According to the Catholic Church, when can a priest refuse to grant absolution in confession?
score:5
According to Catholic Church , which are the situations in which the priest at the confessional can refuse to stand as a mediator of absolution?
A priest can refuse to absolve a penitent if he has no intention of changing his life of sin.
Many years ago, my parish priest admitted, during a homily, that he had actually denied to absolve someone from their sins, because he refused to amend his life of sin.
Now that is sad!
31. Can a priest ever rightly deny me absolution?
A priest will normally try to do everything he can never to have to deny someone absolution.
But on some rare occasions he will find himself in a situation where he has no choice.
This occurs when the penitent lacks one of the three elements that make for a good confession:
either the penitent confesses no sins even after the priest assists in examining the conscience;
or the penitent does not even have imperfect contrition for the sins committed;
or, most frequently, the penitent lacks a firm purpose of amendment to address a situation of serious sin, like a living arrangement incompatible with the Gospel.
In such cases, the priest will normally pray with the penitent so that he or she may receive God’s help to remedy a situation from which the person may presently see no way out.
Upvote:0
A priest can refuse absolution when he knows that the absolution would be invalid. The most likely situation of this sort would be the one that Ken Graham already mentioned, refusal to amend one's life. A few other theoretical possibilities would be if the priest knew that the penitent was deliberately omitting some grave sins, or that the penitent had not done a reasonable examination of conscience, or that the penitent had not been baptized. (I refer to these as "theoretical" because it's hard to see how a priest would come to know such things. But if he did, he couldn't absolve.)
Upvote:0
1983 Code of Canon Law
Canon 980 If the confessor has no doubt about the disposition of the penitent, and the penitent seeks absolution, absolution is to be neither refused nor deferred.
cf. 1917 Code of Canon Law can. 886
More post
- 📝 Are we blessed when people hurt us?
- 📝 How have mainstream Christian denominations interpreted the Acts command to abstain from blood?
- 📝 Is celebrating Christmas required of Catholics?
- 📝 Can one pray for something "bad" to happen to yourself?
- 📝 Did Moses Have A Speech Impediment?
- 📝 Why does God forbid Aaron's descendants with "defects" from offering food?
- 📝 Can Christians have a right to defend themselves?
- 📝 What are some scholarly biblical arguments for theistic evolution?
- 📝 Do any denominations teach how to bring about revival?
- 📝 According to dispensationalists, does the "secret rapture" include a bodily resurrection and new earth?
- 📝 According to Catholicism, where will our resurrected bodies be after the 'final judgment'?
- 📝 How was the Old Testament compiled?
- 📝 When the child shall play at the hole of the asp, will it be newly created or re-created?
- 📝 What is the rationale for Greek Orthodox's erection of a wall between the congregates and the altar?
- 📝 What is the source of the belief that the deceased become angels?
- 📝 What evidence do we have that Blind Bartimaeus approached Jesus naked?
- 📝 Does Predestination apply to all people or just the major characters God needed for His plans for us to unfold?
- 📝 What's a Papist exactly?
- 📝 Is 1 Thessalonians 4:17 the only verse that supports the rapture?
- 📝 If you promise or swear to do something evil or sinful, do you have an obligation to fulfill that promise?
- 📝 Has the US Catholic Church given an imprimatur to any English Bible translations intended for children?
- 📝 How do Christians who believe in a witness of the Holy Spirit via thoughts & feelings respond to the claim that thoughts & feelings are unreliable?
- 📝 Introduction to Greek Texts; Byzantine vs. Alexandrian
- 📝 What is the Protestant argument against Immaculate Conception?
- 📝 How did Thomas Aquinas view grace as opposed to the church fathers?
- 📝 Blood of the New Covenant offered to whom?
- 📝 To what extent (if any) does the Catholic Church recognize adoption?
- 📝 Did Jesus condemn contraception
- 📝 Can annulments be granted after a marriage has received a Radical Sanation?
- 📝 How do Lutherns and Reformers explain when God's Preceptive Will goes against His Decretive Will?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, when can a priest refuse to grant absolution in confession?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church is it offensive to dress as a Catholic priest and perform “communion”?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church teach that we can choose when to use an indulgence?
- 📝 Can a Uniate (Eastern) Catholic priest celebrate the Mass according to the Latin Rite?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, when did the Church begin?
- 📝 How, according to the Catholic Church, can God order genocide even though the Church has declared such a situation impossible?
- 📝 According to the Catholic church everyone has a Guardian Angel,but what happens when you get married?
- 📝 When did the prohibition of marriage for priests in the Catholic church originate?
- 📝 According to the Roman Catholic church, who can baptize a new believer?
- 📝 Why can the Catholic Church declare one person a saint but has never declared another damned?
- 📝 When did Peter become the first Pope, according to Roman Catholic tradition?
- 📝 What does the Catholic Church mean when it calls humans co-creators with God?
- 📝 Since when did the Catholic church accept Protestant baptism, and what was the original rationale for accepting?
- 📝 Can a priest give a Mass in American Sign Language (ASL)? What does he do when he is supposed to lift up the Eucharist while speaking in ASL?
- 📝 Can a Catholic priest be tied to a single parish or other physical church his entire life?
- 📝 When did the Latin Catholic Church begin to generally require fasting only one hour prior to the Eucharist?
- 📝 Did Pope Francis declare that according to the teaching of the Catholic Church capital punishment is intrinsically evil?
- 📝 When did the Catholic Church decide 'daily bread" is its Eucharist?
- 📝 When and why did the Catholic Church first start issuing annulments?
- 📝 When and why did the Catholic Church stop the Crusades?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church is it sinful to address someone who is transgender by the gender they identify as?
- 📝 Can a Catholic priest conduct a Catholic baptism upon the request of non-Catholic parents, assuming that they will raise the child Catholic?
- 📝 According to Catholic Church tradition, where, when, how and by whom did the devotion of the Stations of the Cross begin?
- 📝 Can you re-enter the catholic church after leaving?
- 📝 According to Reformed Baptist theology when did the Church begin?
- 📝 Can a practicing Catholic be an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church Monastery?
- 📝 When did a Catholic church council first recognize the need to forbid forcing or outwardly compelling unbelievers to the Christian faith?
- 📝 Can a practicing Catholic who joined a Protestant church still receive communion in the Catholic church?
- 📝 Can a baby be baptized in a Catholic Church if the mother does not have papers proving she was baptized?
- 📝 According to the morality of the Catholic Church are there any organs that are not permitted to be offered in organ transplants?