grace
What you see in the photo is the corridor of our recently renovated church. It has a modern look. Placed in the corridor is a confessional There are a few more. The faithful are expected to confess their sins to the priest who will sit behind the confessional.
This ritual of confessing sins to a priest is ancient. While the church is modernised the rituals continue the way they were esablished thousands of years ago.
What I firmly believe is we all have direct access to the Almighty and if anyone it is only He can absolve our sins.
What bothers me is what is stopping the powers that be to move with the times.
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Don’t you think even religious rituals should move with the times?
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Yes
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No
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Your church looks great. We have confessionals in the church.
More and more do not go for confession here.
I find all religion to be extremely odd, but the Roman Catholic version of Christianity to be odder than most.
I also find the argument that things must be done in a certain way because they have always been done that way in the past to be a singularly unconvincing one.
One should move with the times.
A ritual remains a ritual without the strong faith in God. I don’t think we should be strict with rituals – they are invented by people.
For Christians the Bible is the best guidance.
God sees our souls so I think rituals are not so important.
I am fully with you on this What bothers me is why they do not see the uselessness of rituals.
But Catholics do not regard the Bible as the ultimate source of correct procedure. Their view is that God speaks directly to the faithful though the agency of the Pope, who therefore has complete authority. God may well give instructions that are not found in the Bible, which is only a time capsule of frozen print, but is giving constant updates to allow for changing circumstances.
You may not agree with that view, but to a Catholic it makes a lot of sense and it does contain a certain degree of logic.
I am a Catholic and the changes that you say are made from to time are far from the reality of a situation. By the same logic therefore I wonder why they have not done away with confessions.
The argument is surely that only God can forgive a sin, but a priest is the agent of God by virtue of the Apostolic Succession that began with Saint Peter. When a priest absolves a penitent through the agency of the Confessional he is conveying a message from God. The same argument lies behind the doctrine of trans-substantiation that turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ – it is God who performs the miracle through the agency of an anointed priest.
To my mind these two are separate issues since history has different versions of who and why confessions came into being. I agree this is not the place to go into detail about the origins of this issue. Much water has flown under the bridge since its inception
I try and shy away from the religions of others. I assume I don’t understand them.