Imagine this scenario: immediately after week day Mass, you walk to your parish priest and politely ask him to hear your confession. He says he cannot hear your confession now and tells you to come at the appointed day of the week. That's Saturday. This is Tuesday! You're scandalized. Is he not a priest? Do we not have the right to the sacraments according to Canon Law? So a priest can take a break from performing his primary duty?
Well, let us reason together.
You are right. As a general rule, we have a right to the sacraments. Canon 843.1 provides a broad statement about the need to provide the Catholic faithful with the sacraments: it asserts that sacred ministers may not deny the sacraments to those who opportunely ask for them, are properly disposed to receive them, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them. But the flip-side of the equation, of course, is that a priest can refuse to administer a sacrament to a person who asks for it at an inappropriate time, or whose demeanor does not suggest that he/she is properly disposed for its reception, or whom canon law bars from receiving it.
In the specific case of the sacrament of Penance, canon 986.1 reaffirms this: it states that all to whom the care of souls is entrusted [including of course parish priests] are obliged to provide for the hearing of confessions of the faithful entrusted to them, when they reasonably request the sacrament. It adds that these clergy are to provide the faithful under their care with the opportunity to confess on days and at times arranged to accommodate them.
We can see that once again, the code specifies that a request for confession must be “reasonable.” It would appear from your account that the priest judged that you were not reasonably seeking the sacrament of Penance at an appropriate time—because you were instructed to come back later, when confessions are normally heard. The question therefore is, were you unreasonably seeking the sacrament at an inopportune time, when you asked to make your confession after Mass?
It’s fairly easy to think of clear-cut situations where we might be refused a sacrament because we asked for it at an inappropriate time. An American priest once told me of a parishioner who occasionally used to phone the rectory in the middle of the night, because she wanted to go to confession! Since there was nothing particularly urgent about her request, the parish priests acted reasonably in refusing it. If a person is in danger of death, however, the situation is completely different. A person who is dying—or at least looks like he may be dying—always asks for the sacraments “opportunely,” regardless of what time of day or night it is. That is because theologically, the Church’s #1 concern for a dying person is to provide all that is spiritually necessary for him as soon as possible!
As we saw in “CAN ALL PRIESTS ALWAYS HEAR CONFESSION?” even a priest who has been laicized, or who is under excommunication, has not only the right, but the duty to hear the confession of a person who is dying if asked to do so (c. 986.2 ). A priest who receives a phone call about a dying person ordinarily will drop whatever he is doing and try to get to the person immediately. But even in this urgent situation, there may be circumstances which lead a priest to conclude that he must finish what he is currently doing first. To take an obvious example, if a priest is in the dentist’s office undergoing a root-canal, canon law certainly does not require him instantly to jump up and run out the door! Other, more subtle situations can involve particularly difficult judgment-calls: what is a priest to do, if he receives word that a parishioner is dying, two minutes before he is scheduled to begin celebrating Sunday Mass, and no other priest is around? It sometimes happens that a priest has to make an on-the-spot decision that is not an easy one, calculating which of his important responsibilities must take a back-seat to the other. And sometimes this means that a person dies without the sacraments, because the priest doesn’t get to him in time. This unfortunate occurrence should not automatically be construed as a violation of anybody’s rights; it rather demonstrates the obvious fact that a priest cannot be in two places at the same time.
But in a non-deathbed situation, what is a priest required to do when someone seeks the sacrament of Penance outside of regularly scheduled hours? Well, the Church’s general aim, for theological reasons, is to make this sacrament as readily available to the faithful as possible. The Code of Canon Law can’t possibly make rules for every conceivable situation, but on a more pastoral level, ideally priests normally will lean toward a more generous interpretation of the basic rule—and will stop what they are doing (if they can) in order to hear a confession. They know that they are dealing with warm-blooded human beings, and sometimes citing a cold, impersonal law in response to a person’s request simply doesn’t fit the bill! Therefore, based on the little we know of your situation, it does appear at least superficially that the priest could have responded differently to your request for confession. If this priest has a reputation for refusing to deal with any parishioner who has not come for help or confession during officially scheduled hours, or at least made an appointment first, there may be a serious (and even scandalous) pastoral problem here.
But before we criticize him outright, it would be helpful to know Father’s side of the story. For starters, there are plenty of other possible reasons for the priest’s refusal. Perhaps parishioners have developed a chronic tendency to request sacraments at unnecessarily random times, instead of coming to receive them when they are normally administered. Maybe young people in your general age, are particularly prone to doing this—and so Father was trying to reinforce a message which he has already given the parish on numerous occasions. Alternately, it could be that the priest got the impression—rightly or wrongly—that you were somehow being flip about receiving the sacrament, and lacked the reverence and respect that your request otherwise would presume. He may thus have concluded that you were not “properly disposed” to receive the sacrament of Penance at that moment—and his refusal would then be in complete accord with the requirements of canon 843.1, discussed above.
In short, this might be a classic case of a gray area! There are two sides to the story, and it’s important to hear both of them before finding fault with anyone. We do have a general right to receive the sacrament of Penance when we ask for it, but it has to be balanced by the other factors addressed above. And priests are generally required to administer the sacraments when we request them—but since they are ordinary mortals, subject to human limitations of their own, there are logical, understandable limitations on their obligation too.
Pray for priests. Pray for holy priests.
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