Receiving the Eucharist is what most young Catholics expect. Even Paul Gannucci (pictured with his parents). A myriad of health conditions resulting in his being tube-fed since he was three months old have prevented him from consuming the Eucharist. Nonetheless, Gannucci has always wanted to be able to receive the Body of Christ. And so Read more
Even though the world is facing a pandemic that may limit many people’s ability to celebrate the sacraments, particularly those people who are in isolation, quarantining or hospitalized with COVID-19, confession by phone is still most likely invalid, said Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary. Read more
Rita Buettner says because of the COVID-19 pademic she had not been to confession for a long time. She decided to try to find a way to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. She tried out to a drive-through confession on Saturday afternoon St. John’s in Westminster, Md. Read more
Pope Francis explained what a good confessor’s like to hundreds of priests last Friday. There are three particular characteristics Francis highlighted when speaking to the priests at the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican court. The Apostolic Penitentiary deals with issues concerning the sacrament of confession. Francis says the first characteristic is the priest “must be a Read more
Australia’s archbishops expressed very different views on whether information children “confess” about abuse should be kept private, last week. They were being quizzed at the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. One of the questions they were asked related to a fictional child called ‘Sally’ who reported abuse to them in Read more
There have been calls from some quarters to reform Confession, and a recent Tablet article listed many reasons why Catholics said they had stopped going. Even a cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, has called for “proper reform to the sacrament” – an idea Pope Francis has signalled he does not want to look at. Recently I came Read more