Catholic Church – Naty Matos

Confession is a part of the life of a Christian. The Bible talks about the importance of confession to be free from our sins. Each Christian denomination conceptualizes confession in a different way. As far as I know only the Catholic Church has a structure way of conceiving confession. In this structure the person reviews their conscience, goes to their priest, tells them all their sins, the priest assigns them a penance and once the penance is accomplish the sins are forgiven.

I’m not against confession, or technology for that matter, but I’m pretty baffled by the new I-phone/I-Pad confession application that Apple has recently released. The position of the Catholic Church is that they approve of it, but that it’s not a substitute for face to face confession. What does that even mean? If it’s not a substitute, those using the application would still have to do the face to face? Then, what’s the point!

I also question the potential legal implications for those using the application. Maybe I need to layoff my crime shows but, how confidential will that application be? We know that priest are the only ones covered under legal privilege of any conversation from someone confessing to them, which I think is unfair for other religious leaders, but that’s another conversation. At the same time it’s known that if someone commits a crime or an indiscretion it would be covered under the traditional confession, but if the phone is tapped, could the police potentially have access to that information or even a private investigator?

From the spiritual standpoint, I think it would miss the purpose of confessing to another human being. We confess to God for the purpose of forgiveness, but as indicated in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” Confession to another human being is for the person’s own healing. How much of the counseling, prayer and healing can occur during this electronic process?

As much as I favor technology to compliment with information our spiritual walk, this is one of those occasions were in my opinion you can’t substitute human contact.

Just my humble opinion, comments agreeing or disagreeing are all welcome!

Blessings

Bless me, Apple, for I have sinned (guardian.co.uk)

Church Sex scandals are a hot button topic these days and have maintained high visibility in the media recently. I was moved to write this because I believe that the passion and intensity surrounding this issue has skewed a lot of people’s opinions and perspective and I believe that I can give a more balanced view on this issue.

It is terrible that as a people we have to be watchful even with those who we have been conditioned to trust, namely men and women who claim to come in the name of God. Sex scandals have not been exclusive to the Catholic Church, many preachers and pastors have fallen short of the grace and those things have become public. It is always disappointing. I think part of the disappointment comes from forgetting these individuals are merely men and women. We have the tendency to elevate their position because of the part they play in our communities, social settings and the body of Christ. The reality is that yes, their responsibility is to lead and teach us about the Lord, but their humanity doesn’t leave with their calling. Actually, as Christians we need to pray harder for our leaders because their attacks and strongholds are often as large as their calling.

I’ve heard people blaming celibacy for these events. I respectfully disagree. Priests and nuns know that this is a requirement of the commitment they have made. If sex was the driving force then priests having relations with Nuns or other secular adults would be just as, if not more, prevalent. The truth is pedophilia, rape, and sexual abuse is not sexually driven. They are driven by a deeper disturbance; it’s about control and power more than the sex itself.

The other part where I respectfully disagree is where it has been commented that because it was male priests with male boys, that it was due to homosexuality. Homosexuality is not equal to pedophilia. Statistics show that the majority of sexual predators are heterosexual.

Now the thing that really bothers me about these cases is the way they have been handled. Whether the abuse was committed by clergy or the man down the street, the inequities in the handling of the situations are abhorrent. The fact that many of these priests were simply relocated to new communities, with no consequences or rehabilitation program, is ridiculous. On top of that, the new communities were not advised of the person’s past behavior. If the church wanted to take care of it internally, like the military handles issues that pertains to soldiers; I don’t have issue with that, however, relocating them to another community is unacceptable. Instead they should have been placed in some manner of recovery program and then reassigned to work in a position where they didn’t have access to children at all. Is that lack of forgiveness and mercy? No! That’s wisdom. Slapping their wrists and telling them to not do it anymore, without true rehabilitation, placing them back into the communities to do more damage, is irresponsible, dangerous and ultimately criminal.

It is hard for me to understand why servants of God would think that this would stay hidden forever? The word of God says that “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13 NIV) which means that nothing that they were doing was going to remain a secret.

I encourage you to pray for our religious leaders. They have a great responsibility and with it great lengths of attacks. I pray that they take the authority that has been given to them by their calling and correct appropriately those who have been entrusted to them.

I pray for those who have committed these terrible acts that they find themselves in true repentance before God. That they turn their hearts, make amends when possible and face accountability for their actions.

I pray for the victims. I hope that their hearts continue to look to God for redemption and healing. God can restore anyone, and He can restore the souls of these who are suffering and their loved ones. I encourage you to pray the same