Question Corner: Should general absolution be a more regular practice?

Q: My brother says that since there are fewer confession times these days, priests should give a general absolution following the “Confiteor” at Mass and encourage those in serious sin to follow up with a regular confession. His argument is that we are losing souls on a metaphorical battlefield, so we should take that measure. What do you think?

A: Even if your brother’s heart is in the right place, in most places this would not be allowed in canon law. And even if this kind of routine general absolution was a possibility in countries like the United States, I question how pastorally effective it would actually be.

For some background, “general absolution” is sacramental absolution a priest confers on a large group of people all at once, without having heard the spoken confessions of each individual’s sins. As one might expect, the church reserves general absolution for fairly extreme situations.

Canon 961 of the Code of Canon Law describes the two scenarios where general absolution would be appropriate. The first is when “danger of death threatens and there is not time for the priest or priests to hear the confessions of the individual penitents.” An illustration of this would be a priest onboard an airplane about to crash, or immediately prior to an inescapable and deadly natural disaster. Clearly, this would not be the situation in the vast majority of parishes at a regular Sunday Mass!

The second scenario where general absolution could be a legitimate option is when: “there exists a grave necessity, that is, given the number of penitents, there are not enough confessors available properly to hear the individual confessions within an appropriate time, so that without fault of their own the penitents are deprived of the sacramental grace or of holy communion for a lengthy period of time.” The law seems to envision this use of general absolution as applying to unusually remote mission territories that may lack the presence of a priest for perhaps weeks or months on end.

There are some places, even within the United States, where this may indeed be the case. But if a parish is able to have at least a weekly Sunday Mass, then there would likewise seem to be enough of a priestly presence in that area to allow penitents to have their individual confessions heard within a reasonable time frame. So if we follow canon 961 to its logical conclusion, the very availability of weekly Mass would normally render general absolution at those Masses illicit.

Yet even beyond all these canonical considerations, the simpler solution — which is happily also the less controversial one — to the problem of infrequent or inconveniently scheduled confession times is for parishes to schedule more frequent times for confessions, and/or to schedule confessions for days and times that fit better into working parishioners’ calendars.

There really is no need to skip over this clear-cut and obvious remedy in favor of a relatively obscure canonical option. (And on an immediate practical note, while many Catholics feel more comfortable making “drop in” confessions during the set periods on the parish schedule, if the parish confession schedule will not work for you, it’s good to keep in mind that most parish priests are open to hearing confessions by appointment as well.)

Finally, the dynamics of interior conversion and the spiritual life can be very subtle and rarely fall into easy formulaic categories. But based on a broad understanding of human nature, I would ask whether “forcing” absolution on those who logistically could, but for whatever reason won’t, proactively seek it out for themselves is really going to be pastorally effective in the big picture. Aside from the question of whether such individuals would have the necessary sorrow for sin and firm purpose of amendment for any sacramental absolution to work validly, nobody can be saved from sin against or even independent of their own will.

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