Is the weight from your sins hanging heavy on your shoulders? Just visit Absolution Online, home of the Virtual Confessional, and your burden shall be lifted.
I want to assume You've got great intentions in producing the absolution-online site, but I want to invite You to consider pulling its plug.
It's great to encourage Christians to confess their sins, and it's really great to encourage Catholics to seek sacramental absolution. But Your site does not make clear that valid sacramental confession and absolution cannot be had through a website:
"Individual, integral confession and absolution remain the only ordinary way for the faithful to reconcile themselves with God and the Church, unless physical or moral impossibility excuses from this kind of confession."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1484)
Since You fail to make this clear, Your site risks deceiving some Catholics who don't know better into abandoning sacramental absolution for an invalid and empty substitute. Your posted disclaimer really doesn't adequately clarify this serious matter.
If You're Catholic, or even a non-Catholic of good will, I ask You as a Christian brother to respect the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding how it administers the sacraments entrusted to it by Christ. You can do this by shutting down the absolution-online site, or at least by providing a much clearer disclaimer.
Or better yet, why not redesign the content to more accurately promote the authentic truth about Catholic teaching on this topic? The sacrament of confession is so very beautiful, and deserves our best efforts to promote the real thing. Thanks for Your consideration!
Best wishes,
John Robin.
Posted by John Robin on Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 05:34 PM
Um, John? Just a thought here. Follow with me if you can, I think this is really important.
You might wanna, oh... I don't know, address this to the person actually running the site instead of to an unaffiliated hoax forum. You might get better results that way.
Posted by Charybdis on Thu Sep 06, 2007 at 09:19 AM
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Comments
I want to assume You've got great intentions in producing the absolution-online site, but I want to invite You to consider pulling its plug.
It's great to encourage Christians to confess their sins, and it's really great to encourage Catholics to seek sacramental absolution. But Your site does not make clear that valid sacramental confession and absolution cannot be had through a website:
"Individual, integral confession and absolution remain the only ordinary way for the faithful to reconcile themselves with God and the Church, unless physical or moral impossibility excuses from this kind of confession."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1484)
Since You fail to make this clear, Your site risks deceiving some Catholics who don't know better into abandoning sacramental absolution for an invalid and empty substitute. Your posted disclaimer really doesn't adequately clarify this serious matter.
If You're Catholic, or even a non-Catholic of good will, I ask You as a Christian brother to respect the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding how it administers the sacraments entrusted to it by Christ. You can do this by shutting down the absolution-online site, or at least by providing a much clearer disclaimer.
Or better yet, why not redesign the content to more accurately promote the authentic truth about Catholic teaching on this topic? The sacrament of confession is so very beautiful, and deserves our best efforts to promote the real thing. Thanks for Your consideration!
Best wishes,
John Robin.
You might wanna, oh... I don't know, address this to the person actually running the site instead of to an unaffiliated hoax forum. You might get better results that way.