Because this ain’t the Romans we’re talking about here.
Confession is done en masse during the service. I am not sure I’d call the forgiveness offered by the Priest to be “Absolution” either.
Anywhoo, there ain’t no dark cobwebby telephone booth with a kneeler and the stench of a thousand thousand sinners around ya. It’s the Episcopal Church.
<------- 5 year convert.
Oh, and she should be arrested and prosecuted without the slightest deference given to her office. She killed a person with her car while drunk. Away to the pokey she ought to go. Period. Removing her from her office is a good idea and I suspect is already underway.
Um, private confession is available in the Episcopal Church for anyone who wants it, although unfortunately not enough people take advantage of the sacrament. I’ve done private confessions to my confessor many times.
Also, confessing your sins to a priest does not mean that you don’t have to face temporal punishment for what you did wrong. In fact, in many cases (certainly this one) I’d expect that any confessor worth their salt would tell you “if you’re genuinely repentant, go and face the consequences for what you did.” Confession and repentance is meant to save us from hell, not from a prison term.
Does the Episcopal church defrock? I knew someone who was an Episcopal seminarian, and from what I understood, once you were ordained, you were ordained forever, but it is possible to screw up bad enough that you could make yourself unemployable as a priest of bishop. Ordained people in the Episcopal church apply for jobs just like lay people-- if there is an opening for a priest as a rector, or an a functionary in a diocese office some place, the priest has to apply just like anyone. Being ordained might be a criteria, just like having a certain kind of degree, or knowing a certain language, or being a citizen might be a criteria for another job.
The church has “non-stipendiary” priests, which are people who have been ordained, but for whatever reason, don’t work in a job that requires a priest. There was a travel agent in the town where I went to high school who was an ordained Episcopal priest. I have no idea why he didn’t work as one. I don’t think he was a felon, because I’m pretty sure that there are some strict rules for getting a license to issue plane tickets, even years ago, before 9/11. Those people can still give sermons, or do the Eucharist.
I’ve been to Episcopal services, and I have a vague recollection of being told that if you miss the confession part of the service, you aren’t supposed to take communion, so it is important. I believe you that there is private confession, though-- my friend who was a seminarian said that she and all her fellow priests-to-be had to go at least once, because if they were going to receive private confessions, they needed to experience it from the other end.
Thank you, Hector_St_Clare, for the education. I learn, I learn, I love what I am learning in this Church.
Having said that, I would be mighty dismayed to find out that a private confession would result in the insistence on the part of the Priest- and Church overall-that she NOT surrender to the police.
There’s no reason that it should. The confession issue might arise if the prosecution seeks to admit in evidence, as an admission against interest, the contents of of her private confession. That conversation should certainly be privileged and inadmissible but should not otherwise impede her surrender or prosecution.
Even if there’s surveillance video that shows him making a 90° turn 3’ in front of her car she didn’t stop to render aid &/or exchange info. She committed a crime by fleeing. The photo shows some damage to the hood & major damage to the windshield, even if she were deaf & didn’t hear the impact, there’s no way you don’t notice that much damage to a windshield while in a car.
1-She was at fault for the initial collision. She was sober. Then she left the scene of the accident and returned twenty minutes later.
2-She was at fault for the initial collision. She was not sober. Then she left the scene of the accident and returned twenty minutes later.
3-She was not at fault for the initial collision. She was sober. She panicked and left the scene of the accident and returned twenty minutes later.
4-She was not at fault for the initial collision. She was not sober. She panicked and left the scene of the accident and returned twenty minutes later.
Okay. Which of those is “tactic used by the guilty”? It’s too soon in the case to be making judgements, isn’t it? Have the police or the prosecution released results of a drug test or BAC test? Has the accident reconstruction team concluded its investigation? Do you know all the details yet?
Driving while impaired is wrong, of course. So is leaving the scene of an accident. But just because one commits the latter offense does not automatically mean one has committed the former.
By the way, speaking of emotional response, what’s with the cycling group “demanding the police hold her accountable”? The police do not decide guilt; that’s for the courts.
Oh, would that this thought process be present in the threads here on The Dope, and in the court of Public Opinion, concerning the protests sweeping the United States over police actions and consequences.
OK, but first let me point out that the reason she returned was because some other cyclists chased her down. Not because she had a magical change of heart.
Shows poor moral character to not remain on the scene of a severe accident.
Shows impairment to the point of not noticing she just hit a cyclist despite the massive damage to her windshield.
Shows poor moral character to not remain on the scene of a severe accident.
Least likely scenario.
I’ve already noted my reasons for suspecting she was DUI.
You realize that if the police feel like it, they can prevent the courts from ever even seeing the case, right? You realize if the police decide not to bother with BA testing that the courts will never see the case, right? You think that never happens?
I realize that an automobile such as the one she was driving is likely capable of far outpacing any bicycle.
That’s one explanation. Another is panic.
Maybe. Or it shows panic.
Or it shows panic.
I said it was possible, not likely.
Your reasons can show either impairment or panic.
Not once the DA’s office got hold of it. At least not without committing some crimes themselves.
Well, I don’t tend to go for paranoid fantasies, but, in cases like this, there’s a procedure to be followed and it would be quite unlikely that the procedure isn’t followed. Note that I did not say impossible, merely unlikely.
On a free run, maybe. But in reality there are these things called stoplights and stop signs that can slow down the pace of a car. Also, read the article I quoted.
If your first instinct of panic is to flee when you are not the injured or threatened party you are getting no sympathy from me.
And if they don’t bother to gather the evidence so the DA never sees it? What then?
It is amazing how proud you are of your naïveté.
BTW the way, it is not ‘paranoid fantasy’. Police frequently don’t follow procedure, and with bike-and-car collisions (where up to half of the serious collisions are hit-and-run). Need examples?
