A decision the likes of which has not been made by the Church in Malta for decades was announced by the Curia yesterday – the Bishops of Malta and Gozo are, for Holy Week, granting permission to the priests of both dioceses to absolve sins which otherwise would need the Bishop’s permission to do.

No one remembers within living memory when any such decision was last made. The matter is highly exceptional, said a Curia spokesman when contacted by The Malta Independent. “It has been decades since local confessors were granted this faculty.”

Asked why the decision was felt necessary, the Curia spokesman said the decision was made jointly by the Archbishop Mgr Paul Cremona, OP, and the Bishop of Gozo, “because they felt they should”.

Mgr Cremona was installed in January, and the Bishop of Gozo a year earlier.

The power to absolve such sins, termed “reserved sins”, is not vested in every confessor but is reserved to himself by the superior of the confessor, or only specially granted to some other confessor by that superior.

In fact, a Bishop may need to be granted permission from the Pope to absolve a particular sin.

The Church claims the right to make reservations from the words of Christ, “Whose sins you shall retain they are retained” (John 20:23).

Reserved sins are commonly associated with abortion, heresy, apostasy and schism.

A circular published by the two Curias said that this was being done “with the intention of showing the greatness of God’s forgiveness.”

The delegation is for the period from Friday, feast Our Lady of Sorrows, to Sunday 8 April, Easter Sunday.