Ben Yeshua
New member
"sin-forgiving" confessors? The last I heard was in 1560 and described by Chiniquy: "The Priest, the Woman, and the Confessional":
"One of the most remarkable of those efforts [to identify & punish guilty priests] was made by Pius IV. about the year 1560.
"A Bull was published by him, by which all the girls and married women who had been seduced into sins by their confessors, were ordered to denounce them; and a certain number of high church officers of the Holy Inquisition were authorized to take the depositions of the fallen penitents.
"The thing was, at first, tried at Seville, one of the principal cities of Spain. When the edict was first published, the number of women who felt bound in conscience to go and depose against their father confessors, was so great, that though there were thirty notaries, and as many inquisitors, to take the depositions, they were unable to do the work in the appointed time.
"Thirty days more were given, but the inquisitors were so overwhelmed with the numberless depositions, that another period of time of the same length was given. But this, again, was found insufficient.
"At the end, it was found that the number of priests who had destroyed the purity of their penitents was so great that it was impossible to punish them all."
IBID, Chapter 3, "The Confessional is the Modern Sodom"
The inquest was given up, and the guilty confessors remained unpunished. Several attempts of the same nature have been tried by other popes, but with about the same success.
"One of the most remarkable of those efforts [to identify & punish guilty priests] was made by Pius IV. about the year 1560.
"A Bull was published by him, by which all the girls and married women who had been seduced into sins by their confessors, were ordered to denounce them; and a certain number of high church officers of the Holy Inquisition were authorized to take the depositions of the fallen penitents.
"The thing was, at first, tried at Seville, one of the principal cities of Spain. When the edict was first published, the number of women who felt bound in conscience to go and depose against their father confessors, was so great, that though there were thirty notaries, and as many inquisitors, to take the depositions, they were unable to do the work in the appointed time.
"Thirty days more were given, but the inquisitors were so overwhelmed with the numberless depositions, that another period of time of the same length was given. But this, again, was found insufficient.
"At the end, it was found that the number of priests who had destroyed the purity of their penitents was so great that it was impossible to punish them all."
IBID, Chapter 3, "The Confessional is the Modern Sodom"
The inquest was given up, and the guilty confessors remained unpunished. Several attempts of the same nature have been tried by other popes, but with about the same success.