The Papists

Re: “Why is a priest necessary for confession?”

Olivier did a great job of answering, but I wanted to add:

Because Jesus said so! :) He instituted the priesthood and the sacrament of confession. 

Further recommended reading:

Confession is not a private affair in the Bible 
More Scriptural Basis for Confession
Confession 
The Forgiveness of Sins 
The Question of Confession 

- Q

Not if it’s deliberately concealed. Deliberately concealed sins invalidate the entire confession.

But if you sincerely forget something, don’t sweat it—you’re still forgiven. You are supposed to mention the forgotten sin the next time you go to confession, though. Many priests will blow that part off these days, but they’re not supposed to.

If, like me, you have trouble remembering everything you want to confess, I recommend making a list, or better yet just bringing a list of the 10 Commandments with you. Then you can run down the list and remember everything. There are “examinations of conscience” lists you can find that ask questions pertaining to each of the commandments meant to help you apply them to your life, too. I use the one in my 1962 Roman Missal, and it’s a great help.

-Q

The first sin is defined in the Catechism as Adam and Eve having let the trust in their Creator die in their hearts: they stopped trusting God and set themselves up as the judges of good and evil in place of God. (#397)

From the glossary:

ORIGINAL SIN: The sin by which the first human beings disobeyed the commandment of God, choosing to follow their own will rather than God’s will.

That’s all about pride. We are called to be obedient to God’s will. Disobedience, in whatever form it takes, is powered by pride. A good, simple definition of pride is trusting yourself rather than God. (It often manifests as fear, doubt, etc, rather than unmitigated arrogance; that kind of arrogance usually occurs in human relationships, rather than the human-Divine relationship, and can be characterized as setting oneself as the standard of all good/perfection/etc to which no other human being measures up.)

#398:

In that [original] sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good.

You could call it self-worship, which is a form of idolatry, but “idolatry” in itself isn’t a motivation to disobedience. Only pride (trusting oneself above God) does that. So I stand by my first argument: pride is the more fundamental sin, since idolatry is only a manifestation of it. Pride comes first.

Hope that helps!

In his excellent short book A Biblical Walk Through the Mass: Understanding What We Say and Do in the Liturgy, Dr. Edward Sri explains:

Throughout the Old Testament, when God manifests his divine presence to his people, it is usually quite unexpected. […] However, when the people were given advance notice of God’s coming among them, they took time to prepare carefully for this holy encounter. For example, at Mount Sinai, Israel had three days to get ready to meet the Lord, who would come to them in thunder, lightning, and cloud and speak the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments—directly to the people. In those days of preparation, they were instructed to consecrate themselves to the Lord and to wash their garments (Ex 19:9-19).

We, too, are called to prepare ourselves for a sacred encounter with the Lord every time we go to Mass. Yet our meeting with God is more profound than anyone in ancient Israel ever imagined. For, in the sacred Liturgy, we draw near not just to a manifestation of God’s presence in the form of a cloud, but to the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. And we will receive our divine Lord sacramentally within us in holy communion.

We truly are not worthy to participate in all this. Indeed, our sinfulness stands in stark contrast to what we are about to do in the Mass. And so, the priest invites us to “prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries” by humbly confessing our sins publicly before almighty God and the congregation. Just as the people of Israel needed to wash their garments before approaching the Lord at Sinai, so we need to cleanse our souls from sin before we approach God in the Mass. Indeed, washing is a biblical image for the removal of sin (Ps 51:2, 7).

The prayer known as the Confiteor—the first word of this prayer in Latin, meaning “I confess”—stands in a long biblical tradition of confessing one’s sins. 

Sri cites Neh 9:2, Ps 32:5, 38:18, Prv 28:13, Sir 4:26, Lv 5:5, Nm 5:7, Dn 9:20, Neh 1:6, Mt 3:6, Mk 1:5, 1 Jn 1:9, Jas 5:16, and 1 Cor 11:28, 27 as examples of the different ways, publicly and privately, communally and individually, Jews and Christians confessed and were commanded to confess before partaking in acts of worship. 

In other words, this kind of public, communal prayer for forgiveness from God and from each other has a long history in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is not meant to replace and cannot substitute for sacramental confession, which absolves us of our sins in a particular and immediate way, but it is an instance of the many times we should make such prayers to God between confessions. It is an inherent part of the public, liturgical act of worship. 

God bless you!

According to the Didache, an ancient Christian account of celebrating the Eucharist, in the very beginning the Eucharist was received on the hand. Tradition developed as times changed, more people converted, the liturgy was formalized, and moved away from Jewish passover customs (where, of course, the Eucharist was instituted.)

In the Eastern Catholic Church and among the Orthodox, Communion is distributed by intinction (the Host is leavened bread soaked in the Precious Blood) on a small spoon directly into the mouth of the person. In the Roman Rite, where the Tridentine liturgy was celebrated until 1969, the faithful received only the Body of Christ on the tongue while kneeling on the communion rail before the altar. This developed at least in part out of concern for accidental profanation of the Body and Blood of Christ. Profanation includes accidental dropping or spilling of the Host or Blood. It’s a very serious problem and to be avoided at all costs. 

After the Novus Ordo, the mass we celebrate most often today, was instituted following Vatican II (although please note that none of the official documents of Vatican II approved or called for such a change), receiving on the hand was declared a valid practice for the Latin Rite as part of those liturgical changes. 

In my experience, receiving on the tongue is the best way to go. You don’t have to worry about pieces of the Host crumbling on your hand and being brushed onto the floor to be trampled—and it happens, without us even noticing, as a priest demonstrated just how easily (with unconsecrated hosts) in a video that you can find on youtube—and it’s such an unusual act of humility and reverence in our modern culture that it truly heightens your awareness that is the Body of the King of Kings which you are receiving, that you have been brought into the eternal moment of Christ’s Sacrifice.

I’ve also found that the ubiquitous “Eucharistic Ministers” are hard to surprise, so if you want to start receiving on the tongue, don’t be nervous: just keep your hands folded low, and after you say Amen, stick out your tongue. Most likely, they won’t even blink.

Since both practices are valid today (although personally I am convinced that there is a solid theological case for the superiority of receiving on the tongue, as evidenced by the Tridentine and Byzantine liturgical traditions,) today it comes down to personal choice. Personal comfort is a factor, I suppose, although it is worth noting that we are called to worship God the way He deserves, not in the way that makes us the most comfortable. Ultimately, it’s up to each individual to decide which way of receiving allows them to participate most reverently in the Holy Sacrifice and worship our Lord in the fullest possible way.

God bless you!

No, for the same reasons that it is not permitted for non-Catholics or Catholics in a state of mortal sin to receive the Eucharist.

CCC #1400:

Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, “have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders.” It is for this reason that, for the Catholic Church, Eucharistic intercommunion with these communions is not possible. 

Catholic Answers uses this passage to answer a similar question. They also say this: 

Protestant communion is a subjective experience. The bread and wine only symbolize the body and blood of Christ. The communion will affect the person to the degree that he is devoted to the Person of Jesus. If the communicant is devoted to Jesus, the experience becomes an act of devotion and can even be an act of the person’s love. For those not devoted to him, the experience will mean little. For those who receive the Eucharist in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the experience is more than merely subjective. The eucharistic elements (over and above their symbolic value) have an objective reality apart from the recipient’s religiosity. These recipients have the inexpressible experience of the intimate visitation of Jesus within their very bodies. Nothing on the face of the earth can equal this.

 

Eastern Catholics also practice infant communion. It’s simply a difference in the theology of East and West. It’s important for individual Catholics to abide by the customs of their rite. (Although if Roman Rite parents visit a Byzantine Catholic church, there is nothing wrong with having their infant receive the Blessed Sacrament there.)

The Western theo-philosohpical tradition is that children should have an understanding of the theology, importance, and holiness of the Eucharist when they first receive. Accordingly, when a child is old enough to have that understanding, they are likely old enough to sin, that is, they have reached the “age of reason.”

It’s a straw-man argument to say the Roman Church believes there’s some “magical” age where children “instantly” become capable of reasoning (and therefore sinning) just as adults do. The Church has posed the age of seven as that age after which children become accountable simply as an average, pastoral age that often applies to most people, but the process of reasoning, understanding Christ, and being able to choose sin is a gradual one that all people go through. I recommend this for clarification, and this is related.

As for guidelines for receiving Communion in general: It is true that the Lord excludes no one, but people who do not assent to the Catholic faith in its entirety exclude themselves from properly receiving the Eucharist, even if they physically eat it. Here and here are some more on that. Essentially, the Eucharist cannot be reduced to hospitality or a “nice gesture” of “inclusion.”

Here and here are relevant Catholic Encyclopedia articles, and these are the relevant CCC passages:

Eucharistic communion:
access to Eucharist prohibited, 1650
first Holy Communion, 1244
frequency of, 1388-89
minister of, 1411
necessary preparation for receiving, 1385-87
requirements for receiving, 1355, 1415
sacrilege against, 2120
under two species, 1390

God bless you!

The Old Law contains two different kinds of laws: moral laws and cultural laws. Christians are not bound by the cultural laws, but are always bound by the moral laws which transcend culture because they are eternal truths. We still hold to the Ten Commandments, too—they’re moral laws.

This article does a great job of answering your question.

God bless you!

The Church has never changed its doctrine. Some popes have apologized on behalf of the Church for misunderstandings and whatever unintended hurt has developed out of certain historical situations. As far as geocrentrism goes, here’s what really happened with Galileo. Further, evolution in itself is not a problem—evolution used in exclusive support of atheism is.

It is, in fact, impossible for the Magisterium to change it’s position on any defined teachings of the Church, because the Church cannot change what God has decreed. So I’m afraid your question as to our personal reactions is moot.

For an excellent primer on the due honor and reverence accorded the living souls in full union with God in heaven, who have been Biblically shown to intercede for those of us here on earth, please click here. You might also be interested in these articles or these.

God bless you!

Angels do have free will. Love can never be forced—if it is, then it is not love. If angels didn’t have free will, there would be no point to them. As the original answer indicated, however, their choices for good or evil are eternal. Like God, they exist outside of time and are completely made up of spirit, without bodies. (Although since the Incarnation, God also has a human body, Jesus.) Tradition tells us that because of their eternal and bodiless nature, angels had one choice to make for eternity, at the moment they were created, to either choose God or to reject him. In other words, because they exist outside of time, they do not have the capacity to repent; that’s just part of the nature of eternity. One day, we’ll be the same: once we die, we will exist in eternity, and the final choice we made in life will be our eternal choice, either for heaven or hell.

Some recommended short readings that have relevant information:

How could Lucifer have rebelled? 
Why pray to angels? 
Are angels beings or just symbols? 
Can angels be male or female? 
The angels and us (audio) 
The biblical roots and roles of angels (audio) 
Must we believe in angels? 
Other articles

The Catechism of the Catholic Church on angels:

in the anaphora, 1352
birth of Christ and, 525, 559
Christ and, 331, 538, 954, 1038, 1161
in the Church’s life, 334-35
cosmic order and the guardianship of, 57
existence of angels as a truth of faith, 328
fallen, 391-93, 414, 760
Gabriel announcing, 148, 2676
gone astray, 311
guardian, 336
heaven and, 326, 1023-29, 1053
identity and duties of, 329, 332-36, 350-52, 1034, 1352
images in art, 1192, 2131, 2502
protectors of men, 336 

Hope that helps!

- Q