OK, this link kind of cracked me up in a few places, namely "were you stealing the money to feed your family, or to buy porn?" But it has a pretty extensive rundown of the whole confession thing. And confirms that yes, you're required to go once a year (during Lent, if nothing else--my dad usually made us go during Advent as well, which is recommended, but I think those were the only times my hippy church had big huge confessional times, otherwise it was like, Saturday afternoons).
But that doesn't really get into what's mortal/venial/OK to take communion thing.
Also in looking all this up, apparently (and this TOTALLY makes sense) my diocese was Doin It WRONG by giving kids First Communion at 7 and not doing First Reconciliation until a couple years later (4th grade, I think). It's supposed to be the other way around (which, again, makes sense). Apparently there was some scolding about that, a few years back.
...can you tell I don't feel like doing work right now?
Congratulations, Gris! Wonderful news!
Tep, from here [link] it doesn't look like there's a hard and fast classification of sins as mortal versus venial, but rather the state of the sinner's mind is taken into account when the sin in committed.
I didn't grow up Catholic, so any familiarity I have with the categories of sin is really just from Catholic friends and family.
In the church of my childhood, the message I heard (or at least thought I heard) is that sin is sin is sin. In other words, there aren't a bunch of laws. There is THE law and it doesn't matter where you break it, once you've broken it, you've broken it (and so need salvation from Christ). I think the justification for that teaching came from Matthew 5 [link] -- see especially from verse 17 'til the end.
Much health~ and getting through chemo~ma to your sister, Connie.
Much ~ma for your sister, Connie.
Oodles of ~ma, Connie.
amyth, I apologize for not STFU.
Oh the hippie f2f confession thing was totally a choice at my church. You could still use the screen if you wanted.
Now, her son is emailing me and apologizing on behalf of his mom, because he's embarrassed. Ugh. I'm just feeling regret about the whole thing. I regret not letting it go because she's a parental figure and the rules are different, and I hate feeling like I'm backing down with other people, because the whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I just want it to die.
FAMILY. I function so much better as an orphan. SRSLY.
smonster, there is NOTHING that's your fault in this. NOTHING. No worries.
Dammit now I wanna go comment. "No Christians strapping bombs on themselves and blowing shopping malls? O HAI TIMOTHY MCVEIGH."
