Synod meeting will open with unusual ‘penitential service’
September 16, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: The October session of the Synod of Bishops will include a penitential service in which participants will be asked to join in confessing sins that the Church community has committed against the defenseless.
In announcing the unusual service, the Synod Office explained: “Pope Francis has taught us that it is also necessary that the Church ask for forgiveness by calling out sins by name, feeling pain and even shame, because we are all sinners in need of mercy.”
The Pontiff will preside at the penitential service, which will be held at the conclusion of the spiritual retreat that begins the Synod session. The service will include testimony from victims of each of the sins that are to be confessed. The announcement listed these sins:
- Sin against peace
- Sin against creation, against indigenous populations, against migrants
- Sin of abuse
- Sin against women, family, youth
- Sin of using doctrine as stones to be hurled
- Sin against poverty
- Sin against synodality / lack of listening, communion, and participation of all
Those who confess these sins and ask for forgiveness “will do so in the name of all the baptized,” the Synod office says. “The aim is not to denounce the sin of others, but to acknowledge oneself as a member of those who, by omission or action, become the cause of suffering and responsible for the evil inflicted on the innocent and defenseless.”
The service will conclude with an address by Pope Francis, in which he will ask the forgives of God and of all humanity.
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Posted by: feedback -
Sep. 17, 2024 4:18 AM ET USA
The question is: who exactly is supposed to feel guilty of this politically correct list of sins? Are the Synod Fathers naming their own sins, e.g. against indigenous populations? Or, are they naming the sins of others? What happened to "Who am I to judge"? In Our Lord's parable of the Pharisee and Publican [Lk 18:9-14], the Pharisee obsessed by his own virtue, named a list of sins committed by other people: "robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector."
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Sep. 16, 2024 3:59 PM ET USA
People with political and bureaucratic power are most culpable of the listed political and ideological categories of "evil". Imagine trying to confess a "sin against peace". Huh? Inner peace, family peace, spousal peace, local peace, national peace, international peace? A good confessor would want specifics. The sin of hurling doctrines? Anyone here ever met a Catholic who hurls doctrines? Sin against creation? Father, I drove 20 minutes to a meeting when I should have spent 5 hours walking.
