Pope orders senior clergy to hear confessions in local church

Suggestions that the pope himself will take a turn.

Vatican City:  Further to my blog of Friday 6th December, I note that Pope Francis is still determined to get Vatican officials out from behind their desks. As I wrote then, he has told his papal almoner, “You can sell your desk”. Thus this official, Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, now goes out to meet in person some of those who have written to the Pope asking for help.

As the representative of the Holy Father, where he can help with small sums, interventions or other acts of kindness, he does so. The subliminal idea is that charity has a human face; it is not just signing a cheque from behind a certain piece of office furniture.

Now Robert Moynihan reports in his Letter 102 of Sunday 15 December from the Vatican, that Pope Francis has personally directed his closest collaborators, the cardinals and archbishops of the Roman Curia, to take turns to hear daily confession in the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, which is situated outside the Vatican. It is suggested that the Holy Father will also take his turn in the confessional at 3 pm during the coming weeks.

Significantly the church of Santo Spirito is dedicated to the Divine Mercy devotion revealed to St Faustina, a Polish nun, and promoted by the late John Paul II, who died on the Feast of Divine Mercy. It seems that Archbishop Krajewski already hears confessions at this church daily at 3 pm.

Now he is to be joined by other members of the Curia. When asked why the Pope has asked for this initiative, the parish priest of Santo Spirito, Fr Jozef Bart, replied, “He wishes to emphasise the importance of confession, and of God’s great goodness in forgiving human sin.”

Source: Catholic Herald