AHC/WI: Can a Nun Hear Confession?

[Kellan Sullivan]

Well you are right, but Technically by the 1983 Cannon Law any priest (Sacerdos) can and will have to impart the sacrament of penitence

Can. 968 §1. In virtue of office, a local ordinary, canon penitentiary, a pastor, and those who take the place of a pastor possess the faculty of hearing confessions, each within his jurisdiction.
and
Can. 986 §...)
§2. In urgent necessity, any confessor is obliged to hear the confessions of the Christian faithful, and in danger of death, any priest is so obliged.

now the term used in the original it´s in Latin, and Sacerdos refer to any one that insofar are any one to do holy work, including fray and nuns, So theoretically in case of grave urgence, live or dead situations, or complete isolated situations, a Deacon or even a Nun doing or taking the place of a community Pastor could and should give penitence and heard confession. And then he or she have to confess to a proper ordained ministry when the situations it´s resolved.

So a nun could hear confession but in a series of really improbable, but not impossible, situations

Is it possible that, something could happen that make those situations not impossible, but more probable? Or would that be ASB?

 

[Fabius Maximus]

If I had to guess, I'd theorize that the more immediate acquisition of political power by the Muslim community led to a decreased importance placed on withdrawal from society (though even then as I understand it some Sufi orders might be regarded as monastic in style if not in title), but I have a feeling you'd know better than I do.

But monasticism didn't take off in a big way in Christendom until the third and fourth centuries, precisely the time when Christians were finding themselves at the levers of imperial power.

That just because there's another passage referring to female priests won't change much IMO. The minute Christianity is no longer solely the religion of the poor, weak and disenfranchised (women, slaves, poor) I suspect that it'll find a way to turn it into a boy's club like OTL. Which then alters the question to how nuns can be regarded as being on the same level as priests

I'm not sure that Christianity was ever solely the religion of the poor, weak and disenfranchised -- that seems to be a post-Reformation piece of historical revisionism ("Everything was great until the Church got corrupted by power"), and ancient documents make it pretty clear that even before Constantine's reign churches were often very wealthy and bishops were often prominent local dignitaries.

now the term used in the original it´s in Latin, and Sacerdos refer to any one that insofar are any one to do holy work, including fray and nuns,

No it doesn't.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

I'm not sure that Christianity was ever solely the religion of the poor, weak and disenfranchised -- that seems to be a post-Reformation piece of historical revisionism ("Everything was great until the Church got corrupted by power"), and ancient documents make it pretty clear that even before Constantine's reign churches were often very wealthy and bishops were often prominent local dignitaries.

I misspoke. What I meant to say is that it was predominantly a minority (sometimes persecuted) religion, rather than the only religion in town. I'm not saying there weren't wealthy churches (the story about St. Lawrence being compelled to turn over the church's treasures being a case in point) or that bishops weren't prominent figures. But before the Council of Nicaea codified a lot of stuff - what was canon and what was not - the church had nothing fixed like women not being able to become priests

 

[Fabius Maximus]

But before the Council of Nicaea codified a lot of stuff - what was canon and what was not - the church had nothing fixed like women not being able to become priests

The idea that the Council of Nicaea was responsible for codifying Christianity is another myth, I'm afraid. The Council was about Arianism, not fixing the Biblical canon or codifying Church law. And I'm not aware of any evidence for female priests even before Nicaea.

 

[Philip]

But before the Council of Nicaea codified a lot of stuff - what was canon and what was not

This is heading off into Dan Brown territory. The Montanist Controversy in the Second Century with the Donatist and Novatian Controversies of the Third Century demonstrate the there was a complex codified structure within Christianity.

- the church had nothing fixed like women not being able to become priests

It is odd, then, that the Montanists were condemned for ordaining female priests and bishops.

 

[Well]

The National Catholic Reporter, quoting Yves Congar, argues that a division between offices like bishop, presbyter and deacon, which are possessed of some innate change of status that renders them no longer laity, and positions like lector, acolyte, abbot etc that are just particular roles in a local community didn't really exist before the 12th Century or so. Before that, all such roles were considered 'ordained' in different ways:

"Ordination encompassed at the same time election as its starting point and consecration as its term. But instead of signifying, as happened from the beginning of the 12th century, the ceremony in which an individual received a power henceforth possessed in such a way that it could never be lost, the words ordinare, ordinari, ordinatio signified the fact of being designated and consecrated to take up a certain place, or better a certain function, ordo, in the community and at its service."

The clearly demarcated three orders of ordination didn't settle down definitively until after Trent; before this, for example, the pope granted certain non-episcopally ordained abbots the right to ordain clergy, which now is seen as a ministry reserved to the episcopate.

As such, it's not implausible from an AH point of view that an alternate church could develop that retains the concept of certain women having some kind of ordained ministry of reconciliation.

There also seems to be evidence in OTL that abbesses would hear the confessions of the nuns in their care:

From The Ordination of Women in the Early Middle Ages, Gary Macy:

"In an interesting but ambiguous passage from the Rule for Virgins, the seventh-century missionary Waldebert warned: "None of the nuns should presume, however, either to receive confession or to give penance sine ordinatione abbatissae.” The phrase could either mean that confession and penance cannot be celebrated without the permission of the abbess or confession and penance cannot be celebrated without ordination to the state of abbess. Since the Rule makes provision for confession to be heard by the abbess' designate, the first meaning seems most likely."