Thursday, August 9, 2007

Sacraments

Can a priest refuse sacraments to someone who could otherwise receive them?

A priest would have to have a very good reason to refuse someone the sacraments of the church. IE the person would have to be excommunicated, even then the sacrament of penance would remove such an excommunication. In general terms, no.

*UPDATE* When I was writing this post, I was thinking, unfortunately, of the most common form of excommunication (abortion), most if not all priests in the USA have been given faculties by their bishops to absolve this. But the short answer remains, a priest must have a very good reason to refuse the sacraments to someone.