Word: vaticans
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...With the start last week of the penitential season of Lent, many priests began educating their parishioners in the revised sacrament of Penance-now also called the Rite for Reconciliation-that formally takes effect next year. Face-to-face confession -the last reform of the sacraments that stemmed from Vatican Council II-is intended to enable the penitent not only to confess specific sins but discuss spiritual failings and work out appropriate good deeds for penance. Traditional confession, by contrast, has tended to be a rushed recitation of sins and routine prescription of "ten Hail Marys" or "five Our Fathers...
...Penance also offers group services; but to be one of the seven sacraments, such rites must include time for worshipers to confess individually. The Vatican permits en masse sacramental confession and absolution only when there is an extreme shortage of clergy, as in mission lands or war zones...
...others stressed the negative. The bishops, who would be the normal candidates, are generally better known for fund raising than spiritual or intellectual attainments. Last fall the national priests' conference drafted a memo that indirectly criticized the quality of the bishops. In the words of a well-placed Vatican official, the English hierarchy "just failed to produce a leader with the qualities Pope Paul demanded...
...Vatican...
...Vatican bit of nonsense on sex [Jan. 26] is a true masterpiece. Until such time as the church decides that Galileo was not a heretic, Paul VI is free to believe that the world is flat and the sun rotates about the earth...