he had done nothing wrong, and his sins would be forgiven by Christ. But Mike was wrong to say that the Catholic Church has a "claim of being the only way to get to God." The Church does not teach such a thing, Mike.

St. James, pray for us. St. Michael, pray for us.
God bless you.
John

-- (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), July 12, 2001.


Just for future reference, the "God punishing for confessing to a phony" is a heresy condemned by the early church called Donatism. Dontatism believed:

1. Priests who had apostatized in the face of Roman persecution should not be allowed to dispense the sacraments

2. Sacraments administered by the unworthy were invalid

3. A holy church could not contain unholy members

The Church emphatically does not believe these things, as other people have already commented.

-- John (doppel6anger@home.com), July 22, 2001.


John,
Thanks for the excellent info.
JFG

-- (jgecik@desc.dla.mil), July 22, 2001.


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