ROME — Catholic bishops in northeast Italy have said that the risk of illness amid the ongoing pandemic constitutes a “grave necessity” permitting priests to confer the Sacrament of Reconciliation ...

CHICAGO — Chicago's Cardinal Francis George is facing a major challenge to his efforts to curb a longstanding practice by some priests of giving penitents general absolution. A group of about 100 ...

Offering general absolution to the faithful without having them personally confess their sins first may still be done in places seeing serious or increasing levels of coronavirus infections, a Vatican ...

Seafarers and other worshippers from Carna, Ireland, are seen in 2016 during the annual pilgrimage to MacDara's Island to celebrate Mass in honor of St. MacDara, patron saint of fishermen. Pope ...

In his pastoral letter, “Lent in Times of Trial,” Archbishop Fernando Sebastian of Pamplona has demanded that priests definitively cease from abusing the practice of general absolution “in which the ...

The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica is seen through trees in the Vatican Gardens. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.) Listen ROME — In places particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and with severe ...