the VICE divide

The report was based on a study of confessions carried out by Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar.

The Pope's personal theologian backed up the report in the Vatican newspaper.

I'm sure all those people afraid to go to Confession because priest's (might) remember their sins are thrilled that one priest was making a study during his time in the confessional and it was (allegedly) backed by a Theologian close to the Holy Father!!!

There's just something about that whole article that seems... wrong. Oh, I agree that men and women struggle with different sins; but that's irrelevant to the point of the Sacrament! And publicizing a "study" based on "information from the confessional" doesn't seem to square with the seal of the Sacrament of Confession...

Marian, you're right, this is horrifying.

Let me tell you another horrifying experience I had in preparation for Divine Mercy Sunday. After weeks of preparation and reading about how loving and merciful Our Lord is, I encountered a priest who was the exact opposite in the confessional. In fact, I was so traumatized by the experience, it took me two days to recover. Now I understand why some people never go back to confession after such an experience.

I don't see the scandal. If a priest has hear confession for 40 years or more, I think he can say tendencies of men and women without effecting the seal. But then again you guys are girls and get angry faster

I agree with cowboy. If you read any moral theology manual, the situations presented in the moral theology manual (such as Moral Theology by Fr. Heribert Jone) come from real life experience in the confessional. They do not come out of thin air.

The confessional seal protects the identity of the penitent. If a priest in Rome who is giving a moral theology class to train seminarians wants to talk about a confession he heard 30 years a ago when he was a missionary in Africa and the identity of the penitent is completely untraceable that is not a violation of the seal of confession.

Oh, I get what both of you are saying... it's just weird to read an article about a priest making a study out of what he hears in the confessional. After all, the modern day Jesuits are not known for their adherence to the teachings of the Church...

Heh, I have my reservations about even the olden-day Jesuits.

I agree with you Rasha. The Jesuits have really created a lot of problems we are dealing with even to today. I got Fr. Harrrison's talk from St. Benedict Center and he seem to be saying Baptism of Desire was mainly promoted by the Jesuits. I mean that pagans can be saved. Also it seems like Pascal may have had a point when he wrote the "Provincial Letters." Pascal's main source on Jesuit casuistry was Antonio Escobar's Summula casuum conscientiae (1627), several propositions of which would be later condemned by Pope Innocent XI. I also thought the Jesuit's arrogance in the Molinism controversy was scandalous. They manipulate a pope and gave no care for the salvation souls only their image. No, the Jesuits have not been worth it. They bring more trouble than help. Modernism was essentially a Jesuit heresy.