After the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, there is a worldwide push to end the guarantee of secrecy of confession – called “the seal of the confessional.” On Sept. 11, 2019, two ...

The release this month of a watershed report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France has sparked another debate over the secrecy of confession. The Catholic Church declares that every priest ...

The new language for the priest’s absolution is allowed as of Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Priests must use the new language starting on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 16, the first Sunday after ...

The Roman Catholic Church urges its faithful to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year, and insists that they do so before receiving Communion if they have committed a mortal sin. In ...

Offering general absolution to the faithful without having them personally confess their sins first may still be done in places seeing serious or increasing levels of coronavirus infections, a Vatican ...

SYDNEY, Australia – Great shocks to the system often can jar loose utterly new responses from institutions typically given to maintaining the status quo. Other times, the effect can be to reopen ...

Since January 2019, Fr. Jim Connell of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has been urging state legislators around the country to repeal clergy-penitent privilege in mandatory reporting laws that exempt ...

The Lenten period for penance started this week with Ash Wednesday, and some Catholic priests are happily bracing for long lines outside the confessional. The faithful across the United States are ...

Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, has said that the coronavirus pandemic may justify the use of general absolution, in extraordinary circumstances, for Catholics unable to ...

Admittedly, it has been quite some time since I followed Catholic dogma. (Not since 1966 when I graduated from high school after suffering through 12 years of Catholic education.) However, I was ...