Word: sacramentally
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Private Confessions (known in Europe as Private Conversations, after Martin Luther's term for his version of the sacrament of penance) is the last of a trilogy of films about his parents. All three--the others are the 1982 Fanny and Alexander and the 1992 Best Intentions--were made as Swedish TV serials, then condensed for theatrical release. This film, directed by Bergman's lustrous actress Liv Ullmann, is the finest of the three. It distills four lives into a series of chats, revelatory confessions, between a woman and the men in her life...
...balancing their clerical duties with their clumsy passions. Henrik's first reaction on hearing of Anna's infidelity is to console her, as a minister would a sinner; Tomas kneels before Anna as a communicant receiving the Eucharist, or a child before its mother. Love is a sacrament of which neither man is worthy. Henrik and Tomas are really complementary halves of one weak man: the Bergman man. Henrik tastes the truth as if it were a bitter plum, and the corners of his mouth tighten in rage and impotence...
Impeachment is as much a political as a legal process. It is where the sacrament of penance becomes politically relevant. Clinton performed miserably in his first public ceremonies of repentance, but then last Friday, at the White House prayer breakfast, delivered at last a persuasive peccavi, mea culpa. It was fascinating to watch the President's speech with a window at the bottom of the television screen showing the Dow Jones average moving like an electrocardiogram. The Dow was in losing territory when the Clinton started speaking, and rose steadily into the plus column as he went...
...Another diversion: The religious ruckus brewing over whether the President, as a Baptist, should have taken communion back in Africa. New York?s Cardinal John O?Connor said it was wrong, ?however well-intentioned,? for a priest to give Clinton the sacrament. Any Christian can take part, replied the White House. But such a no-win debate took them about as far off-message as it was possible to be -- and the week has only just begun...
...Catholic belief, no human can dissolve a marriage, a sacrament undertaken by bride and groom before God. Church tribunals do not presume to void the contract. They can only determine (to the dismay of people in Rauch Kennedy's position) that owing to human incapacity or error, a valid contract was never entered into in the first place. For centuries the standards for this were clear and high: mental illness of either spouse, for instance, or impotence at the time of marriage. In 1968 only 338 decrees of nullity were granted in the U.S. But in the early 1960s, John...