DrDez - friend - what a pity you didn't have Sister Mary Gabriel - a gentle Dominican Nun to teach you when you were a little kid. She prepared me for my First Confession - and subsequent frequent confession is something that has never caused me the slightest problems over 50 years of being a sinner.

Sister taught us the classic definition of sin, according to the Angelic Doctor - St Thomas Aquinas. I have never forgotten it and it has formed my life and faith.

"A sin is any thought word or deed that harms me."

Sin harms me because first it breaks down my relationship with God who is the source of Love, Truth Justice and Reason (never completely - after all its not my soul to throw away - it's His - that's why I can never loose it! - it's mot mine to loose!); secondly, it breaks down my relationship with others - (theft, adultery, fornication, lies, slander, envy etc) - all obviously affect other people with whom I am connected by these thoughts words and actions, and hence harms me too - because it breaks down my own dignity and shows that I am behaving, thinking, in a way that is not natural to my natural state - and that is harmful.

So perhaps your dad , who might not have understood all this, had an inkling of it - and desired what was good for you - hence he froggmmarched you to the grille - with the best intentions.

of course we have all encountered buffoons behind the grille - the church is made up of frail human beings after all, but perhaps not as many as popular 'fiction' - even our own - would have it. The grace of the sacrament works efficaciously despite the broken vessel (some occasioanlly silly priest) it comes through.

Seen in that light - 'sin' becomes something a bit more intelligible and important and a bit more than trivial imperfections like saying 'bugger', eating meat of Friday (it was a worthy discipline - the relaxation of which destroyed Catholic identity in many places - the English Bishops are about to re-introduce it - a good thing if you ask me - because if I wasnt being a good catholic, at least every Friday I was reminded that I should) - or swearing at Granny.

Of course for most people today - they consider themselves too 'adult' and sophisticated to sin - nothing is wrong any more today except the 11th commandment - The commandment of Political Correctness whereby Thous Shalt not say or do anthing that offends another persons feelings or views. Oh is that a great crime - as we all know!

I once spoke to a priest who used to hear confessions 5 hours a day in a busy pilgrimage monastery in Ireland. He was a Trappist monk - very holy. And a friend of Princess Margaret. (I bet that old shocker had a few things to get off her ample chest!!!) Anyway, this Trappist and I were talking(!) about 'mortal sin' and he said to me - without revealing any seal of the confession - "My child", he said, "I have been hearing confessions for 29 years and many people have come to me thinking they had mortal sin on their souls." (By which we mean - something wherby they had totally rejected God's love). he continued, "Do you know, I have NEVER heard a mortal sin in all those years. They thought they had committed them in ignorance, but none of them had when you talkked about it a bit." Then he said something that Ope benedict has said, "We may presume that Hell is empty."

Themn, you may well ask, why go to confession. Well....you clean your house every day dont you. And it gets dirty again. And you clean your house again dont you? Besides, everytime you go to confession, God perfects you a bit more.

Back home, not here - but back home every Saturday morning I would go to Confession, then go across the road to the pub and have a whiskey or towo and say my Hail Marys given as my penance. It made me feel complete in an imperfect world made up of losers like me.

Here of course the FPI would be smashing up offices and threatening people whilst teh police turned a blind eye

Vanu

I agree - Hypocrisy

It reminds me of my youth. We were forced to go to confession by my father a very serious catholic who would have found a place easily in the anti FPI. By my late teens I had already decided that god was just a beard in the sky and the preists only concerned with nocturnal emissions, power and money. I therefore made it my duty to make my confessions as interesting for the priest as possible. Over 2 years prior to being asked never to come again I confessed to everything from original sin to swearing at my grandma.

Rather like the Muslims here I was playing at religion - My games however did not kill anyone

I find it funny that most muslims I know drink alcohol, smoke and have pre-material sex, but they wont eat pork. I think if there really was an Allah he/she would think the pork rule wouldn't be quite as important as the other rules that they seem to always break.

LOL whatever next will Muslims find to be offended about