Just a few questions I thought I'd put into one topic to make it easier:
1. Can a pastor/priest/other religious head deny admittance to their church or Confessional? What would it take?
2. What happens in a Confessional stays there. But is there a limit? [Say if someone keeps coming back to Confessional, week after week for oh, I don't know, murder, let's say] Would the priest sooner kick him out or tell someone? And can they hint something to the authorities, if they can't talk about it?
3. How much evidence does your average police need to tail someone? To arrest them?
Other questions may arise in light of these answers, but any help s appreciated (:
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2007
Title - Untitled
Words - Not enough
Caffeine in Bloodstream - 24%
80,034 / 50,000
Nov 18, 2007 - 21 04
In the Catholic Church it might be theoretically possible for a priest to deny someone the sacrament of reconciliation (as 'confession' is technically known) but I cannot imagine any priest I know doing it under any circumstances, particularly if there were urgency--especially danger of death. I can imagine a priest making the absolution conditional under certain circumstances, such as going to counselling, etc. Perhaps even conditional upon turning himself in.)
Now when we get to repetitions ... (I am now slipping into character slightly) I can't imagine anyone coming back to a confessional to report a fresh murder every week. That just doesn't compute. For one thing it would indicate that they have absolutely no contrition over doing it, which kind of invalidates the whole sacrament. If it were me, on a repetition, I'd have a talk with him about the nature of the sacrament, and see if he even understood it or not. If he doesn't understand it in at least a certain basic way, I'd say he's not qualified to receive it.
----------"And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--" "Skip a bit, brother."
50,053 / 50,000
Nov 18, 2007 - 21 15
I don't think a good confessor would refuse entry to the confessional; if nothing else, many confessionals are set up so that the priest can't see the penitent unless the penitent wants to confess face-to-face, and that'd make it difficult.
If a serial killer came in to any Catholic priest's confessional once a month and confessed the murder of the month, and was unwilling to turn himself in to the police, the most the priest could do is make absolution conditional on the serial killer turning himself in (or at least repeating the details outside of the sacrament of confession). Even hinting to the police that they might want to investigate the serial killer would result in the priest's excommunication, even if no one ever found out about it - the very act of using information gained in the confessional for any purpose would make the priest ineligible to receive or celebrate any of the sacraments.
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Uncle Cosmo, why do they call this a word processor?
It's simple, Skyler. You've seen what food processors do to food, right?