From Ann Barnhardt, talking about American Catholic. Who is a heretic. No question. For this is not about how one confesses, but what confession is.
(I’m reading Declan Finn’s the Pius trilogy, and enjoying it: He distinguishes between the Liberal American Catholics, and the believing Roman Catholics. I call the former heretics and the later Papists)
What he is saying is that the Sacrament of Confession is a NEGOTIATION between the confessee and the Church wherein the confessee TELLS THE CHURCH, which is to say, GOD, what the confessee’s conscience has determined is “right” and “wrong”. And then FrancisNewMercyChurch, in the spirit of “accompaniment” and “dialogue” RATIFIES the sinful actions of the confessee, so long as the confessee’s “inviolable conscience” is clear and they “feel” good about themselves.
This is nothing less than the worship of man. It is demanding that the Church, and thus God Himself, bow down and worship man as the source and arbiter of “truth” itself.
The only thing that is left for them to do, which we have seen the early indications of from Bergoglio, is to create some sort of new quasi-liturgical action whereby the Church qua Church is made to apologize to man. Like a “confiteor” that the Church prays to man. You think I’m kidding? I am not. Look for something like this attached to the new “General Absolution” services that they are going to start pushing in the so-called “Year of Mercy”.
When we confess our sins — individually or corporately — we acknowledge that we cannot meet our own standards, let alone God’s. We acknowledge that we have turned to our old evil habits, and worshiped at the alter of our desire: we have held our lusts as idols. As the old Anglican Rite puts it:
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.
ALMIGHTY God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live, hath given power, and commandment, to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins. He pardoneth and absolveth all those who truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel.
Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance, and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do at this present; and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy; so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
It is not a negotiation. You cannot negotiate with the truth. You cannot weasel away from your guilt.
It is when we are penitent, on our knees, that Christ can work through us. The heretics have lost this. They have forgotten that without sorrow there is no penitence, without penitence no change, and without that change, that is repentance, there is no reconciliation with Christ. The absolution and remission of sins is within the finished work of Christ.
But that requires that we meet the conditions of Christ. And they are not negotiable.
One of the most serious Roman Catholic errors (and there are plenty) is that they put a man, the priest as a representative of the church, between God and the believer. This has allowed the most appalling behaviour as the man has the intimate knowledge of the confessor and can, and does, take advantage of it.
Anglican have their Oxford Movement that seeks to reunite with the RC’s. I have a wee book (an oldie but a goodie) on the distinctions between RC’s and protestants. It has been illuminating as it reveals the significance of slight changes in terms like priest and minister, altar and table.
The Roman ideas on priesthood are erroneous, but the Congregationalist idea that there snould be no eldership is equally so, and us Prods tend towards that.
One of the peculiar problems of the liturgical churches who have priests is that they conflate their duty to teach and proclaim the gospel with being some kind of intermediary. That is not the case. There is one high priest, who is Christ, and he suffices.
But this leads to the liberals among them trying to make confession some form of therapy. It is not. It cannot be so. For there is no negoptiation with truth.
I will add that I have little time for the Oxford Movement. My sympathy is for the Low Church or Evangelical Anglicans: did a lot of good, and still do, would if the Archbishops in the West had not gone full heretic.