What Do You Think About Community Reconciliation?

[AccountDeleted]

I have had such different experiences in Confession, priests are all so different. At one charismatic community, in a face-to-face Confession, the priest actually stood up and placed his hands on top of my head and prayed. I felt such energy pour through me and I cried. Then he stopped and we finished off with Confession and Absolution and I left feeling so cleansed.

At another Confession, I went to this elderly priest, who was always so gentle with me. I wasn't feeling particularly sinful or repentant, but he became almost stern and gave me such a dressing down so I realised that I must have allowed myself to become complacent about my sins, as if they weren't important because they were just small ones. I felt as if God Himself were speaking to me through this priest and I started crying (I cry a lot). As soon as I felt repentant, the priest's demeanor changed and he became kinder again. That was amazing for me.

It has been wonderful to go all over the world and experience so many different priests, knowing all the time that I am really confessing to God and He is the one forgiving my sins.

[BG45]

I went to one the other day where one priest was a Vladimir Putin lookalike. I actually said "Please God, don't let me get Putin. I don't think I'd be able to confess my sins without cracking up."

I ended up with the priest for that specific parish, right after he had like 9 kiddos. Before we started it was like, "oh good a big person". I guess my gaze subconsciously slid to my belly because the next words out of his mouth were, "OH! OH NO! I MEANT AS IN AN ADULT PERSON! I WASN'T INSULTING YOU! No, I save the offensive stuff for people who don't want to properly face their sins. So...shall we begin?"

[Byzantine]

My school does a penance service during Advent and Lent. It basically goes like this:

Enter priests.
Group examination of conscience.
Group Act of Contrition.
Individual Confessions.

They say it puts positive peer pressure on people to go to Confession. I don't think they've even implied that your sins are all forgiven without the individual Confession.
The Byzantine Small Compline includes a Service of Mutual Forgiveness for after the final blessing. I've only been at two that weren't celebrated by a young priest (one of the times in question was pretty awful, the other was so-so. Compline is really a service of the youth in my Church). It's a really moving thing to see one of my friends in their twenties or thirties bow before the entire community and ask their forgiveness. And it's even more moving to bow with other teenagers and ask for his forgiveness. So wonderful!

[fides' Jack]

Well, my personal opinion is that I would never want to be included in such a service.

In this diocese, when they have a "community reconciliation service," they pick a parish, and a dozen or so priests are there in different corners, and lines form going to each of them, for people to have individual confessions. That's about as liberal with the sacrament that I'd ever like to see.

As far as general absolution goes, yes, it's only allowed in life-or-death cases. Otherwise, it's illicit. I believe it would still be valid, but I also believe (could be wrong) that the priest himself would be guilty of a mortal sin of sacrilege. So that would apply to any priest who gives the idea that a "community reconciliation service" is enough, or to any priest who says during such a ceremony that the people there are absolved (as he cannot know without an individual confession whether somebody has sinned mortally).

On the other hand, I kind of like the idea of confessing sins publicly. After all, that's how they did it in the early Church, and in the end, everyone will know everyone else's sins anyway.

I will pray for the priest who gave absolution this way, and for the people he (perhaps unintentionally) led astray...

[cmotherofpirl]

I have only seen a general absolution once, during the Three Mile Island incident here in PA. I wasn't scared about radiation until then.