The pope said priests can “never deny absolution.” Is this true? Absolutely not.
By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine, Jan. 31, 2023
Regis Martin is Professor of Theology and Faculty Associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He earned a licentiate and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. …
Is it only the hopelessly naïve and unworldly—people like me, in other words—who find it off-putting when those for whom one expects a certain gravitas behave like bikers at a bar, tossing off four-letter words like forbidden firecrackers? Or do other people find it offensive as well and are, in fact, shocked and embarrassed when they hear it?
Have I anyone in particular in mind? Well, I’m afraid I do: the current pope, for whom, apparently, the practice of launching f-bombs has long been a habit. From an entry in a report, for instance, written more than thirty years ago by his then Jesuit Superior, Fr. Peter Hans Kolvenbach, one notes that even then it had been seen as a problem. Describing it as among “a series of defects, ranging from habitual use of vulgar language to deviousness,” the habit appears not to have been overcome. …
Continue reading >>>>
