Q&A: "Is it okay to go for confession at a Ukrainian Catholic Church?" with Follow up Q&A concerning important information on avoiding the occasion of sin and doing penance for sin -- which most people refuse to do -- which is why they are damned in the end

Valid confession question please help me

Question: “im just curious is it okay to go for confession at a [Vatican II] Ukranian Catholic Church that uses Byzantine Rites as long as the priest [is validly ordained] rejects the antipope... and dont use for Mass or communion?

thank you God bless”

Answer: If you adhere to MHFM's (or other Traditionalists') guidelines on "Where to receive Sacraments" and their teaching is according to your conscience*, then it is possible you could do so without committing sin. But if you follow the position as explained in the article (and I assume you have read it) "About receiving the sacraments from heretics and prayer in communion with heretics" and you find it to be more in line with Catholic teaching according to your conscience* -- then no, you can not confess to them and need to stay home, confessing your sins to some friend perhaps (or to me through email), or, at least to God for now.

*Remember to always follow your conscience concerning these and similar matters, since, according to Saint Alphonsus: “...an error, in which something is believed to be mortal that is not, binds to mortal sin by conscience.” This is why St. Antoninus says: “Unless one were to have express authority of Sacred Scripture, or a canon, or a determination of the Church, or at least evident reason, something will be determined to be a mortal sin only with very great danger. ... For if something were determined to be mortal, and it were not mortal [i.e., you think it is mortal even though it is not], acting against it he will sin because everything that is against conscience paves the road to hell.” (https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/08/st-alphonsus-moral-theology-book-2-requirements-for-mortal-sin.html)

Remember that avoiding the occasions of sin and having a determination never to offend God again is the essential requirement in order to put a person into a state of Grace again and God's friendship -- for many confess but end up in Hell anyway -- since they have no real intention of entirely ceasing with offending God.

Please consult these relevant and important articles for more information:

About the sacrament of penance and contrition and about receiving forgiveness without an absolution
(http://www.catholic-saints.net/contrition-and-the-sacrament-of-penance/)

A “venial sin is made mortal if a human being delights in it with the intention of persevering” according to Our Lord Jesus Christ
(https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-venial-sin-is-made-mortal-if-a-human-being-delights-in-it.html)

Bad confessions are the road to hell for many; and of persons who have made sacrilegious confessions
(https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/04/bad-confessions-are-road-to-hell-for-many.html)

WHAT IS ONE OBLIGED TO CONFESS IN THE MATTER OF IMPURITY? WHAT DISTINCTION IS TO BE MADE IN REGARD TO BAD THOUGHTS?
(https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/05/what-is-one-obliged-to-confess-in-regards-to-impurity.html)

Understand that this position, if you adhere to it, also permit you to confess your sins to any priest (such as to a Vatican II priest) provided you do so as to a layman; but you need to make known to him in that case that you do not confess in order to receive an "absolution", but rather in order to make known your sins to someone (by confession) and by making penance for them. (Confessing is of course shameful and hence a form of penance in itself.)

Also the Ukrainian "Catholic" Church you referred to is part of the Vatican II sect and hence their "priests" may be invalidly ordained. One may never receive a sacrament from such a "priest", of course.

According to the position which to me seems more probably at present, it is only permitted to receive the sacraments from a validly ordained non-heretical, Catholic priests. Hence if you agree with this position, then you may not receive a sacrament from any priest that is not fully Catholic. This should answer your question.

According to some pre-Vatican II teachings, however, such as Holy Office replies and theologians, one could receive confession in danger of death from a heretic or schismatic (and one may argue, with a situation like ours today, that one is constantly living in "a danger of death" and of dying without the sacraments), but I am not sure if this teaching is correct since it contradicts tradition, as the articles explain.

Follow up questions and answers

The same person replied a little later, indicating that he was determined to avoid offending God for the future. He also wanted to confess his sins to me and did so, and for personal and private reasons, I will not include his email to me. But I will give you my response:

1. Even though you are not required to confess your sins to me, a confession would be a little meaningless unless you confessed all your mortal sins, even the most shameful sexual sins. But it is always good to confess. [Note: I was not accusing him of withholding anything.]

There is really no sin that would surprise me, since I know how evil and sinful I am - and have been my self.

2. You should make some penance for your sins so that you understand that it is serious, and that you will have to suffer something if you fall into such sins.

I can recommend you some easy penances, and some little harder:

-If you don't pray 15 decades of the Rosary each day [see How to Pray the Rosary], pray all 15 decades (all 3 mysteries of the Rosary) for at least a week as a penance. (You may have to remove time from other things in order to achieve this). [Preferably one should always pray the 15 decades and pray a lot every day, but for people who do not do this, it is good to make them increase prayer first by penance, and then once they have grown accustomed, they may (hopefully) retain this custom. If a person values the things of God more than the world (and if he loves God more than himself and more than his own pleasures and ease), he will of course succeed in giving himself more time for prayer. I can easily see how a person that is addicted to media and video games will pray very little and priority the things of the world and hence almost certainly be lost in the end.]

-Fast only on bread and water for a week. If this seems too hard to you, eat normally but deprive yourself of everything you would like to eat for one week, and only eat the least desirable things and avoid making the food tastier than it already is.

-Punish yourself for a week by denying yourself your own will, by giving yourself pain in some ways, such as cold showers, and denying yourself things you like. Sleep on the floor etc.

It is of course preferable to always live like this, not only for one week, but often. No one is forced to live like this every day, but many people do the mistake to only live like this as a penance for a short time, and then never thinking about it again. I my self tries to live one week of penance, followed by a more "normal" week, every day of the year! [And my intention is to become even more severe as time progresses, and I have made vows to this effect since I am fully aware of that unless one forces oneself under pain of mortal sin (such as by binding oneself under solemn vows of always progressing more and more by word of mouth to God or the Virgin) one may never get anywhere, since self-love and the love of ease and pleasure is too strong to fight against, unless one had something that forced you to move forward against your will.]

3. If you start to pray the Rosary and Hail Mary frequently your oppression problems should go away; also, if you start to live a better life by avoiding the occasions of sin, your problems should go away. However, the problem is that most people don't want to better their lives, or avoid the occasion of sins like media. We shall see what is the case with you (see point nr. 4).

4. In order to avoid falling into porn and similar things, it is important that you start surfing the internet with ad blocks, image blocks etc, and that you stop watching media and only listen to the audios. If you don't surf the internet with ad blocks and image blocks, and if you watch media such as television causally despite being told not to do so, you commit mortal sin; since it is impossible not to see countless of immodesties every day.

http://www.catholic-saints.net/best-adblockers-imageblockers-and-flashblockers/

As a penance* for your sins that in my opinion you must do for your sins (the penances above was only recommendations), is to read this section below -- and if I was a priest, I would tell you that you must do this:

http://www.catholic-saints.net/spiritual/#How-to-control-your-eyes

*I only call it penance since it is long reading [i.e, the entire long section dealing with occasions of sin concerning the media and the need to surf the internet with ad blockers and image blockers], but even without reading it as a penance, it would be important and necessary for your salvation to read it anyway. [But most people sadly don't care about information like this and many, even if they read it, refuse to implement it or, if they do implement it, walk away from it after a while due to their evil and depraved and damnable attachment to seeing images and watching media.]

Follow up questions and answers 2

Question: “oh you mean i have to confess every single sin, not just the category, i honestly dont know if i can remember all of the times

literally thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands i dont know

ill try to make a list

...i do that already [some penance] I don't eat meat or dairy or eggs even though I want to, except occasionally never meat though

thank you for the advice”

Answer: You don't have to mention every case of similar masturbation for example, and you can say I have committed the sin of masturbation hundreds or thousands of times in my life. That would be valid and enough.

But perhaps you have done other forms of shameful masturbation that needs to be mentioned separately that is not similar to normal masturbation, and that are/or may be more sinful -- or at least, more shameful.

When things are added, the sin get a little different and hence, should be confessed separately.

It is good to make a list.

Many go to Hell because they are ashamed to confess their most shameful sins. If you have such sins on your conscience, please, you can speak to me about it and I can try to help you. It is easy to confess to a priest if one has already made up in one's mind to confess them, even to a layman, if necessary.

Follow up questions and answers 3

Question: “do you have Rosary to give away

I need one to help pray

i do the prayers i just don't know where to get one without supporting a an apostate church

...i feel like ive been opressed for a very long time my old house was very spooky, my sister and i both saw shadows run across rooms and stuff, i would sleepwalk once in a while, i just always felt scared im sure the sins let a demon into my life

that compelled me to do a lot of this”

Answer: 1. I have rosaries and devotionals to give away, also dvds and books -- provided you give me your address! [anyone can ask me for free items]

But it is not wrong to buy a Rosary, and you don't have to worry about buying necessary items from heretics, since this would not be considered as donating or supporting them; and that is true even if you would have to buy the rosary by clicking on a "donate" button.

2. If you start to get a good prayer life all negative spirits should be removed from your life; also your temptations will be diminished and you will be strengthened a lot in your spiritual life. The Hail Mary is a powerful prayer most pleasing to Jesus and Mary.

See these related articles on this topic:

https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/05/heaven-opened-by-the-practice-of-the-three-hail-marys.html

https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/07/devotion-to-seven-sorrows-of-mary-prayer-card.html

Also see:

https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/05/how-to-become-saint-how-to-love-god-etc.html

3. I mentioned ad blocks and image blockers earlier and about not watching media like television and youtube. Since this is so important for salvation and in order to avoid the occasion of sin (since watching media is an occasion of sin and surfing the internet with images on also is an occasion of sin) I would like that you answer me if you surf the internet with ad blockers and image blockers, and whether you avoid looking at media, as we teach is necessary for obtaining forgiveness and salvation.

Have you read this article's section, or will you read it? Yes or no?

http://www.catholic-saints.net/spiritual/#How-to-control-your-eyes

If you have not read it yet, I would simply ask you to do so as fast as possible and implement the changes, since it is absolutely necessary for salvation not to put oneself in the occasion of sinning like the media.

From personal experience: Most people sadly don't care about information like this and many, even if they read it, refuse to implement it or, if they do implement it, walk away from it after a while due to their evil and depraved and damnable attachment to seeing images and watching media.

Follow up questions and answers 4

Question: “thank you I read a lot of it last night

and I'm implementing changes now”

Answer: I am happy that you are determined to go against your own will and start to surf the internet with ad blocks and image blocks. Most people at most may agree with an ad block, but skip the image blockers! But I hope and trust you will not be a fool and let the worst enemies, images, remain -- hurting your soul.

Also, as the information already have detailed, if you want to save yourself and be more certain of your salvation: you need to stop watching movable media. It does not matter how attached you are to it; you need to cut it off. If you don't you risk to be lost be lost, since it might lead you into committing other sins in the end -- or at least, you will be guilty of putting yourself in an occasion of sinning, which is also a mortal sin to do, if you do not stop doing it. You know in your conscience this is true also, since you are not unfamiliar with that bad scenes, immodest scenes, and women that are badly dressed and hence tempts us -- are not infrequently shown in the media.

Most people -- even traditional Catholics! -- are so attached and obsessed with images and media, that they will never move away from it or stop exposing themselves to it, and they will come with every kind of argument for why they need to surf with images on or watch media. I look upon such people as lost.

Follow up questions and answers 5

Question: “yes I'm very interested

God has been giving me so many signs that this is the correct path dreams, discoveries of ancestors who played a role in Catholicism etc

i agree but at the same time without youtube and media i would still be living in ignorance but i understand what you say and I'm going to try the HTML text only

I'll put youtube on kids mode maybe or do something to block thumbnails i would be living in complete ignorance without youtube and would not be talking to you now if it wasn't for the medium...”

Answer: Even though good can come out of evil, that does not mean one should continue doing evil when one has learned it is bad for one's soul.

Besides, one can still use youtube even with the information presented, the only difference will be that you will not be able to see the screen, and only hear the audio.

You don't have to put up kid mode (even though you can), all you have to do is read the article and install the add ons (extensions) for google chrome or opera that are mentioned, that automatically hides all images and the video screen (do you understand what you need to do?). These extensions hides all images and videos on all websites, and images should only be allowed on necessary websites, when they are needed, and it is deemed relatively safe to put them on.

http://www.catholic-saints.net/best-adblockers-imageblockers-and-flashblockers/

You will have to use discernment when putting on images or videos* and only do it when deemed safe; initially you may feel tempted to put on the video screen often, thinking it is safe, but if you do this, you will evidently be exposed to seeing women. It is better not to even look at women at all and avoiding looking at people. And the more you expose yourself, the more dangerous it will be. The more you grow in your spiritual life, the more will you be glad to hide yourself from the world and people, and hence will be glad, and prefer, to not see the video screen or images! That is also why the saints preferred solitude with God, and hiding themselves from people, since they desired God and to keep their inner peace and virtue unharmed. They did not desire to see worldly people and indulge in the world, bur rather fled from it!

*Generally, you must always have them blocked and it is not lawful to surf the internet in a general way with images or videos unblocked. This is the problem with most people today, even traditional Catholics -- they reject the advice we give and willingly put themselves in the occasion of sinning by surfing the whole internet, even known bad sites such as youtube and daily mail, with images and videos enabled etc. and hence damn themselves.

Follow up questions and answers 6

Question: "thank you for all of the info also

it's very nice to not deal with lewd content"

Answer: Yes, and the more spiritual you become, the more you will even want to hide images and video screens and avoid people, since you will see them as distractions -- and as plain and simply harmful and dangerous, or at least, distracting.

Yet, despite this, many fools that call themselves Traditional Catholics, surf the whole internet, no matter what sites -- even daily mail -- with images enabled. They don't fear God, sin or Hell, which is why they will be damned in the end.

When people don't worry about immodesty or exposing themselves to it, this is an indication that they may already be living in mortal sin, and that they are living a lustful and/or gluttonous lifestyle, since, as St. Thomas teaches, lust and gluttony actually gives rise to "blindness of mind" concerning spiritual realities:

https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/05/venereal-pleasures-above-all-debauch-a-mans-mind.html

Follow up questions and answers 7

Question: "what do you do personally for confession? is there a priest near you that can use?"

Answer: I have confessed, and use to confess/talk to my spiritual brothers about such matters, as advice by St. Thomas Aquinas one can do in the absence of a confessor.

So you surf the internet now with images and videos blocked so they can't show themselves unless you allow them? Youtube also needs to be surfed with images blocked, and facebook also, etc.

I ask because even after people have told me they have done the changes, implemented the programs etc., they yet did not avoid putting themselves in the occasion of sinning by exposing themselves to images. Indeed, some people even hardly seems to care anymore about blocking images after "realizing" have much in love they were with having images, and how attached they were on seeing them, such as on news sites, or how more convenient (in the worldly sense) it were to have them on, such as on youtube.

Response: "yes i do although tonight i was not using the browser and did see some lewd content i prayed for forgiveness and will be more diligent

once in images when I was looking at the image results for purgatory on google I was looking at paintings and the abstract model and an image from a degenerate theatre play was in it

once on Wikipedia when I was reading about Japan's history in nanjing

and once from a link on YouTube about Japan nanjing and nuclear weapon (this link was explicitly lewd, i closed and prayed after)

i wasn't thinking about occasion of sin I'll definitely remind myself now how serious it is, I'm still getting used to the concept

but yes no images is the only way to be innocent as an angel or saint would be

it does make education harder i find im a visual learner so i have to get used to it"

Answer: 1. Yes it is good to be more thoughtful, that is why I asked you to read this article, which I hope you did, since it deals in depth with the need to avoid the occasion of sinning - and how important this is for one's salvation:

http://www.catholic-saints.net/spiritual/#How-to-control-your-eyes

Have you read all of it yet?

2. The saints became innocent and angels since they generally avoided looking at any people at all, men or women (but especially at the opposite sex, they avoided). St. Bridget, for example, made a confession for every face that she happened to see. This indicates that she tried avoid looking, but that she made mistakes.

3. When images are necessary or needed, they may be put on. But it is not lawful to surf with them on in a general sense in the ways you explained. Please install the image, ad and flash blockers as fast as possible.

Many educational images are without people and hence lawful to look at and enable if they are needed (otherwise, one could skip looking at them), provided one is fairly certain the image will be safe. In the beginning one will be tempted to put on images all the time, but as time progresses, the curiosity will diminish and one will find happiness in the peace of conscience in not exposing oneself to damnation or spiritual harm.

Enabling an image from curiosity -- such as religious images --, and provided the image is deemed safe, is also more excusable, although, it can be dangerous.

I have images blocked on wikipedia as well, although, I may occasionally enable on some image if it is deemed safe, especially on religious articles. Secular articles can always be dangerous, of course.

Some sites will show the image place-holder so you can manually enable the image(s) with wizmage provided the fast image blocker is disabled for this site. I tell you this in order to make you know if perhaps you needed to active an image in order to do some necessary thing put can’t see any image place-holders.

P.S.

This information is somewhat relevant to what you wrote, and it deals also with the problem that happened with you in google images and about how one should act before enabling an image:

I read in their "Updates" section a while ago: “We ourselves do not watch any videos anymore except exclusively when for the sake of making videos [for our website]. We also try to avoid reading any secular news or other worldly websites. Now we only listen to audio, having all the movable images blocked. [See the Chrome/Opera/Vivaldi and Firefox/IceDragon sections on how to watch youtube while the video screen remains hidden (the video screen can still be activated easily with one click).] On youtube, when we watch something on youtube, we do not watch the videos but only listen to them by downloading them as audio (or video) and listened to them only in audio [as described in the links], or at least, by avoiding watching at the screen if we were watching it on youtube by scrolling down so that the player is not seen, or on other video sites [this was our approach before we learned that the video screen could be hidden with extensions]. Anyone who cares about virtue and about their eternal salvation and for those who fear not to offend God by viewing or seeing bad scenes or images, will of course do the same thing, since it’s almost impossible to watch anything today that does not contain immodesty or that will harm one’s virtue. Even purely Christian films, whether on tv or youtube, have many bad and unacceptable scenes, statues or images in them. What then could be said about more secular media, documentaries, or series?

“The same can be said about images.

“Before when we were more stupid we did search for images in Google Images for our articles (even more secular articles) or automatically included the images contained in other peoples articles and did not always surf the internet in a general sense with images blocked, which is a highly stupid thing to do and an occasion of sinning since the internet is completely filled with immodesties and occasions of sinnings. But we don't do this any longer and we usually don't even care about having any images at all anymore for our articles.

“Perhaps if we think some image have some necessity and is safe to look at we can include it or look at it, such as, for example, an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that can be viewed in the Our Lady of Guadalupe Wikipedia entry, which should be a more safe approach than searching for it in Google Images. Also some Windows 10 images have recently been used in the How to disable Windows 10 advertisements section and been searched for in Google Images in a safe way or been borrowed from other articles, but only because such images generally ought to be safe, and hence they would be more “excusable” to look for when one have a necessity. One generally can assume what topics and images ought to be safe and not include any people or women in them, and if one don't have this assurance, one must be absolutely careful or even avoid it completely since this could be an occasion of sinning.

“But even when an image or images are thought to be more safe or necessary, still, one should not look at such an image directly when searching for it or when opening it or enabling it with Wizmage in order that one may not get exposed to anything immodest directly to one's face. It also helps me personally that I have poor near sight, since this means I can look outside my glasses in order to try to discern beforehand (with bad sight) whether the image or images are deemed safe or not and whether it is just a normal Windows image without any people or women in it etc. When one don't know that a webpage and image is safe, one must be very careful before enabling it and looking at it.

“Yes, one needs to be careful if one wants to be saved, and those who are not careful about themselves and just expose themselves to all kinds of dangers (as almost all people do today, whether they be self-professed Traditional Catholics or not as detailed in this post) will not be saved, since they will be abandoned by God and fall into sin, as explained in another article.”


Related articles:
Q&A: On Keeping Custody of the Eyes, Avoiding the Occasion of Sin, Sexual Ethics and Mortification etc.
https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/09/on-custody-of-the-eyes-and-mortification.html

God is Pleased with Penance and Mortification, and not Sensual Gratification
https://against-all-heresies-and-errors.blogspot.com/2017/04/god-is-pleased-with-penance-and-mortification.html