What happened to Anonymous confession, and more confusing liturgy changes

Is communication in the Catholic Church in England breaking down?

I have been troubled by two issues which I have questioned with the Diocese but they do not respond.

  1. New liturgy. For a year now the text of the epistle and gospel as read out is not the same as in the Mass Handbooks, nor the Sunday Missals. From time to time our PP apologises and says the new Handbooks and Missals will arrive in time.

Why was the liturgy changed yet again? The changes are no improvement despite the claims. It’s as though they simply got out a thesaurus and replaced every word with the next equivalent. But this also makes it impossible to follow the readings in a large church with corresponding acoustics.

Can I ask the English Bishops to simply reverse the changes, as their congregations have been left stranded?

  1. Confession heard anonymously. Recently our deputy PP appealed to make our confession during Lent. I had not been for a few years but managed to attend on the last Saturday of Lent on time. However, the location has been changed and it is now held in a side room in the lobby which has glass walls and doors, part of the design of our rather handsome church. But I could see the priest and confessant obviously face to face and there was no grille. I realised I had no choice but face to face confession. Face to face confession is something I need to prepare especially for, but generally avoid it.

I went to the neighbouring parish, same thing. Every time the confessional door opened I could see the priest staring outside right at the queue.

When I asked my PP about this he said it was because of COvid. He acknowledged that theoretically we have “gone beyond” Covid now and promised to ask the Bishop for me. In fact I had already asked the Diocesian Secretary by email.

I have made it clear that if anonymous confession is not available then I will simply not be able to receive the sacrament.

No announcement was ever made about grilles being removed because of Covid. It makes no sense to me. All over the country grilles and barriers were going up, not taken down.

I regret to say I have heard nothing from anyone since.

In my parish, it’s usually confidential now though sometimes face to face. No rhythm or reason that I’m aware of. Either way is good by me, I try to remember that it’s really the Lord who I’m speaking to regardless of the logistics. But I recognize that some may be a lot more comfortable when Confessions are heard in an actual confessional.

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I don’t know what you mean
I’m not being rude or anything

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I’m posting here to ask if anyone is having similar experiences, i.e. not able to have anonymous confession, not able to follow the liturgy

Not being from England I cannot really answer this. I have heard that there is a resurgence in Europe in the Catholic Church, but I cannot confirm what I heard is true.

Our Church gets new Missals every three year cycle, because I think they do change slightly. I’m not sure if this is a decision made on a Conference of Bishop’s level or on a Publisher’s level.

I get your frustration. Every Parish I go to uses different hymnals and Missals. One Church here in town has had the same Missals for years. These are hardbound and probably cost a pretty penny. But at our normal Parish, they order the smaller Missals that are just for that year and then swap them out every Liturgical New Year. These are paperback and they slip them into a hard binder. I sure these are cheaper at the time of purchase, but have to be replaced yearly, whereas the ones at the other Church are used until they break down or are stolen.

I believe the changes were not all bad. The Pre-Vatican II Missal only used 1% of the Old Testament and 16.5% of the New Testament for Sundays and Major Fests. Since the changes, you now will hear 3.7% of the Old Testament and 40.8% of the New Testament!

And if you attend Mass daily, you will now hear 13.5% of the Old Testament and 71.5% of the New Testament! This is a huge improvement.

If anyone attends Mass every day in the Catholic Church, they will hear 89.9% of the four Gospels in a three-year cycle. In the words of the Comedy movie Nacho Libre, “And they don’t think I know a buttload of crap about the Gospel, but I doooooo.” : )

We Catholic Christians now hear more of the Bible than most Protestant and Non-Denominational Christians do in their Services. And we, like them, are also encouraged to read and study Sacred Scripture outside of Church.

Here in the United States, most Christians Churches have Wednesday Night Bible Study Groups. I attend a weekly Thursday night Catholic Mean’s Bible Study, in addition to doin a Bible Study with my Protestant Co-Worker through an app.

Catholic Christians have always taken Sacred Scripture seriously, but most struggle to recall chapter & verse. Ironically, it was an English Scholar who later became a Catholic Bishop in the 1200’s who numbered the Bible (gave the Bible chapters & verses).

You can ask, but generally, the new Missals (from what I understand) all have the same Readings (though sometimes they have multiple passages to choose from). Why this is, I’m not sure. Might have to do with the length.

First, I’m glad you were able to go to Confession during Lent! I try to make it a habit to go to Confession during Lent and Advent.

I prefer face-to-face, but I also understand that some do not. It depends on the Priest here in the United States. I’ve been to Penitent Services where one Priest is behind a screen and other Priests are face-to-face. I remember when I was a kid having to go into a dark box and found this to be uninviting.

Confessing our sins is never fun. It flat out sucks sometimes. Some of the guys in my Men’s Bible Study all go to the Marian Shrine about a half-hour away once or twice a month. That way the Priests do not know who they are. And because the grounds are quite beautiful there. Some do the outdoor Stations of the Cross and others Pray a Rosary while enjoying the nature that surrounds the Shrine.

Using Covid is an excuse sound like a load of crap if I’m being honest, but I’m someone who is still bitter that Churches closed their doors during a time of fear and uncertainty, when we needed God most!

Many of our Priests and Bishops have become cowards. I get being obedient to your Bishop as a Priest, but there are times when it is more prudent to do what is right & just, namely, when your Bishop has sold their soul to politicians and individuals with money.

Here in the United States, many faithful Catholics stopped tithing to the Church and tithing to other charitable organizations, because their Bishop started going with the culture instead of standing firm in truth. If you want to get the attention of your Bishop more than a letter, stop giving them money. They will notice, but a letter explaining to them why you have stopped giving to them might not be a bad idea, because surely many of these Bishops will make up some other reason for a decrease in funding. Some will say that it is because of Covid or inflation. No, it is because too many Bishops are linking arms with those who want to replace God. Of course the Priest scandals do not help either.

But, I have hope for the Church. I think many young men see what is going on in the Church and want to be the solution. The Diocese that I grew up in just ordained 8 young Priests! My Diocese ordained only 3, but I will take 11 good Priests over a hundred bad Priests.

I would challenge you not to hold this view. I have friends who do not go to the Doctor, because they do not like what the medical system has become (pushing the experimental messenger RNA and not allowing Doctors to practice what they know to be good for their patients over what politicians have decided is good). And the Doctors went along with it, because they feared losing their jobs. Some great Doctors did lose their jobs for not going along with it.

My point is though, not going to Reconciliation is not good for you in the long run. And just as a fear of Covid is an excuse for many, so is a fear of face-to-face an excuse. There was an episode of The Chosen where Mary Magdalen fall back into her old ways and when the Apostles go rescue her and bring her back to camp, Mary, our Blessed Mother, tells her to go speak to Jesus (face-to-face) and she tries to make excuses for why she shouldn’t. Embarrassment and shame are two reasons that prevent us from coming to Jesus and reconciling. When Adam & Eve sinned against God, they hid from Him. When Mary Magdalen fell back into her old ways (in The Chosen), she did not want Jesus to see her face.

A good Priest is not there to judge you. A good Priest is there to heal you. And if you still do not feel comfortable confessing to your own Priest, drive a half-an-hour to go to a Priest who doesn’t know you.

Exactly, this is why I said that it sounds like a load of crap. I suspect that this was a decision not made on the Diocese level, but on the local level and Covid is just an excuse. The one Parish I mentions that has the more permeant Missals does not have the old style Confessionals, but they have put up one of those Chinese Change thingies where the Priest will sometimes sit on one side and the Penitent on the other.

A similar thin has been said in another thread in this forum last week about reaching out to the Diocese level and not hearing back in a timely manor. I do not know how many inquiries and letters they receive, but I would bet it is a lot. We human beings like to complain probably more now than ever in history (because that is what social media has formed us to be—complainers—sometimes warranted and sometimes over things that are less important). I am not making an excuse for why you have not heard back. Just thinking of reason that you might not have heard any update.

Complaining is nothing new. We see St. Paul addressing this often in his epistles. Imagine how long it took to hear back from the Bishops in the Early Church (from the Apostles and their successors)! The letters had to be delivered probably on donkey or by foot. Or simply by word of mouth, and that is if the individual doesn’t forget to pass along your message. They say our brain dumps information every time we walk through a doorway. How many times do we walk into a room and forget why we even went into the room? It happens to me more than I would like to admit. So, I walk back into the room where the though came to me and then I remember (if I’m lucky : )

I feel your pain. There are some things that the Church is doing that make little-to-no sense to me. And some of these changes, though maybe good intentioned, have had the opposite result of the intended purpose. They removed the alter rails thinking it would get rid of the division between us and God (which was already there when Christ died for us on the Cross and Rose to be at God’s right-hand), but these decisions to remove some of these traditional things has also removed with it the reverence and respect owed to God.

I think many of the decision were done to make God more approachable and I get that. Some of the old ways of doing things are intimidating to some of us, especially when we do not understand the meaning behind what might otherwise be viewed as beautiful.

Pope Francis saw the old ways and described them as being “rigid.” While others see the tradition as being reverent. Many Protestants view dogma as being in competition with Scripture, but as G.K. Chesterton said, there are two types of people in this world: those who are dogmatic and know it and those who are dogmatic and don’t know it. Some atheists believe the Bible was made to control people, whereas most Christians view the Bible as an expression of a Father’s (God’s) love for those who were once lost (which is everyone, even those who are still searching or think they know a better way than the one that God has revealed to us in His only begotten Son, Jesus, Who is the way, the truth, and the life). He is Love incarnate (even if Diddy tried to steal the name ; )

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Well that’s a very helpful reply. I am glad you are with me on the Covid issue, in connection with the Church I have met not a single soul here that agrees with me that it was all a serious mistake, putting it kindly. The ubiquitous squeezy anti bacterial gel bottle is now a permanent part of the altar table, even though we are back to 2-300 communicants mixing hygiene though a shared wine chalice and communion on the tongue.
The money angle is interesting. I wouldn’t have dared think about it before. It’s relevant, in case I should want to enter closer dialogue with the diocese.

Sorry that I got a little wordy there : )

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Meh, tbh, covid’s done with now so you don’t really need to be worried

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I’m not worried, just concerned that the Covid business caused so much unnecessary disruption

It was a good read, no problem

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I agree with you 100%. Keep fighting for the correct way.

I’m sorry to hear about this confusion.

Being from outside of England, I can’t be certain. But my guess about the different translations for the Scripture readings is that the bishops of England & Wales recently (in the past few years) approved a new translation for the Lectionary: the English Standard Version. This is a more literal translation than was previously being used. It may be that you are just in the awkward transition time in which publishers of hand Missals need to catch up.

The good news is that the new translation will probably be in use for many years. It is very unlikely that it will be changed again until it has had a few decades of use.

With regard to Confession, I’m very sorry to hear that you’re having trouble finding a confessional with a grille. While it can be a good pastoral decision to sometimes make this sacrament available in other forums (e.g. to help those with disabilities access the sacrament), a grille should also be available in churches.

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