The Sin Box: Why have Catholics stopped lining up at the confessional?

Slate ^ | Nov. 17, 2005 | Andrew Santella

[Antioch]

A Catholic friend of mine recently went to confession at her parish church for the first time in years. She had personal reasons for wanting to seek absolution, but there was this, too: She said she'd long felt a little sorry for the priests sitting alone in their confessional boxes, waiting for sinners to arrive.

A generation ago, you'd see a lot of us lined up inside Catholic churches on Saturday afternoons, waiting to take our turn in one of the confessionals. We'd recite the familiar phrases ("Bless me Father, for I have sinned"), list our transgressions and the number of times we'd committed them, maybe endure a priestly lecture, and emerge to recite a few Hail Marys as an act of penance. In some parishes, the machinery of forgiveness was so well-oiled you could see the line move. Confession was essential to Catholic faith and a badge of Catholic identity. It also carried with it the promise of personal renewal. Yet in most parishes, the lines for the confessionals have pretty much disappeared. Confession—or the sacrament of reconciliation, as it's officially known—has become the one sacrament casual Catholics feel free to skip. We'll get married in church, we'll be buried from church, and we'll take Communion at Mass. But regularly confessing one's sins to God and the parish priest seems to be a part of fewer and fewer Catholic lives. Where have all the sinners gone?

[Conservative til I die]

I've found some Protestants here and elsewhere use James 5:16 to prove that you do not need to confess your sins to a priest for absolution.

James 5:16 states "Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

This verse says nothing about forgiveness for sins, just that is good to be open about our faults to our brothers and that their prayers can help us.

[Talking_Mouse]

Yeah, it takes some effort. And some honesty. And a touch of humility. It might seem like an effort beforehand, but I've walked out with a smile on my face more than once.

...There's also the benefit of actually being stregnthened to avoid sin in the future.

Exactly. This is one of the things that can not be stressed enough. Since this is the Sacrament of Reconciliation when we avail ourselves of it we are given additional grace to avoid sin in the future. I remember when I confessed to the priest that I was so disgusted with fighting and loosing to the same sins week after week, he said that I would be in far worse shape without the grace given to me each time I came to confession.

One of the other true benefits of confession is having someone who can give you practical advise. The priest is trained to deal with penitents, and can help with your sins from the mental judmentalism about your coworkers to the problem that the kid's babysitter is who you want to be sleeping with.

[SaltyJoe]

The soul's need for confession is written into our Nature by our Divine Creator. The Sacrament of Reconciliation was instituted by Jesus Christ, Himself. Sinning against God is also an offense against mankind as a whole and weakens the communities standing with God and Heaven.

The abandonment of this very basic element of the Sacramental Apostolic Catholic Faith means that more people have wasted money on psychological prostitution, essentially paying for a professional friend to administer advice (and worse, addictive drugs) that only treats physical symptoms and sometimes mere phantom pains that are completely spiritual in origin. Granted, some problems are truly physical or psychological in nature and for this, the medical field should heal. But how many of our festering problems could have been resolved by God's Divine Mercy should we have let Jesus, present in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, heal our spiritual wounds?

[Petronski]

Ever read your Catechism of the Catholic Church?

[Petronski]

When you get to decide, when, where, and how to confess, and just as likely, what exactly is a sin, confession becomes as easy as rappin' with one's personal butler Jeebus.

Catholicism Quote of the Week!

LOL

[marshmallow]

Personally, I feel the urge to go to Confession when my conscience accuses me of sin. And that's often. Therefore, the fact that confession lines are dwindling indicates to me that there is no longer a sense of personal sin. That in turn is due to the near absence of preaching on the subject in many places.

The issue of personal sanctity and aviodance of sin is seldom mentioned and the "social gospel" is emphasized instead. In addition to the absence of preaching on personal sin, the consequences of dying in that state (i.e. eternal damnation) are likewise rarely broached.

Far too pre-Vatican II, don't you know. We're much more enlightened, nowadays!!

[Unam Sanctam]

I have found the sacrament of confession a tremendous channel of divine grace. As a protestant, I found that one doesn't have any sort of finality for our sins, and I'm not sure one took them so seriously if there was no formal taking of responsibility and asking for forgiveness that comes from telling another person. The sacrament shows so much more seriousness. In the early Church, sinners had to stand outside the church! When we sin, we not only harm God and ourselves, but all our brothers and sisters in Christ, so it is appropriate to confess to God through the person of a minister of God and the Church.

[marajade]

No... why?

[marajade]

whatever.

[Petronski]

It will teach you about what we Catholics believe. It's all carefully sourced.

[Conservative til I die]

whatever.

No need to be stand-offish. Honestly, I'm not seeing what Gal 5:19 is saying about confession. Here's what it says:

19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness,

[marajade]

sorry wrong book... james 5:16

[marajade]

Hebrews 7

[narses]

Please help explain the Faith to those who do not understand it.

[Fzob]

Why have they stopped going? Perhaps it has something to do with the failure of the RC church to address the hundreds of pedophiles to whom people are confessing their sins.

Just a guess

[Nihil Obstat]

I went today. There were about 10 of us in line, maybe more. I got there late.

[kstewskis]

Why have they stopped going? Perhaps it has something to do with the failure of the RC church to address the hundreds of pedophiles to whom people are confessing their sins. Just a guess

Add to the fact that the Church has been inundated with so many of the "touchy feely" liberal priests who preach all about God's relentless love, but leave out accountability for sin completely in their homilies.

With many liberal priests homilies, its as if sin and evil don't exist.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

4 percent of the priests have been guilty of this type of misconduct, most done during the 60s and 70s.

96 percent of the priests have not ever done anything scandalously wrong.

96 per cent of the men do their job, and yet people who say things like this seem to want to throw away the 96 percent and act like the whole church is manned only by the 4 percent.

What an unbalanced, uncharitable worldview.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

That is a lot of the problem, I suspect. Bad teaching. Theological dissent.

[Conservative til I die]

Why have they stopped going? Perhaps it has something to do with the failure of the RC church to address the hundreds of pedophiles to whom people are confessing their sins.

Just a guess Guess again.