Confessional

Quote: FrGamble

It is true that people don't like being wrong. However, give someone a space where they know they will not be judged, where they will be reminded of their worth, where they will be loved no matter what they have done, and a place of absolute confidentiality and believe me you will hear true contrition all the time.

Patient doctor confidentiality is not an absolute. If a patient makes a credible threat (I'm going home to kill my wife since I got AIDS from her....) it is the doctor's responsibility to alert the authorities.

How does a priest handle a similar situation? Please don't conflate the issue with "I'll try and talk him out of it....". Assume you have a credible threat..... "My daughter was raped by Mr. Jones and I am going to kill him, bye."

Quote: FrGamble

give someone a space where they know they will not be judged, .

There is no such space, we all judge,
even priests, and we do it all day long.
We judge everything constantly, it's
how we fit into daily life.

I judge the path I'll take to the kitchen,
I'll judge a parking spot before I put
the car in, I judge how much to spend
at Walmart, on and on and on.

And I sure as heck judge people and
where they fit in society. So do you,
and so does everybody. If you say you
have the ability to turn this off, I say
you're kidding yourself. Judging is an
essential part of survival, you can't turn
it off. And why the heck would you want
to.

Quote: SOOPOO

Patient doctor confidentiality is not an absolute. If a patient makes a credible threat (I'm going home to kill my wife since I got AIDS from her....) it is the doctor's responsibility to alert the authorities.

How does a priest handle a similar situation? Please don't conflate the issue with "I'll try and talk him out of it....". Assume you have a credible threat..

Of course the priest will make a
judgement call, because no matter
what he says, he's judging just
like everybody else. How would
he even know right from wrong
if he wasn't constantly judging,

Quote: Evenbob

Of course the priest will make a
judgement call, because no matter
what he says, he's judging just
like everybody else. How would
he even know right from wrong
if he wasn't constantly judging,

I'm not asking if the priest will judge. I'm asking if he will ACT, and thus betray confidentiality.

I nearly always feel bad if I hurt someone unintentionally. Intentionally, no problem.

I don’t get the idea of running roughshod over people for no reason.

Quote: rxwine

I nearly always feel bad if I hurt someone unintentionally.

But do you hunt them down and
give a heart felt apology, that's
the question.

Quote: SOOPOO

I'm not asking if the priest will judge. I'm asking if he will ACT, and thus betray confidentiality.

How can he act if he's not judging?
If he has no judgement as he claims,
how will he know to report it?

See how ridiculous it all is? Of course
he judges, he couldn't shut off the
judgement part of his brain if he
tried. It's totally tied into the survival
instinct.

Quote: SOOPOO

Patient doctor confidentiality is not an absolute. If a patient makes a credible threat (I'm going home to kill my wife since I got AIDS from her....) it is the doctor's responsibility to alert the authorities.

How does a priest handle a similar situation? Please don't conflate the issue with "I'll try and talk him out of it....". Assume you have a credible threat..... "My daughter was raped by Mr. Jones and I am going to kill him, bye."

The seal of confession is absolute. However, the problem is not in regards of keeping things confidential that could happen in the future, but rather keeping secret what has happened in the past. Your last example is not a confession and a confession can never be made for future actions. Since that would not be a confession the seal would not apply.

This thread began with a question about the movie "The Irishman" and if you needed felt contrition to be forgiven. I think the movie does a really good job of explaining that contrition, like love, is not ultimately an emotion of the heart but an act of the will. God will certainly forgive anyone who is even imperfectly contrite for their sins.

Quote: Evenbob

But do you hunt them down and
give a heart felt apology, that's
the question.

No Bob, that is your made up question to try to backtrack from your surprisingly sociopath comments. Maybe this would be a good time to apologize for saying that no body is ever really sorry for their mistakes. You obviously have made one, at least I hope your comments were a mistake. To refresh your memory here is the original question:

"Is this possible in Confession? Say I do something bad to keep someone unquestionably bad from doing bad things. I might be sorry I did it, but I will not feel sorry. How would that be handled?"

Quote: FrGamble

Maybe this would be a good time to apologize for saying that no body is ever really sorry for their mistakes.

This is what I said:

"Nobody is ever really
sorry for anything they've done.
Oh, they're sorry they got caught,
sorry they have to say they're
sorry. But they don't really feel
sorry."

I stand by this. Very very few
people feel contrition for what
they've done. They have 87 reasons
for doing it, lots of others to blame,
and if they do say they're sorry
it's just words to placate who
they're apologizing to. Like
the saying goes, prisons are
full of totally innocent people.
Just ask them.

You think the average person
walks around all day feeling
crushing guilt for the faux paux's
they constantly make? They do
not.

And again, priests make judgement
calls all day long, just like everybody
else. If you think you can turn that
off when you enter the confessional
you're deluding yourself. But then,
delusion is the bread and butter of
your religion.