A move away from daily confession

[Deo_Gratias42]

“You can make appointments” is a cop-out. A priest who cares about souls will put in his time in the confessional and put his own idle time to good use. .

Exactly. I used to go to a parish that didn’t have regularly scheduled confession times. When I asked for him to hear my confession he flat out refused to hear it. Priests are so busy, yet this one seemed to have plenty of time to watch the Shopping Network and fill us in on all the cool things being sold during his homily.

My priest hears confessions daily, yet he still has time to write his sermons, offer Mass daily, do private wedding and baptism prep, attend parish counsel meetings, sick calls, serve as a hospital chaplain, attend all his out of country priestly things (he’s FSSP, so it’s not uncommon for him to have to go to recollection days or whatever), do administration work, etc.

I’m sorry, but I’m not buying the “too busy excuse”. If a priest isn’t willing to promote the sacrament of penance and sit in the box, and save souls then there really is no point to any of the other stuff, save for offering Mass and the other sacraments.

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

Exactly. I used to go to a parish that didn’t have regularly scheduled confession times. When I asked for him to hear my confession he flat out refused to hear it. Priests are so busy, yet this one seemed to have plenty of time to watch the Shopping Network and fill us in on all the cool things being sold during his homily.

My priest hears confessions daily, yet he still has time to write his sermons, offer Mass daily, do private wedding and baptism prep, attend parish counsel meetings, sick calls, serve as a hospital chaplain, attend all his out of country priestly things (he’s FSSP, so it’s not uncommon for him to have to go to recollection days or whatever), do administration work, etc.

I’m sorry, but I’m not buying the “too busy excuse”. If a priest isn’t willing to promote the sacrament of penance and sit in the box, and save souls then there really is no point to any of the other stuff, save for offering Mass and the other sacraments.

Wow…pretty harsh on priests aren’t you? Mine doesn’t watch tv but he is plenty busy…and I can see the stress wearing on him. He does promote the sacrament of penance all the time…if you don’t hear it almost weekly from him in his homily’s you aint listening. So it makes my blood boil to hear you talk about priest that way…when you have not walked in those shoes. Not every priest has time for daily confessions…especially if those times are not filled. Most priests are not like Padre Pio…they can’t bi-locate. It’s nice that yours is such a saint but it doesn’t mean others aren’t if they don’t have time for daily confession.

I pray that you will learn to have more charity for our priests…those are not always easy shoes to fill.

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

“You can make appointments” is a cop-out. A priest who cares about souls will put in his time in the confessional and put his own idle time to good use. A good Dominican I once knew wrote all his homilies while in the confessional.

The question isn’t them putting their time in the confessional…the question is if it needs to be daily.

Lets face it…while frequent reconciliation is beneficial and I make use of it…venial sins are forgiven at Mass.

 

[SgtSchultz]

only if a priest has office work every day and never goes out into he community to serve people, and never has obligations in the diocese that only by appointment thing might work. But I don’ think one priest in the world has a schedule like that.

But surely they can be there for 15 minutes before the daily mass? My parish has two priests, yet they offer confession before and after every mass – including the Sunday masses – except for the Thursday evening mass. In addition, they offer 2 hours of non-concurrent confession time on Saturday.

To be fair to other parishes however, I believe people actually make use of these frequent confession times. If no one ever goes to confession, then the priests won’t have them as often, just as a bus route with low ridership will cut-back from 10-minute headways to 30.

 

[ConstantineTG]

not sure if he did, but I’m jus mainly bringing this up to disucss this. Even though I have only finished one year of seminary and I have but one month of parish experience. I personally believe that a priest should put the sacraments first in his priorities of things to do. Mass comes first than confession. He should put an importance of preparing people for marriage. Focus on fostering vocations to priesthood and religious life. visit the sick as often as possible. Lastly Baptize and prepare parents for baptism the best he can. While the logistic side of priest life is very important and has to be dealt with they should NEVER take priority over the sacraments.

now again I don’t know the situation of the priest, but going from 5 times a week confession to 1 time confession a week, seems like to big of a switch for a priest to make. I’m sure he says mass atleast 6 out of the 7 days for his parish, and I suspect that he doesn’t have to be rushing into the parish at the last second. While it could be necessary for this situation from glacing at it, it doesn’t seem good.

These priorities are coming from the bishop. So the priest cannot really just up and say “hey, I want to this more than what you are telling me.” Priests promise obedience to their bishop. And if they want to continue being priests, they would make good on that promise.

 

[Corki]

already this was posted by a persons post on Facebook who is a good friend of mine and very faithful traditional Catholic. he said this

There is a church in (City Hidden to avoid scandal for the diocese) where confession was previously offered Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A new pastor has taken over and now only the Saturday slot is preserved. What we need, obviously, is less devotion and access to the sacrament of reconciliation.

even though I think its obvious this sarcastic, but have you seen this happen in your area at all. Also what percentage of churches in your city, or diocese, have daily confession. What percentage of Churches has saturday only confession. Are there any churches that you feel don’t have enough confession time, and they only have it once a week, as in the priest can’t see everyone before mass?

btw where I live many parishes just have saturday confessions very few have daily confessions while some do. I can think off the top of my head 3 parishes that have daily confession even though I’m sure there are more. I can think of a handful that have confession more then once a week, and actually now that I think about it I can’t think off the top of my head parishes that only have one confession a week even though I know it is the case where I live.

Whle I know a few parishes near me that have Confession several times a week, most offer the Sacrament on one or two days. My own parish has one evening. It’s not connected to a Mass time and Father stays as long as there are still people coming but at least an hour. There used to be a second day, before a daily Mass but that was too rushed for Father and not well attended.

The schedules for Masses and confession times, first Holy Communion, and Confirmation are usually not decided unilaterally by the Pastor at a parish. As others have said, the deanery (regional groups of parishes within a diocese) and the Bishop also have a say.

The priest in a deanery often try to coordinate the Confession schedule. I know I can find Confession every day except Monday at some parish within 20 minutes of my house. But the deanery can’t dictate to the pastor when to hear Confessions, especially if he wants to add additional times.
Deo Gratias42:

The majority of the other stuff priests are busy doing can and should be delegated to lay people.

That’s not necessarily true. Our priest is the only clergy for our parish. He runs ragged most weeks and most of these are not duties that can be delgated. He makes calls at hospitals up to an hour away from the parish, he visits the nursing homes, does Baptisms, has to attend meetings at the diocese and deanery and is chaplain for the KofC. We are grateful that he has a generous time slot for Confession each week. Our previous pastor did not have **any **regularly scheduled Confession times.

 

[mab23]

i know a nearby parish that has daily confession every morning , and its always busy so you have to be one of the first there!

 

[SgtSchultz]

i know a nearby parish that has daily confession every morning , and its always busy so you have to be one of the first there!

Is your parish heavily populated with Catholics who make frequent use of this?

After reading these other posts and thinking about it a bit, I’m inclined to believe that parishes with long and frequent confession times are populated with people who are making use of them.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

What’s really nice is going to confession and right as you finish your penance mass starts.

Why shouldn’t confession be offered before mass? And not only on Saturdays?

I guarantee you that more people would go to confession then.

I also guarantee you that the spiritual health of the entire Catholic Church would be enhanced.

All I know is that a person is at his spiritual best right after confession and if he then actively assists at Mass and receives Jesus–well it just doesn’t get any better than that!

And I don’t know what priests do that is more important than the sacraments.

Look–I’m not saying that a priest should be sitting in the confessional if no one is there.

Say that confession will always start 1 hour before every mass. If no one is there then by all means the priest shouldn’t have to sit there waiting on people.

It would be up to the people to show up.

If confession was before every mass I bet you that more people would go to confession more frequently and I think that more people would attend mass.

And of course the value of frequent communion and frequent confession should be taught to the catholic faithful at all levels.

Maybe if more people were afraid of going to Hell–maybe more people would go to confession.

and if more people knew of all the benefits of confession and then of the mass–then maybe more people would come?

It just doesn’t seem like rocket science to me.

 

[catholictiger]

These priorities are coming from the bishop. So the priest cannot really just up and say “hey, I want to this more than what you are telling me.” Priests promise obedience to their bishop. And if they want to continue being priests, they would make good on that promise.

never said that a priest should break his promise of obedience. IF the bishop says that your work in the diocese will make you have less time in the parish then he as a priest must do what his bishop does, even if he disagrees.

 

[Seeker1961]

What’s really nice is going to confession and right as you finish your penance mass starts.

Why shouldn’t confession be offered before mass? And not only on Saturdays?

I guarantee you that more people would go to confession then.

I also guarantee you that the spiritual health of the entire Catholic Church would be enhanced.

All I know is that a person is at his spiritual best right after confession and if he then actively assists at Mass and receives Jesus–well it just doesn’t get any better than that!

And I don’t know what priests do that is more important than the sacraments.

Look–I’m not saying that a priest should be sitting in the confessional if no one is there.

Say that confession will always start 1 hour before every mass. If no one is there then by all means the priest shouldn’t have to sit there waiting on people.

It would be up to the people to show up.

If confession was before every mass I bet you that more people would go to confession more frequently and I think that more people would attend mass.

And of course the value of frequent communion and frequent confession should be taught to the catholic faithful at all levels.

Maybe if more people were afraid of going to Hell–maybe more people would go to confession.

and if more people knew of all the benefits of confession and then of the mass–then maybe more people would come?

It just doesn’t seem like rocket science to me.

I totally agree with you, and I have seen it work. Of course, that was at a traditional Catholic parish. Confession was 1 hour before Mass and there was ALWAYS a line.

The lack of demand for the sacrament can be traced to the lack of availability.