Empty confessionals? I got to church 45 minutes early to go to confession, waited 40 minutes and Monsignor turned the lights off in the confessional after the Gloria. No one in the confessionals? Come visit my parish on a Sunday when several of say a complete Rosary while standing in line.
I’m happy for you and your parish’s situation. But, judging from the usual patterns here in the northeast, your parish would definitely be the exception that proves the rule, I’m afraid. A typical parish here devotes all of fifteen minute (usually starting at 3 PM or 3:45 PM) to scheduled confessions. And it is often the case that, scheduled or not, the priest either doesn’t show up, or curtails the time even further on the grounds that he “has tp get ready for Mass. Sorry!” The latter circumstance, of course, could be remedied by simply putting a 15-20 minute buffer between the end of confession and the start of Mass, but, dadgummit, somehow this doesn’t “occur” to them!
Often, in this situation, they say “Well, you can make an appointment.” But this is very insensitive to lots of peoples’ needs. I personally know many people who might be more inclined to go to confession if two things were changed: that the option (canonically mandated, BTW) for an anonymous confession were truly made available, and a lack of reliance on appointments. Many, many people, not having confessed for years, are too afraid or embarrassed to confess face-to-face, and don’t want to be in the church for an appointment just as Father walks in on them. The fact that these observations should be a no-brainer to any priest makes me wonder sometimes whether the obstacles they put up are done on purpose.
In my case, I’m fortunate enough to have a Franciscan shrine in Boston to go to (53 miles, but that’s okay; it’s just a short detour on my way to work) with five good confessors to choose from, and my “usual” confessor scheduled often enough at an available time that I can get there without too much trouble. This situation might change soon, since all of the “good” confessors are elderly, but it’s just fine for now. But very many people are not in this situation, and my heart goes out to them when their pastoral needs are run over roughshod by thoughtlessness or outright design.
My church is very much the same. Lines and lines for Confession. Seven of them at the Easter Reconciliation Service for the seven priests.