Posts Tagged ‘Reconciliation’

The peace I’ve experienced hearing confessions in prison

Monday, August 21st, 2023
Prison

When he pulls back from the table, it is wet from his tears. It isn’t like he is sobbing. The tears just fall silently. Salvo, the name of this 30-something man who signed up for confession at the prison where I serve as a chaplain, kept on speaking. I wasn’t sure whether he was talking Read more

When a pope asks forgiveness for past wrongs

Monday, April 4th, 2022
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Representatives of Canada’s Indigenous communities were in Rome last week for a series of meetings with Pope Francis. The purpose of their visit was to urge Francis to publicly apologize for the abuse that their ancestors – and even some of them – suffered at residential schools run by the Catholic Church. But can a Read more

Restoring the Third Rite of Reconciliation

Monday, November 15th, 2021
Third rite of reconciliation

One of the casualties of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was the confidentiality of the Catholic Sacrament of Penance — commonly called ‘the Seal of Confession’. The Catholic bishops who responded to the Commission were unable to convince the commissioners that the seal of confession should continue to be respected, Read more

Francis opens up on what it’s like to be pope

Monday, September 30th, 2019

Popes don’t suddenly become perfect, sinless human beings after they’re elected to papal office. Pope Francis says what being elected does do, is make a pope’s responsibilities greater and his prayer list longer. As far as sin’s concerned though, Francis says he’s basically the same person he was before he was elected in 2013. “The Read more

Compassion, justice and healing after abuse apology

Thursday, October 25th, 2018
george pell

The Australian royal commission is over, but there is still a long way for us to travel so that we might stand together in solidarity committed to justice, truth and healing for all, for the living and for the dead. We are unlikely as a Church or as a society to get this right for Read more

Debate revived in Australia over Third Rite confession

Monday, September 24th, 2018
third rite

Great shocks to the system often can jar loose utterly new responses from institutions typically given to maintaining the status quo. Other times, the effect can be to reopen debates from the past which, not so long ago, seemed definitively closed. That latter scenario may be unfolding in Australia right now, pivoting on once-intense debates Read more

Maybe it’s time to rethink how we do confession

Monday, August 14th, 2017
confession

In the BBC remake of G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mystery novels, the intrepid title character sometimes makes use of certain special knowledge when sleuthing crimes. This particular superpower is not the result of radioactive mutation or dark magic. It has to do with his priesthood, but it is not the Holy Spirit, exactly. It Read more

South Korea seeks, gets Vatican support with North

Thursday, June 1st, 2017

South Korea can be sure of  Vatican support in reconciling differences with North Korea. “You are always welcome,” South Korea’s Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-jong was told when he asked if President Moon Jae-in could visit. Last month Moon, who is a practising Catholic, sent Archbishop Kim to the Vatican on his behalf. Kim is South Read more

Traditionalist SSPX sacraments approved

Thursday, April 6th, 2017

Pope Francis has set the scene for the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) to have the marriages it celebrates validated. This is one of a number of  the Pope’s initiatives that aim to bring SSPX into full communion with the Church. A letter from the Vatican to Catholic bishops said they will be allowed Read more

Vanuatu Christians boycott reconciliation ceremony involving Muslims

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016
muslim

Christian groups in Vanuatu would not support an international reconciliation ceremony which  involved Muslims. The reconciliation took place on Sunday. The chairman of the Vanuatu Christian Council, Pastor Allan Nafuki, said they would not support the ceremony and instead plan a march for all Christians in Vanuatu next Friday. The want to  send out a Read more