-RRH-

Where could I learn if the catholic church has any guidelines for priests acting as confessors? Does the church provide any rules of thumb for assigning penance, and how could I learn them?

Mageth

Umm, are you an unmarried, male Catholic? If so, you could become a "man of the cloth." I'm sure they would have a class or two on it.

If not, you could check out "Receiving Confession and Assigining Penance for Dummies" at amazon.com.

so-crates

Yes, the Church does have guidelies for confessions. The structure is quite rigid, unless you're dealing with one of those 'liberal' priests. Here is an good overview:

<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11618c.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11618c.htm</a>

IvanK

I'd point out that the Catholic Church now refers to this as the "Sacrament of Reconciliation" rather than penance. What interests me currently is the difference between "sincere sorrow" or contrition, supposedly arising out of the pentient's sense of having offended God, and what is called "attrition" arising out of fear of hell, hope of heaven, or a (properly developed) sense of shame. As a pragmatist I don't see an important difference there myself; it's interesting how the Church lets istelf appear to begrudge recognizing the value of being "profitably moved by fear."

[ February 14, 2002: Message edited by: IvanK ]</p>

manhattan

See, this is the problem with making Priests stay celibate.

Anyone who has ever pissed off a girlfriend would see your point that they are one and the same!

Pantera

Note though that the online edition of the Catholic Encyclopaedia is from about 1910. A lot has changed since then, especially re Vatican II.

I always tended to suspect that the Priest would just give everyone three Hail Mary's and two Our Fathers to everyone who came in.

IvanK

IvanK's confession stories:

So this guy goes into the confessional, "forgive me Father for I have sinned" and so forth.

"How long has it been since your last confession, my son?"

"I've never done this before, Father."

"What is troubling you?"

"Well, Father, it's like this. I'm 70 years old and I've been married happily and faithfully to the same woman for 50 years. Last night she went to visit her sister and I went out to the local bar. I met this beautiful, sexy young woman, she must have been about 20. One thing led to another and we wound up making passionate love all night long."

"This is indeed serious. Say three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers and . . ."

"No, I don't think I'm going to do that, Father."

"Why not, my son, don't you want your sin to be forgiven?"

"Well, you see Father, I'm not Catholic, I'm a Jew."

"Why are you telling me this then?"

"Father, I'm 70 years old and hadn't been with a woman other than my wife for 50 years. I just spent all last night making wild passionate love to a beautiful 20-year-old woman. I'm telling everybody!"

*****

A young girl goes into the confessional, same deal.

"Well, Father, you know I'm about to be married and we really wanted to obey the teaching of the Church about not having sex before marriage, well last night it was just too much. We made love six times in a row, what can I do?"

"Take six lemons, squeeze all the juice into a glass and drink it in one swallow."

"Will that forgive my sin?"

"Maybe not, but it will sure take that shit-eating grin off your face!"