Q: When I was in R.C.I.A., the instructor said of confession: “Unless it’s something unusual, weekly Eucharist reception is sufficient for forgiveness. There’s no need to bother the priest with your daily, petty, minor sins.” Could you comment? (Brandenburg, Kentucky)
A: Catholics are required to go to confession at least once a year if they have serious sins to confess. But in the spiritual life we’re never encouraged to just stick to the bare minimum.
Regular and frequent confessions have always been encouraged, although the ideal frequency will depend on the individual and their specific needs. For some of us, weekly confessions could be very appropriate.
The Church acknowledges what is traditionally termed a “devotional confession,” where a person confesses relatively minor, venial sins out of love for God.
When you think about our sacramental life in terms of a relationship with the Lord, this makes sense: when we care about a person like a friend or spouse, we say we’re sorry and seek their forgiveness whenever we may have hurt them, even in small ways.
Q: I am getting married and the priest my fiancé and I met with said we need new baptismal certificates. Why can’t we just use the ones our parents got when we were baptized? (Portland, Maine)
A: Baptismal certificates aren’t a one-and-done kind of document. When you were baptized, you received a paper certificate with the date and location of your baptism.
However, the official record of your baptism is not one piece of paper in a file, but rather an entry into a baptismal registry book. Your entry in the baptismal register in your parish of baptism then serves as the “master record” of your life as a Catholic. Baptismal registry books register the details of a person’s baptism, but also include room for subsequent sacramental life events.
For instance, when a baptized Catholic later receives the sacrament of confirmation, this is recorded next to their name in the baptismal register of their parish of baptism. If the confirmation happens in a parish other than the one where they were baptized, then the parish of confirmation must take care to contact the parish of baptism to ensure that everything is recorded properly.
Other life events that must be recorded in a person’s original baptismal register include reception of holy orders and religious profession, or a woman’s becoming a consecrated virgin. Marriage is also an important life event to be recorded in a baptismal register – and if a marriage is declared null by a tribunal, this would also be noted in the same place.
When Catholics request a copy of their baptismal certificate, their parish of baptism issues a brand-new hard copy based on the information in the baptismal register. This new copy will have a section on the back which relates all the biographical details recorded over the years in the registry book.
So, if you are requesting a copy of your baptismal certificate as part of your marriage prep, a newly-issued one lets the priest or deacon know about any previous life events, such as a prior marriage or previous reception of holy orders, which might present an issue with your upcoming wedding.
Q: A Protestant minister (formerly a Catholic) said that the Church’s authority to grant absolution in confession expired upon Christ’s death. What authority does the Catholic Church rely on that requires confession to a priest?
A: When we confess our sins to a priest in the sacrament of penance, we can know with confidence that our sins are forgiven, because of Jesus’ own words.
In the Gospels, Jesus tells us that he intends to share his authority to forgive sins with the Twelve Apostles. This is perhaps stated most directly toward the end of John’s Gospel, when Jesus tells the Apostles: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn 20:23).
With respect to the minister’s assertion, one interesting thing about this passage is that the promise comes from Jesus “after” he had already died.
John 20 recounts some of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, one of which was his sudden apparition to many of the apostles (notably minus Thomas, whose absence sets the stage for his later confession) as they were gathered in hiding.
This is the first instance when the risen Jesus sends the apostles on mission, telling them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21). Part of this mission was the forgiveness of sins.
Catholics believe in “apostolic succession,” meaning that the power and authority Jesus gave to his original apostles – including the sacramental power and authority to forgive sins – were in turn handed down by the apostles to their successors through the centuries, right up to our modern-day bishops and priests.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the succession like this: “Thus the risen Christ, by giving the Holy Spirit to the apostles, entrusted to them his power of sanctifying: they became sacramental signs of Christ. By the power of the same Holy Spirit, they entrusted this power to their successors. This ‘apostolic succession’ structures the whole liturgical life of the Church and is itself sacramental, handed on by the sacrament of Holy Orders” (CCC 1087).
Far from this authority expiring with Jesus’ death, it might be more accurate to say that the Church’s authority to forgive sins only “began” after Jesus died and rose from the dead.
Jesus again mentions the authority to loosen or to bind when he notes the role Peter would hold as the earthly leader of the Church: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:18-19).
For those wondering when the Church first came into being – traditionally, we call the feast of Pentecost “the birthday of the Church.”
There is also a beautiful theme in the theological writings of an early Father that the Church was born from Christ’s wounded side. As the catechism puts it, referencing St. Ambrose: “As Eve was formed from the sleeping Adam’s side, so the Church was born from the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the cross (CCC 766).”
Jenna Marie Cooper, who holds a licentiate in canon law, is a consecrated virgin and a canonist whose column appears weekly at OSV News. Send your questions to [email protected].