Quenta Narwenion links to this story about a priest in her diocese and as she says these misguided folks are in need of some prayers. If this article was a parody it would be pretty funny, as it is it is just plain sad.
Several hundred people attended the first service of an independent church founded by a priest who broke from the Catholic Church, despite warnings that Catholics who affiliated with the new church risked excommunicating themselves.
“The only reason for coming to church is to learn how to love,” the Rev. Bill Hausen preached at Christ Hope Ecumenical Catholic Church, which met at the Sewickley Country Inn.
“God does not need praise. God has all the praise he needs. We don’t have to love God, because God is love.”
…Hausen told reporters that he believed 500 to 600 people attended the service. There were empty seats in the room with a posted seating capacity of 400; the Post-Gazette estimated attendance closer to 300.
It was the miracle of 600 hundred sitting in the area of only 300 hundred.
Many people said they were visiting out of curiosity or to show support for Hausen. Those included 18 Unitarians from Slippery Rock who had skipped their own service at Ginger Hill Unitarian-Universalist Church.
Unitarians from Slippery Rock must be the best congregation and geographic match up I have ever heard.
…I feel that the greatest theology today will come from your experience of yourself . . . not from above or from someone imposing stuff on us,” he said.
This isn’t preaching to the choir it is preaching towards your inner child.
10 comments
Hi, I just read your In-Sin-erator, and found it quite funny. But I did have a question. You said that if either (A)priest does not assign contrition, or (B)you do not perform assigned penance, you will not receive proper absolution. When you say that the priest must assign contrition, is that referring to penance? There is a priest at my church who does not assign penance, claiming that he sees confession as more of a “healing.” Seems ridiculous to me, but I just felt that I should just trust him.
I think those Slippery Rock folks have stumbled upon (slipped into?) the New Reformed Unitarian Church of What’s Happening Now.
Does self-justification come from faith in yourself alone or are self-empowered works also necessary?
Unitarians from Slippery Rock…Bwaahahahahah. That’s a hoot!
Lord have mercy! Someone needs to smack some sense into that priest! Would anyone like to volunteer?? (Grin)
Lord have mercy! Someone needs to smack some sense into that priest! Would anyone like to volunteer?? (Grin)
Simon,
On the EWTN forum in reply to the same question:
“The giving and recital or doing of a Penance is part of the Sacrament. Ask the priest for a penance if he doesn’t offer one. It remits some if not all of the temporal punishment due to sin”
Here are the requirements for a valid confession:
A valid confession requires on the part of the penitent, that he or she be sorry for having offended God, resolve not to sin again, to confess all mortal sins remembered in kind and number and perform the penance imposed. On the part of the priest, the words “I absolve you” must be used, the priest must be validly ordained and (unlike all other Sacraments) must have been granted the faculty by his Bishop to hear confessions. A priest who does not have this faculty (eg, a laicized priest or a priest of the Society of St Pius X) cannot validly absolve anyone except in danger of death where a priest with the faculty is not available.
I wonder if the NCCB can get a copyright or tradmark for the word ‘Catholic,’ so that we can start telling churches like this to not call themselves Catholic (would also work for groups like ‘Catholics for baby murder^W^W, a free choice’).
Heaven Help Pennsylvania—first we elect Arlon Spector, now this!!!!
Brilliant! No one can make up something as funny as that, but leave it to the Curt Jester to draw the parallels.