A Show of Faith
Millennial, Priest, Minister, and Rabbi walk into a radio station...
A Show of Faith
May 4, 2025 The Line Priests Won't Cross: Faith vs Government Mandate
The line between religious freedom and government regulation has been drawn in stark relief as Washington State enacts a law requiring clergy to report child abuse disclosed during confession. This contentious legislation strikes at the heart of Catholic sacramental practice, challenging a tradition dating back to Jesus's instruction to the apostles.
During this thoughtful exploration, our panel examines the profound implications of Senate Bill 5375, which eliminates the clergy-penitent privilege for confessions involving child abuse. Father Mario passionately explains the sacred nature of the confessional seal, where priests act "in persona Christi" – in the person of Christ. When a Catholic enters the confessional, they aren't speaking to the priest but to God through the priest, creating a sacred space that the Church has protected for two millennia.
The discussion moves beyond theoretical theology as Father Mario shares personal experiences, including a case where he was nearly arrested for maintaining confessional confidence. The panel explores what makes confession valid – genuine contrition and a purpose of amendment – while considering how this law might undermine the very purpose of confession. Can trust in this sacred space survive if penitents fear their disclosures will be reported?
Rabbi offers compelling analogies, comparing this mandate to forcing Jews to eat pork or Muslims to desecrate the Quran – requiring believers to violate core tenets of their faith. Dr. Capes provides Protestant perspectives on confession, noting differences across Christian traditions while acknowledging the universal value of confessing "one to another."
Beyond the immediate controversy, we touch on the upcoming Vatican Conclave beginning Wednesday, where cardinals will select the next pope – a process steeped in tradition and secrecy that stands in stark contrast to modern demands for transparency.
This episode challenges listeners to consider: At what point must religious practitioners say "we must obey God rather than men"? And when competing goods – child protection and religious liberty – seem to clash, how do we navigate these turbulent waters respectfully?
There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I've got to beware. I think it's time we stop Children. What's that sound?
Speaker 2:Everybody look what's going down Better.
Speaker 1:There's battle lines being drawn. Nobody's right If everybody's wrong. Young people speak in their minds Are getting so much resistance From behind every time we stop. Hey, what's that sound? Everybody, look what's going down. What a field day for the heat. A thousand people in the street Singing songs and carrying signs. Mostly say hooray for our side.
Speaker 3:Welcome to A Show of Faith where professors, priests, millennials and rabbis discuss theology, philosophy, morality, ethics anything of interest in religion. If you have any response to our topics or any comments regarding what we say, we would love to hear from you. Email us at ashowoffaith1070 at gmailcom. That's ashowoffaith1070 at gmailcom. You can hear our shows again and again by listening. Pretty much everywhere podcasts are heard. Our professor is David Capes, baptist minister, director of academic programming in the Lindner Theological Library.
Speaker 4:Hola minister, director of academic programming in the Linder Theological Library.
Speaker 3:Hola, hola, our priest is Father Mario Arroyo, retired pastor of St Cyril of Alexandria, the 10,000 block of Westheimer. Hello, rudy Kong is our millennial. He's a systems engineer, has his master's degree in theology from the University of St Thomas. Howdy, howdy.
Speaker 4:Hey, there he is.
Speaker 3:Nikki and Miranda are our board operators and together, Nikki and Miranda help us sound fantastic.
Speaker 4:We hope so. We know all the help we can get.
Speaker 3:I'm Rabbi Stuart Federo, retired Rabbi of Shahr Shalom in the Clear Lake area of Houston, Texas. I think I forgot to say that.
Speaker 4:You did.
Speaker 3:I did you forgot yourself.
Speaker 4:I skipped, you skipped yourself.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the show of faith.
Speaker 4:Yeah, hey, it's great to see you, father Mario, good to see you. Thank you as well. As well, we're sharing microphones tonight. Yeah, you guys get over there. I want you to guide. I want to see you guys get cozy, okay, hi.
Speaker 5:I have to share a microphone with the rabbi.
Speaker 4:You, do you do but see, this is the test of character. This is to see what kind of character you are.
Speaker 3:Well, he is a character.
Speaker 4:He is, he is.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's what the bishop has been saying for quite a while Interfaith dialogue to a completely new level.
Speaker 4:This is. This is we're not asking. We have chairs, so we're not asking you to sit in his lap or anything. We just have to. Why are you laughing.
Speaker 5:Okay, you'll have to forgive me. You'll have to forgive me If you ignore him. He'll be quiet. You'll have to forgive me because I've been dealing with a little bit of a foot injury and I've sort of been out of it for a little while.
Speaker 4:Are you doing better, I hope. Yeah, I am Good, good, good.
Speaker 5:So who's in studio tonight? I am Father. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I think Rudy is our show director. Okay, so Rudy, take it away from are. Are you in guatemala now? Uh is in guatemala okay, very good, very good so I've been.
Speaker 6:I've been, uh, well, of course, there's a lot of stuff I feel uh, happening in the catholic world. Um, absolutely late, right, the Pope recently passed away. They officially announced the start of the Conclave and Father, correct me if I'm wrong May 7th, right, is the official start. Yeah, I think it's this Wednesday, this Wednesday, uh-huh, this Wednesday, correct? So you know. There's, of course, the Conclave movie that became super popular, which I hated, by the way.
Speaker 3:I prefer the Shoes of the Fisherman.
Speaker 6:I'll have to check that one out. You mentioned it last week, Rabbi.
Speaker 3:It's an old one, but it's good and much more favorable, I think, much more loving.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean, I have not seen. The Conc I mean, I have not seen the conclave, I have not seen it, but uh, I don't want to see it because everything, everything that I've heard from everybody, uh that has seen it, says uh, especially the cardinals who have seen it, the actual cardinals the people who actually go into the conclave, go into the conclave, say that that is as far as it can be from what reality is in the middle of the conclave. Yeah, that's what I've heard as well.
Speaker 4:But they have an agenda and pressing that agenda how they can, and there's a general anti-Catholic bias.
Speaker 5:I think I've heard a long time that of course, these days anti-Semitism is raising its head, but for American culture to be anti-Catholic has been always something that is very acceptable If you consider all the different movies and the way the characterizations that have occurred of clergy, stereotypes and all that stuff it's. You know, I always I like to say even if you acknowledge, even if you acknowledge the clergy abuse and sex scandals that occurred years and years ago.
Speaker 4:And you should? You should, yes, of course.
Speaker 5:But the whole point is this that that was an infinitesimal number, percentage of the Catholic priests. I think it was like 2%, 1% or 2% of the Catholic priests. I always like to imagine this way Imagine that I took a picture of your armpit. Now, david, I'll take a picture of your armpit.
Speaker 4:Here we go. I'll take a picture.
Speaker 5:It's a close-up of your armpit.
Speaker 4:Okay, all right.
Speaker 5:And then I go around to people who have never met you.
Speaker 4:Uh-huh.
Speaker 5:And I show them your armpit and I say this is David Capes.
Speaker 9:Oh, I see.
Speaker 3:Am I correct? Yes, technically you are correct.
Speaker 5:Technically I am correct, okay, and I'm using the armpit because the other part of the body that I normally use, which is not admissible on radio.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay. They call certain places the armpit of America.
Speaker 5:That's right, the armpit. So that's exactly what's happening is they show you the armpit of the church and they say, ah see, that's the church. The problem is, everybody has an armpit as well, as everybody has another part of the body, and if you showed people only that, you would get the David. You are more than your armpit.
Speaker 4:I am, but I want you to admit on radio how beautiful my armpit is.
Speaker 5:It's not as pretty as mine.
Speaker 4:Okay, I would probably agree with that, but anyway, that's what I'm saying. Well, look, I mean, you could say the same thing about lawyers, right? Yes, you could say the same thing about politicians. You could say the same thing about elementary school teachers.
Speaker 5:Well, but I don't think as bad. Maybe lawyers Listen.
Speaker 4:I work for lawyers. I'm not going to touch that one, so.
Speaker 5:But uh, you know, I think, to identify a part of the institution and see the whole institution is corrupt just because you have one part of it and everybody, everybody has sins. I wish I could take a picture of all of us trying to hide the most intimate sin that we've ever committed.
Speaker 4:So anyway, yeah, let's not do that. No.
Speaker 3:Thank God. It's only God who can see into our innermost souls.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, God is ultimately our judge, not each other and such. But Rudy had a really interesting idea tonight about our show. Rudy, why don't you share with us, kind of and this was not a news article that I had come across. This has been a really crazy week, so I hadn't really watched the news, hadn't seen much of it. Tell us a little bit about the law that has been signed in, or the no, it's been signed, yeah it's been signed into law in the state of Washington.
Speaker 6:In the state of Washington. So May 2nd so two days ago, essentially Washington Governor Bob Ferguson signed Senate Bill 5375 into law, into law which mandates that clergy members report suspected child abuse or neglect, even if such information is disclosed during sacramental confession. So essentially what he's doing is removing what, as a Catholic, we would consider the privileged communication exemption for clergy right. So when you're in that sacrament and I think, father Mario, you could definitely explain this probably a lot better than I could, but there's a certain let's call it privilege that's allotted between the person that comes to confess and the priest Now, within that moment it's not to our understanding. It's not.
Speaker 6:If I go to confess to Father Mario and I say, father Mario, you know I did this and you know I committed this crime, I stole, I cheated on my taxes, I mean it is Father Mario, but that's how I and how we understand it is the person of Jesus that I am confessing and admitting my sins to in that moment, in that sacrament right. So within Catholic tradition there's always been this privilege that's kind of allotted to that communication privilege that's kind of allotted to that communication. So what the governor here is doing is essentially creating and, in his words committing to a zero-tolerance policy on abuse, right? So there's a lot of. You know I was reading this and I was channeling my inner Walter, you guys remember.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I remember Walter, yeah.
Speaker 6:Walter, but essentially it's this kind of privileged communication, especially when it comes to children, right? So it's particularly go ahead, Dr.
Speaker 4:Yeah, let me ask this clarifying question. Let's say you and Mario are at Starbucks having a coffee, and Mario's on his iPhone, as he typically is, and you guys are chatting and you say to him hey, I want you to know this. Is that considered confessional? Okay, so why don't you clarify for us what is meant by quote the sacrament of confession? Because that's what you're talking about, right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it is a very definite context in which, for example, I, as a priest, enter in, and both of us have to know that you are celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation. And so, by the way, we use those three different words we use confession, reconciliation and penance. The sacrament of penance.
Speaker 6:So if you hear me say sacrament of penance, are they synonymous?
Speaker 5:Yes, they're all synonymous.
Speaker 4:Synonymous is confession, penance and reconciliation this is in order to confuse errant rabbis that's right.
Speaker 5:So they're all, because I see the three words okay, they're used synonymously in the catholic church. Okay, so to me, the ritual, to me, to mean that you are entering into asking me, as a priest, to represent christ in forgiving you your sins. Now, this is very for us, for us catholics, it's very, uh, fundamental, because the moment that jesus appears the first time to the apostles after the resurrection, he blows on them, which is the ruach the sending of the.
Speaker 4:Spirit.
Speaker 5:And he says to them receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. Whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. Now, for us, at that moment, the whole issue is they, jesus, and this, may you know, chalk with your anyway, do you remember? Do you remember when the paralytic is brought?
Speaker 5:down and the paralytic wants to be healed, Okay. And when the paralytic is in front of Jesus, Jesus turns to him and says your sins are forgiven. Now, immediately. The normal reaction of some of the Pharisees, or some of the priests who are you to say that?
Speaker 5:Who is this man to forgive God? To forgive sins, sins. Only God can do that. Only God can do that. And that moment Jesus says why are your thoughts like that? Tell me which is easier to say your sins are forgiven which you can't prove? Or pick up your mat and go home.
Speaker 3:Pick up your Mat Mat.
Speaker 5:The paralytic's mat, the stretcher, okay, okay. And Jesus then says but that you may know that the Son of man has authority on this earth to forgive sins. He then turns to the paralytic and says pick up your mat and go home. Now, the reason I say that is because, if that caused scandal at that moment because only God can forgive sins and it caused that much scandal, imagine when Jesus appears to the disciples and gives the disciples the same amount. And so when a person is coming to a priest, you are as a priest. I am conscious that you have done anything to me. You do not need my forgiveness. I am acting in persona christi, in the person of christ. When I say I absolve you, that ain me, that is Christ himself using the priest to speak directly to you. Yeah, and so we'll come back.
Speaker 6:I confess we must go to a break. Yes, I do confess.
Speaker 5:And you are forgiven for that, for breaking my thought pattern. This is 1070 KNTH. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 3:Oh yeah, is there a letter in your bag for me, Please, mr Bozeman. Letter in your bag for me, please, please. Mr Foe, what's the name of the party I'm at? Oh yeah, welcome back to A Show of Faith on AM 1070. Answer we're talking about a recent governor of Washington state of Washington decision to pass a law which kind of cancels out confessional in the church.
Speaker 6:In the Catholic church.
Speaker 3:Right In the Catholic church In the.
Speaker 6:Catholic church.
Speaker 3:Now that we're back, though, I want to know how basic is this to the church? How far back does confession go? Because Mario cited the verses, but did that immediately express itself through the same rituals?
Speaker 5:It is Immediately the apostles and it's right in the Gospels. You can't. It's not anything that's, you know, handed down by some kind of oral tradition. I received the Holy Spirit whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. Now, notice, notice. It doesn't say the sins God forgives, no, no. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whose sins you retain, I retain.
Speaker 5:Now, how are you supposed to know the difference unless you hear the sins? So when a person is going to the second here, if in, in other words, if you, unless you tell me your sins, how am I supposed to know? Yes, without confession, what do you forget? That's right and so for us, a person is, when you're going to confession or receiving the sacrament of reconciliation or the sacrament of penance, it's all the same thing. You are not talking to me, you have not done anything to me, you don't need my forgiveness. When I say the sacramental words, I absolve you. I always remind people that ain't me. That is the person of Christ using the priest to speak directly to you. Okay, and it's the same thing.
Speaker 5:I was telling Rabbi and David about the priest several years ago who was baptizing and he would say we baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When you say the word we, who are you referring to? Well, he was referring to the church, and Vatican said every single one of the baptisms you performed is invalid. Why? Because it is I baptize you and that I is not the church, that I is the person of Jesus. This is so fundamental.
Speaker 5:Whenever the Catholic sacrament is performed, it is performed by the priest in what's called in persona Christi, in the person of Christ. And let me tell you, whatever that governor says, any priest will go to jail and will go to anything, anything. And let me tell you, it happened to me. It happened to me Really. It happened to me years ago, when I heard a confession about a young lady who was being abused in school and I could not say anything and I talked to her and she kept on coming back to me, but I could not report it. And later on I heard after the case was resolved and she went to the police and it said but I couldn't say anything and the, the, the, the police department was considering my arrest because I did not report it, but you couldn't. That's exactly my point so.
Speaker 4:So let's, let's get, let's get the law down. What? What does the law say? If a, if a priest in a confession, learns of an abuse situation like father mario just mentioned, what is he required to do according to? According to the law in Washington and what is the penalty?
Speaker 3:You mean what is the law now? What do you?
Speaker 4:mean before the law, the law that was just passed.
Speaker 6:Rudy, well, there's pretty much. The legislation completely removes this exemption right and so essentially it makes them an accomplice to the crime. Um, is is how I understood it. Now I I have a very good lawyer friend and I I can I can certainly reach out to him and ask him um, now, this is just particular for Washington citizens, right? So this isn't a federal law.
Speaker 5:Only in the state of Washington, you know it really doesn't matter what state it is, because any priest would go to prison before. And what we're doing here is the church is saying when you're talking to God through the sacrament, you're not talking to the priest, you're talking through the priest. You're not talking to the priest, you're talking to God through the priest. And so I'm sorry, but every single priest that I know would gladly go to jail.
Speaker 4:Every police, every priest. Every priest oh okay, I'm sorry, I misheard what you said, yeah.
Speaker 5:We'd rather go to jail.
Speaker 6:One thing that I wanted to and I think, one of the reasons that I think many priests and you, Father, I mean. Of course, this is a sacrament, but you've got to understand that priests that have been known to break the sacramental seal of confession can be excommunicated.
Speaker 5:No, no, not they can be. That is called an excommunication immediate. The moment you reveal something, you are excommunicated from the church. And this is what's interesting, it's a sin reserved to the pope. In other words, no bishop, no priest can forgive that sin, except the pope himself, and so it is the highest crime so this is a must be, then a rare event it is extremely rare.
Speaker 5:I mean, uh, and not only that, I want to make all of our listeners aware of this. Not only can I not reveal, I cannot talk to you about it. So, david, imagine you came to me and you went to confession and you said something that was going on in your life and you confessed it to me, okay, and I absolved you. I can't go back to you and say, hey, david, remember what you told me in confession. I can't even talk to you about it.
Speaker 4:So you can't say, hey, how's that problem going? No, not at all, unless they bring it up to you in confession.
Speaker 5:Unless you talk to me in confession, I cannot say a word about it to you. And, for example, there's cases in which people have confessed that you know that, theoretically, I'm going to break into the church tonight and I'm not repentant. Well, I'm not going to forgive you, but neither can I act on it.
Speaker 4:You can't.
Speaker 5:I cannot act on it.
Speaker 3:You can't See. This is so elemental and basic and part of the church for so long. How could they think this will survive a supreme court? Separation of church and state it will.
Speaker 5:I don't care if they think they will or not, because it it, it will not stand it. No, it doesn't matter, if it stands.
Speaker 3:I mean the priests will not the priests will not.
Speaker 4:No, no priests will will allow that to go on well, what I thought was ironic and now we've got to go to break. But what I thought was ironic is that the governor continued to cite the fact that he was Catholic as he made the announcement and the fact that he had a relative who was a Jesuit, as if that had any bearing at all.
Speaker 5:It doesn't have a single bearing.
Speaker 4:It's not as if he said well, you know, I talked to my Jesuit cousin and he said oh yeah, make sure you break the covenant.
Speaker 3:That's like when I hear somebody who does something wrong and then people say but he's Jewish, so you should be able to. It's the same basic idea.
Speaker 5:Right, that is what's called Kakadetoro. Oh, is it really In Spanish? Is that Spanish? Is it Hispanic?
Speaker 6:Rudy, is that okay?
Speaker 4:It's a theological term, A theological term yeah, yeah, don't try to wrap your head around that. Hey, listening to a show of faith here on AM 1070, the answer back after this AM 1070 and FM 1033, the answer.
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Speaker 3:And together we will see how lovely heaven will be. Welcome back to A Show of Faith on AM 1070. Answer we have a communication from our past board operator, Sharon Sharon. Yes, she says Caca de Toro, insert sigh here. I suppose that's okay, Aren't you glad I don't work there anymore? Oh wait, she says, but I don't work here anymore. Hi, Sharon, hey.
Speaker 4:Sharon, yeah, maybe. Yeah, we'll just have to wait and see what the FCC says about that at some point. Hey, what are we talking about, Rudy? What is the topic?
Speaker 6:So the topic is this new legislation passed by Governor Bob Ferguson a few days ago two days ago which essentially positions Washington as one of the few states. I don't know if you guys know this, but this is also a similar law in New Hampshire and West Virginia where clergy are not exempt and have mandatory reporting requirements. So this is the new legislation that has passed.
Speaker 6:So now I do want to make this very clear and this kind of goes in line with go ahead and say what that legislation is, because I I don't think you've ever at least in this segment, needs to repeat yeah, go ahead and repeat what the legislation is so bill 5, 3, 7, 5 clergy members are now legally required to report suspected child abuse or neglect, even if the information is obtained during a confession or other confidential religious communication. So any win that you get of any type of abuse, particularly to a child, they are by law now required to report.
Speaker 4:It is is is the way that reads the legislation and and if they don't, it's a penalty, of jail time for the priest they could, they could face consequences.
Speaker 6:Um, I don't think they necessarily have all that flushed out yet. Okay, there's a lot of talk. Uh, now, bishop thomas, daly, daily daly I'm not off spokane, I'm not sure. D-a-l-y daily, would you say that daily um, now he he has, and came out strongly opposing, stating that the clergy in his diocese would uphold the seal of confession, even if it means facing legal consequences, of course. So he reemphasized the sacred nature of the sacrament of dependence and the church's commitment to child protection through existing protocols and a zero-tolerance policy on abuse.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, there's a famous passage in the book of Acts, early Christian historiography, that describes the fact that the followers of Jesus would say we must obey God rather than men, so that you know, men's laws, you know, can be changed at the drop of a hat or challenged, or thrown out in court or whatever. But God's laws aren't subject to that rationale.
Speaker 5:It reminds me of the real execution of the nuns. I can't remember the nuns. It was during the French Revolution that a group of nuns contemplative nuns one by one, went up to the scaffold and had their heads removed.
Speaker 3:Instead of what?
Speaker 5:No, because the French Revolution was extremely anti-clerical, anti-catholic, and so many, many priests, not only the king, but I think the whole church, was seen as too, allied with the royalty.
Speaker 5:And so they expropriated all the convents and everything, all the properties of the church. They expropriated all the convents and everything, all the properties of the church. And then these nuns I'd have to look it up, but these nuns, a whole convent full of Carmelite, cloistered Carmelite nuns. I mean there was just silence and they just did their work. But they all went, one by one, praying up the scaffold and had their heads removed.
Speaker 4:Stuart, you were saying earlier that there's not really a good analogy.
Speaker 3:Well, I think there's a better analogy, but my initial response was it would be like the government and there have been, and there presently right now are governments that would pass a law that said you cannot do kosher slaughter. Okay, Basic elemental to Judaism for thousands of years. Yeah, but that's not exactly accurate because you know you work with the government. There's a way depends on what the law is, but almost every country in northern Europe has outlawed kosher slaughter At some point or another, Right now or even now. I'm saying right this moment Okay so what's the better?
Speaker 3:analogy Well to me, the better analogy would be to say that it's not that we're not allowed to eat kosher, it's that we must eat pig because it's clear. Pig because it's clear. It's part of our faith, going all the way back Leviticus, torah, the five books of Moses. It's so endemic, it's so part, it's so basic to Judaism and to Jewish life for thousands of years. And in the same way, they would force a priest to give up the seal of the confession. This would be forcing the Jews. It would be like saying to the Jewish community you have to eat pork. Or to say this was Mario's analogy you're saying to someone who's Muslim, you have to desecrate the Quran. Someone who's Muslim, you have to desecrate the Quran. It's forcing somebody to violate the basic elemental morals and ethics of their faith.
Speaker 4:And what's interesting here is because all this is under the safety of children. This is kind of the overarching kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Oh, the safety of children demands that we do this, which is something we all support, but not at the cost of your basic, moral, ethical, foundational beliefs of a religion.
Speaker 4:I mean, if it became common, let's say in the state of Washington, father Mario, that every priest that you would go to would in a sense call the authorities after you left the confessional booth, having maybe confessed something like that, who would go? At that point, nobody would go. Yeah, I mean, I think you would, just who would? Go at that point, nobody would go.
Speaker 5:And who.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I think you would just.
Speaker 5:There's even a movie which is very interesting. I can't remember the name of the movie. Somebody may remember it.
Speaker 4:Rudy will remember.
Speaker 5:About a priest who hears a confession of a guy who says he's going to kill him, hears a confession of a guy who says he's going to kill him and, uh, he continues working in his parish because he cannot act on it. And he the priest is a holy priest. He says I'm going to kill you in in revenge for all the other unholy priests. And so the priest is at the end of, at the end of the movie, is killed by this man because he cannot do anything in confession.
Speaker 6:Is it Calvary?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think it is. I think it is, but it's a current movie.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 5:And, by the way, when I was talking about the nuns, the martyrs of Compagne, they were 16 members of the Carmel in France. They were executed by the guillotine towards the end of the Reign of Terror, at what now was the Place de Nation. They were venerated as martyrs because 10 days they were executed. Because they refused to renounce their vows. They refused to renounce Christ. It's the same thing as the early Christians being executed by Nero or anybody like that.
Speaker 3:David, I can't remember your line about the fact that you represent all Protestantism from what's the line? Yeah, the Queen of England to uh snake right and the appalachians, but for like in judaism, my analogy was forcing us to eat pork. In the catholic tradition it's obviously the seal of the confessional. Is there something like that in protestantism?
Speaker 4:there's really really not exactly. I mean, we don't have uh. First of all, protestant churches are all over the place. Yes, like you said yeah, I mean, there are some Protestants that would say about the confession, wait a minute. Just why are you confessing to a priest? Why don't you just go straight to God? Why don't? You just go straight to Judaism.
Speaker 4:Father Mario will answer that in a minute, but there is a very clear passage in the book of James, 5, verse 16. It says confess your faults one to another, pray for one another that you may be healed. So there is this admonition an early, early admonition that's probably, maybe not as early as the Gospels, but very early on that says that there is value in confessing to God, obviously, but also confessing to one another, because in that and this is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said he said, when I meet a brother in the faith, I'm meeting the whole church. In a sense, I'm meeting Christ in that brother, and so that person can represent Christ to me. Now there's the distinction between it doesn't have to be necessarily a Catholic priest, that's right.
Speaker 4:As opposed because in a Protestant world it doesn't have to be a priest. It can be another Christian brother, mentor, spiritual director that kind of thing.
Speaker 5:And just remember that that does not invalidate what Jesus did with the apostles.
Speaker 4:No, it doesn't. No, I'm not saying that at all.
Speaker 5:Okay, this is 1070 KNTH and we'll be right back 1070, the answer.
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Speaker 3:I'm so alone, don't have nobody to call Welcome back to A Show of Faith on AM 1070. The Answer.
Speaker 4:So let's say this happens Somebody comes to you, father Mario, this young lady saying that she had been abused at school.
Speaker 5:How young a lady.
Speaker 4:Okay, she's a. It really doesn't matter, let's say she's in elementary school.
Speaker 5:I have to talk to her about reporting it Okay.
Speaker 4:So you cannot speak to the authorities. You can't speak to her parents, If she's going to confession.
Speaker 5:If she's going to confession and mentioning anything, mentioning anything she says in the sacrament most of the time it would be the perpetrator who would confess it, right, and I could not report it. But this young lady, for example, who came to me years ago, was being abused in school and since she told me in the sacrament I could not report it, I talked to her about coming back and speaking with me about it, about reporting it and everything like that, but I myself could not.
Speaker 4:Okay, let's turn it around and say the perpetrator of this young lady's comes in and says, hey, this is what I've done at school.
Speaker 5:I can't. I encourage him to turn himself in, I encourage him to stop, I encourage him to do all that to seek help, but I cannot report it, okay.
Speaker 3:Rudy, I have a question for you. Okay, because you're not a priest. Okay, so therefore, well, mario may have too, but therefore you go to confession. You do not hear confession, correct, okay. But as I understand it, confession is not just here's what I did, here's what I did, here's what, what I did, but the priest talks to you about it exactly. So you guys have heard me say this before, but in my opinion, in the same way that a computer is applied mathematics, religion is applied psychology, and so your, your examples, examples of confession, sounds to me like counseling.
Speaker 5:It is counseling.
Speaker 4:It is a type of counseling.
Speaker 5:But it's more. It's when a person comes, it's done in the context of faith, of course, that person is not. But you're still talking to them about it.
Speaker 3:That's right, you're still.
Speaker 5:That's right.
Speaker 3:Like making them question their behavior, talking to them about it that's right.
Speaker 5:We're still that's right like making them question their behavior. But but then then, at the very end, when I've said everything and we've counseled and everything exactly, I place my hands on their head or I lift up my hands and I say a prayer, but the prayer ends with and I absolve you. May almighty god absolve you from all of your sins. And I absolve you from all of your sins in the nameve you from all of your sins, in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. And that means everything, all your sins, even the ones you forgot it's like a pardon but that pardon presidential pardon, but that pardon has psychological benefit it
Speaker 4:is still a part of, I think, the counseling or the psychology I don't think a catholic priest, unless he or she well he, sorry, would have the chops would say now look, um, let's get into some little psychotherapy here oh no.
Speaker 3:No, you would never do that. I'm not saying you're a psychotherapist, no, but I still think there's something therapeutic.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely, let me tell you.
Speaker 5:I've had a couple of cases in which soldiers have come back from war.
Speaker 5:And they've been in counseling for a long time and they told me that the sacrament of reconciliation, once they began to understand that they were talking to God and that they were being forgiven by God, did much more to help them than all the counseling that they had received, more than the polite psychology, because, well, they needed to understand. See, that's what the whole point of sacramental confession. Very quickly, I always I, when I prepare kids, um, I, sometimes I get a, a teacher and say now I want you to apologize to me for breaking my iphone. You know, they threw it against the wall and the teacher begins apologizing, apologizing, and all I do is I stay silent, I do nothing, and the teacher keeps apologizing, almost to the tears, and I say, okay, that's it. And all the kids that are watching this little theater thing are angry at me. Why are they angry at me? Because you didn't forgive her.
Speaker 4:You didn't say I forgave her.
Speaker 5:You didn't forgive her. So then I say to the people, to the kids okay, now I want you to think of the sin that you've committed, the worst thing against God. Now one, when I count to three, everybody look up and say I am sorry God, and all the kids go I'm sorry God, and I say let's see if he talks back to us, let's see. And of course God is silent and I say see, you're angry at me because I didn't say it's okay, you're forgiven, but you let God pass it. I thought I was supposed to be like God. I, god, didn't say anything. Why should I have to? And then all of a sudden they go oh. And so I say that's when you go to the priest you're not hearing the priest. You're hearing God speaking back to you and saying not hearing the priest. You're hearing god speaking back to you and saying I heard you and you, I absolve you, you are forgiven, and that's the whole sacramental power because it's not counseling.
Speaker 5:It's the power of the same.
Speaker 6:Yeah, really go ahead, yeah, well I just let me give it, because there's certain conditions for a valid confession right that we talked about talked about.
Speaker 6:Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's kind of a mechanism right, like, for example, if I come up to you and I say I robbed a bank, okay, now the first thing that must be met is essentially a contrition. I, the person who's going to be absolved of you, I have to be genuinely Sorry. How would be genuinely Sorry? How would you say Sorry, repentant Right, I can't Exactly right. So what if this individual and this is a very hypothetical right, and I think this is kind of If you, I guess, how do you perceive the genuineness of it? And if it's not genuine, does?
Speaker 6:it still fall under the seal of confession.
Speaker 5:Yes, it's always in the seal of confession. The genuineness of the penitent has nothing to do with the responsibility of the priest.
Speaker 3:You can be faking it Just with the absolution, yeah right, and my question to both of you and to David would be besides penitence besides I forgot the word you used but feeling sorry for what you've done.
Speaker 5:A firm purpose to try not to do it again.
Speaker 3:But what happens with the person against whom they've sinned?
Speaker 5:A lot of times you have to go back to that person, but that is not part of the sacrament.
Speaker 4:But you could recommend, not only recommend. Yes, I wouldn't recommend that you do this. You hurt that person. You hurt that person.
Speaker 5:I'll never forget. I had a long time ago this is funny, but it's serious I had a person came to me years and years and years and years ago and this guy was a drunkard and a womanizer and, uh, he was confessing and and I said, are you sorry for your sins? Are you going to try to do better? And he says, father, I gotta be truthful to you, I'm sorry that they are sins, and and at that moment, but he still recognized they were I. I and I said, well, are you going to try? Even though you're sorry that they, you want to continue me doing them, but you can't. And because I cannot absolve you if you have no intention of repentance, if you have no sincere, you can fall. How many times do I have to forgive my brother? Seven times, seven times, seven times, because you have to have a firm purpose that you're going to try to live a holy life and not to commit that sin again.
Speaker 8:And if you don't?
Speaker 5:have that the absolution is invalid.
Speaker 3:What was his response? Do you remember?
Speaker 5:Yeah, oh, I mean, he said of course, father, he was trying to be cute, right right, yeah. But yeah. I mean say that again, Rudy.
Speaker 6:I just wanted to give the rabbi before. I know we only have a few minutes, but he asked earlier about one of the cases of somebody breaking If there were cases of people or priests breaking the confessional seal. We don't have too many cases of it. It's quite surprising how much it doesn't happen and you'd be hard-pressed, I think, to find a case and what you find actually a lot is priests being killed for not breaking the confessional seal. To cross history, thought that she was committing infidelity and she went to, uh, her confessor and he wouldn't say anything and had him essentially drowned and thrown in the river. Um saint, nep, I don't know how to say it nepomuk, nepomuk.
Speaker 6:It doesn't matter, it's kind of a strange name, um, but but I think it's just it. Just it's just kind of a testament to how of course people are not perfect and the church isn't perfect. Say, um, big pillars, if you will. That I continue to believe in the holy catholic church is because I am hard-pressed to find any organization that has stood for 2 000 years and has had so many idiot men in them still standing if the priests would.
Speaker 5:if the clergy would have been in charge of the church, we would have screwed it up a long time ago, a long time ago.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:You know. So that's the longstanding thing.
Speaker 4:Hey, we've got 90 seconds, sir, Less less.
Speaker 5:No, just this week we have a very important moment.
Speaker 4:Conclave starts.
Speaker 5:Conclave starts on Wednesday. We'll have probably a new pope by the time. We have a very important moment Conclave starts. Conclave starts on Wednesday. We'll have probably a new pope by the time we have the show on Sunday.
Speaker 4:You think it will be that quick?
Speaker 5:Oh, I think so yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay, any ideas? Who?
Speaker 5:No, two or three days? No, I rejected it already. I was invited.
Speaker 3:Oh well, that was nice of you, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so it's going to happen this week, so look for the white smoke.
Speaker 5:Look for the white smoke.
Speaker 4:Starts on Wednesday.
Speaker 5:Starts on Wednesday. That's right. It's really tremendously impressive to see it. And the electronics. I was watching a special on electronics that the Catholic Church is putting into the Sistine Chapel to block any communications in or out cell phone and anything, any communications. They're just going out of their way to shut everything down so that the cardinals there's. There's no relationship between the conclave movie, the politics, and the real.
Speaker 4:The real the real, thing, the real thing yeah.
Speaker 5:So pray for the cardinals, pray for the catholic church, because right now we are in what is called the interregnum. Interrupt, my friends, this. You've been listening to the show of faith here on knth. Keep us in your prayers. You're going to be in ours find us at am1070theanswercom.
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