Jeanie Hannaman

By Paul D. Scalia, Public Discourse - It has always been the Catholic Church’s teaching that what a penitent shares in the sacrament of confession (the confessional) cannot under any circumstances be revealed to anyone. The Church’s Code of Canon Law states: “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.”... Priests have gone to their death in defense of this. Saint John Nepomucene (1345–1393) is sometimes invoked as a patron of confessors. It’s a telling invocation because it rests entirely on the belief that he was martyred out of fidelity to the seal of the confessional.

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture - Jesus sends out His 72 advance men to prepare the way for His coming. It’s a good guess that the disciples are in training for the priesthood. They travel light, eat the food placed before them, proclaim the Kingdom, and if the people do not receive them with respect, they knock the dust off their feet in testimony against them and move on to the next city. Their work prefigures the Liturgy of the Word and anticipates the Liturgy of the Eucharist... The Mass has two main components: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.