Posted on 11/19/2005 12:52:27 PM PST by 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?
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
We are in the "unfortunate" position of knowing what to expect at Mass in the past. It was quite a hurdle some had problems with when lay people began to administer Communion, for instance. And what!!! Guitar Masses? Who would have dreamt such a thing!
I, for one, have enjoyed the introduction of different instruments playing music at Mass. Usually it's only one Mass while others have an organist. We have choices. While we have become acclimated to organ music, who ever said that other instruments are not appropriate? Maybe God appreciates all.
There is a catch 22 in confessions. If fewer people go then the Priest has less incentive to have more confession time available. If there are fewer times available then it is harder for people to go.
As someone who works the night shift I find it difficult to go to my employer to ask for time off to go to confession. Consequently I usually go when I am on vacation.
I know as a young man it help me to have the priest tell me how to avoid the "near occasion of sin". I shudder to think what sort of road I may have traveled otherwise.
Can you give us a sense of why more people are taking advantage of the sacrament at your parish?
I think it is a greater act of humility to go to Confession as opposed to only "telling Jesus" about it. (no offense to those who feel "telling Jesus" is all that's necessary).
I agree with some of the posters here, who say Confession is not offered enough . Many people work on Saturday.
I also agree about "Confession by appointment", takes away the anonymity. Personally, I would never be able to do face to face confession ( I always go to the box, behind the screen.) I wouldn't want to call up and make an appointment.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is not about the mere knowledge of right and wrong. After all, demons and saints, faithful and faithless alike know right from wrong, so mere knowledge is not the critical issue. And it's not about being "good people" (whatever that highly ambiguous phrase is supposed to mean), per se--it is about the the confession and forgiveness of sins and the reconciling of one's contrite and repentant self with God and the members of the Church, the mystical body of Christ.
Honestly, Catholics, even with confession, are no more holy than their Protestant brethren.
Speaking as one who goes to Confession at least twice a month, I'm in total agreement with you there. Goodness certainly knows I'm not a holy person (yet, but still fearfully working at it). But of course, the Catholic Church does not claim that those who avail themselves of the Sacrament of Reconciliation are "more holy" than anyone else, much less Her separated brethren of the Protestant faiths.
On that subject, I don't believe that Protestants are lining up for appointments with mental health experts in greater numbers than Catholics.
I've obvious no statistical data either way, but Carl Jung famously noted that he had only a relative few patients who were Catholic, which led him to believe that there was a definite psychotherapeutic benefit realized by Catholics in the confessional.
Unless one chooses and can prove me wrong, what is the explanation for why Protestants manage to live good lives just as some Catholics do?
Freely choosing to do His will and obey His commandments through the glorious grace of God is the explanation, not card-carrying membership in the Catholic or Protestant faiths.
I'm being smart-mouthed here but does anyone recommend I go to a priest to ask God to please have mercy on my younger brother and allow him more time to live?
The mercy of God received in the confessional is for the penitent's sins alone, not those of another. But your bother, and you for that matter, will most definitely be in my prayers. That's a promise, friend.
May God bless you and yours.
Ummm...empty confessional? Most churches have confession only before mass, or twice a year they import priests to hear everyone...that's why I rarely go...too busy.
The last parish I lived in that had regular confessions always had a few people in line...and I went about every two months. But when you have it rarely, it becomes only for Big SINS...
If the priest lets people know they have confession, people will show up...
Yeah, it's offered just before Saturday Mass for thirty minutes--an hour if you're lucky.
My experience with attendance at Confession is the opposite of yours, however. Sad to say, but there's usually only a few people who show up to receive the sacrament. Of course, a whole heckuva lot more show up to receive the Eucharist. ... Must be a lot of saints the parishes I go to ;)
Not sure, but my recollection is that unless it's prohibitive parishes are obligated to do their best to make the Sacrament of Reconciliation available before all masses. And, of course, one can always make an appointment with the priest.
If the priest lets people know they have confession, people will show up...
It's a scandal that so many parishes in America either don't promote Confession or reduce it to something meant only for those with mortal sins.
PS - Forgive me for sounding like your Catholic babysitter, but it'd do you wonders to go more often than "rarely", even if means taking a trip to a parish that offers more frequent confessions or making an appointment.
This isn't a matter of being "open-minded" or close-minded. It's an unchanging truth of Catholic doctrine. If you're Catholic, the validity of the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not a matter of personal interpretation open to debate. Catholics are required to give assent in both intellect and will to the doctrines of the Church. Those "who do not agree" are Catholic in name only.
They can also Baptize themselves then, and Ordain themselves...
I know that there are lines every week at my parish for confession; the other places where I regularly go always have lines, as well (i.e., the shrine, the franciscan monastary, and St. Mary Mother of God). Not as much as there should be, but the priests are never sitting in the confessional alone!
It may be a matter of the orthodoxy of the parish, in all honesty.
Still, we did not think that peace, once granted in whatever way by a priest of God should be taken away; and for this reason we have allowed Victor to avail himslef of the comunion granted him.
Lactantius 250 A.D. The Divine Institutions
Because, however, all the various groups of heretics are confident that they are the Christians, and think that theirs is the Catholic Church, let it be known" that is the true Church, in which there is confession and penance: and which takes a salubrious care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject
You might think me uncharitable, and perhaps only four percent of priest are sexual criminals (misconduct? please), but the facts are that this continued for years and was enabled by RC church leadership well past the 60's and 70's.
If you think that this scandal has not affected the perception of the RC church and of priests being viewed as conduits to God you really need to take a reality pill.
Why would Jesus give the Apostles the power to forgive and retain a person's sins if there was no need for an ministerial intermediary in order to gain forgiveness? And how could the Apostles determine what sins to forgive or retain if no one was confessing their sins to them?
Implicit in any apostolic authority to forgive or retain sins would be the concomitant authority to determine under what form the confession of sins would be heard, either in public or private.
Here are just a few relevant quotes from the Church Fathers of that "pre-Nicean Christian tradition", which you believe was so silent on the issue of confession to a priest:
Source for above quotes: Confession
Hippolytus
"[The bishop conducting the ordination of the new bishop shall pray:] God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Pour forth now that power which comes from you, from your royal Spirit, which you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and which he bestowed upon his holy apostles . . . and grant this your servant, whom you have chosen for the episcopate, [the power] to feed your holy flock and to serve without blame as your high priest, ministering night and day to propitiate unceasingly before your face and to offer to you the gifts of your holy Church, and by the Spirit of the high priesthood to have the authority to forgive sins, in accord with your command" (Apostolic Tradition 3 [A.D. 215]).
Origen
"[A final method of forgiveness], albeit hard and laborious [is] the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner . . . does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking medicine, after the manner of him who say, ‘I said, "To the Lord I will accuse myself of my iniquity"’" (Homilies on Leviticus 2:4 [A.D. 248]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"The apostle [Paul] likewise bears witness and says: ‘ . . . Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. But [the impenitent] spurn and despise all these warnings; before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest . . . they do violence to [the Lord’s] body and blood, and with their hands and mouth they sin against the Lord more than when they denied him" (The Lapsed 15:1–3 (A.D. 251]).
"Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are they who . . . confess their sins to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience. . . . I beseech you, brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession is still admissible, while the satisfaction and remission made through the priests are still pleasing before the Lord" (ibid., 28).
"Father who knowest the hearts of all grant upon this Thy servant whom Thou hast chosen for the episcopate to feed Thy holy flock and serve as Thine high priest, that he may minister blamelessly by night and day, that he may unceasingly behold and appropriate Thy countenance and offer to Thee the gifts of Thy holy Church. And that by the high priestly Spirit he may have authority to forgive sins..." Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, 3 (A.D. 215).
"In addition to these there is also a seventh, albeit hard and laborious: the remission of sins through penance...when he does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord." Origen, Homilies on Leviticus, 2:4 (A.D. 248).
Wonderful to read that.
I'd suspect a one-way trip to "Outer Darkness" is in his future, confession or not eh?!
Just like posting at Free Republic. You tell us your problem and we'll give you several answers.
I know the Christian churches of all varieties do pick up many more than their fair share of "fallen Catholics", but does this go the other way as well?
Right on. Great post, Talking. Thanks.
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