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Cross
Vol. 81, No. 14
Thursday, April 5, 2001
$.50 PER ISSUE
The restored crucifix in the Cathedral of Saint John the
Baptist is decorated for Lent with bare branches.
Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday, April 8.
Official Announcement
B ishop J. Kevin Boland has announced the following pas
toral appointment:
—On presentation of Reverend Felix Elosi, MSP, Superior
General of the Missionary Society of Saint Paul, U.S. Mission,
Bishop Boland has appointed Reverend Brian Okon, MSP,
Parochial Vicar of Saint Benedict the Moor Church, Savannah.
This appointment was effective as of January 1, 2001.
Pope urges frequent
confession
By John Norton
Vatican City (CNS)
ope John Paul II urged priests
worldwide to help Christians re
discover the sacrament of penance
and to start by frequenting it them
selves.
The return of many Catholics—
especially young people—to the prac
tice of confession during the jubilee
year was an “encouraging sign” upon
which priests should build at the start
of the new millennium, he said.
The pope made his remarks in an
annual letter to priests for Holy
Thursday, commemorating Christ’s
institution of the Eucharist and the
priesthood at the Last Supper. The let
ter was released at a Vatican press
conference April 2.
Writing in a personal style, the pope
thanked priests for their efforts, some
times at great personal cost, to bring
the experience of Christ’s salvation to
those in their care. “I want you to
know of my admiration for this min
istry, discreet, tenacious and creative,
even if it is sometimes watered by
those tears of the soul which only
God sees and ‘stores in his bottle’,”
he said.
One essential aspect of intensely
experiencing Christ, the pope said, is
the sacrament of reconciliation, which
has suffered a decline in recent de
cades. The jubilee surge in confes
sions “impels us to recognize that the
profound needs of the human spirit...
cannot be canceled out by temporary
crises,” he said.
The reasons for the crisis include a
diminished sense of sin and an inade
quate understanding of the sacraments
in God’s plan. But priests also shared
some blame, he said, because of “a
certain dwindling of our own enthusi
asm and availability for the exercise
of this delicate and demanding min
istry.”
“Now more than ever the people of
God must be helped to rediscover the
sacrament. We need to declare with
firmness and conviction that the
sacrament of penance is the ordinary
means of obtaining pardon and the
remission of grave sins after baptism.
“We ought to celebrate the sacra
ment in the best possible way, accord
ing to the forms laid down by liturgi
cal law, so that it may lose none of its
character as the celebration of God’s
mercy,” he said.
To restore confession’s place in
Catholic practice, the pope said,
priests must make an effort to redis
cover for themselves “the full beauty
Of this sacrament.”
“The sacrament of reconciliation,
essential for every Christian life, is
especially a source of support, guid
ance and healing for the priestly life,”
he said.
“Only those who have known the
Father’s tender embrace,” he said,
“can pass on to others the same
warmth.”
Priests must also combat a wide
spread “minimalist” understanding of
moral conscience and sin, which
ignores the “radical demands of the
Gospel,” the pope said.
“Many of the faithful have an idea
of sin that is not based on the Gospel
but on common convention, on what
is socially acceptable,” he said.
“Evangelization in the third millen
nium must come to grips with the
urgent need for a presentation of the
Gospel message which is dynamic,
complete and demanding,” said the
pope.
He said priests should make clear
that sin is not “purely private,” but is
something that also “lowers the level
of holiness” of the entire church com
munity.
Recovering the community sense of
the sacrament was “extremely impor
tant,” he said, and might be helped by
communal penance services that end
with individual confession and abso
lution.
Extension Society in diocese
—see page 3
Communion and solidarity
—see page 4
Southern Cross photo tips
—see pages 6-7