Ask a Priest Anything...about Confession!

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Edmundus1581 said:
so I find it embarrassing when a few minutes after discussing my intimate faults (again!) we encounter each other outside the confessional and talk about parish business as if nothing had happened.
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I do as well! As I get more involved with my parish, I have taken to confessing at a neighboring parish. It’s not because Father did anything wrong. It’s because of me. I suppose that’s pride speaking.
 
thistle said:
I would like to know why an act of contrition is not made during Confession nowadays. When I have asked in Confession when I should make an act of contrition the priest tells me to do it after Confession in the Church before I leave.
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Almost every priest I’ve gone to in USA (I’d guess I’m up to about 70 priests at least by now, over the last 3 and a half years) asks the penitent to make the Act of Contrition in the confessional and he will give absolution either after the person finished or while they’re saying the Act. Usually there is a little card in the confessional so people who don’t know the Act of Contrition can read it out loud. The only time I was asked to make it afterwards was when the priest was in a hurry to go get ready for Mass and told me to please say the Act of Contrition after I left the confessional.
 
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nfinke said:
Unlike the other sacraments which by their nature require either physical acts (Holy Communion, Baptism, etc.) or witnesses (Matrimony), I dont see the essential role the priest plays in the forgiveness of sins. I have even heard many Catholics say things like “you arent really talking to the priest in the confessional, youre talking to Jesus, he is just standing in for Him”, and that mindset makes the priests presence seem unnecessary.
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I’m sure Father will answer your question better, but here goes:

Matt. 14: But Jesus said to them, They have no need to go: give you them to eat. [17] They answered him: We have not here, but five loaves, and two fishes.

This miracle foreshadows not only the Holy Eucharist, but all 7 Sacraments. The five loaves represent the five Sacraments of the Living (that is, the five Sacraments which one can only receive when one is in the state of sanctifying grace, the Divine Life of God). The two fish represent Baptism and Penance, the Sacraments of the Dead (“dead” meaning that one is not in the state of sanctifying grace but in the state of original or mortal sin).

John 20: 21 et seq. w/ footnote:

[[21]] He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. [22] When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. [23] Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. [24]

[23] “Whose sins”: See here the commission, stamped by the broad seal of heaven, by virtue of which the pastors of Christ’s church absolve repenting sinners upon their confession.

Our Lord instituted the Sacrament of Penance the same day He rose from the dead. This shows that the Sacrament of Penance restores sanctifying grace, the Divine Life of God and revivifies the soul.

Also, when we sin, we offend God and hurt our neighbor as well as ourselves. I can make an act of perfect contrition outside of confession and be reconciled to God. However, the Church doesn’t know the interior state of my soul, only God. The Sacrament of Penance reconciles the penitent not only with God but the Church as well.

In the Early Church, public sinners (e.g. thieves) could not receive Holy Communion. They had to confess their sins (publicly! - not like today) and do penance and after a period of time then they could go to Holy Communion.

In 1 Cor. 12: 25-27, St. Paul writes about how our actions affect the entire Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. Your prayers can help me and others. My sins hurt you and the whole Church. When I go to confession and am reconciled with God, I am also reconciled with the Church as well as spiritually (and sometimes physically) healed.

Does that help?
 
@edward_george1 … I was reading a good article from Jimmy Akin about confession. It is very similar to discussions here on CAF about how specific descriptions of sins need to be.

https://jimmyakin.com/2007/03/specific_confes.html

From the article
First, a word about what adequate detail is: We are expected–to the best of our reasonable ability–to confess our mortal sins in number (how many times you did it) and kind. Kind is where the question of specificity comes in, and the rule is that we are to confess specifically enough that anything that affects the species of the sin is mentioned. To understand that, one needs to have a grasp of the difference between genus and species. Genus is the general category to which a sin belongs. Species is the variation that distinguishes one sin from others in the same general category.
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If he has doubts about what you’re confessing then he should ask for a clarification, and in these cases it seems that the priests you confessed to didn’t ask, indicating that they understood your meaning.
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So related to the article…
  1. How often do you ask for clarification?
  2. In what ways do you usually ask for clarification?
  3. How much of confession is a conversation?
  4. Has understanding the nature of sins allowed you to give better advice to the penitent? If so, how?
 
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Margaret_Ann said:
Our Lord instituted the Sacrament of Penance the same day He rose from the dead.
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I appreciate the scripture and the help, but like I said, I don’t dispute the legitimacy of the sacrament. I fully believe the priests have the authority to absolve, and I knew the passages you cited. My confusion was why we treat it like the only way to truly absolve sins, since God clearly didn’t somehow remove His own ability to do it himself.
Margaret_Ann said:
This miracle foreshadows not only the Holy Eucharist, but all 7 Sacraments.
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This is actually super interesting and I was never taught that before.
Margaret_Ann said:
In 1 Cor. 12: 25-27, St. Paul writes about how our actions affect the entire Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. Your prayers can help me and others. My sins hurt you and the whole Church.
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Hm. I didn’t consider it from this angle. I will think on this. Thank you and God Bless.
 
What if we don’t know how many times we committed a particular sin?
 
nfinke said:
I dont see the essential role the priest plays in the forgiveness of sins.
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God set this up for the priest to remit sins way back in the time of Moses. Read Leviticus 4:27-31.

We see that God did not permit the individual to pray privately to God to obtain forgiveness, but it was only through the priest that his sins were forgiven.

However, God is merciful. If one is in danger of death, for example, and cannot get to confession, if his act of contrition is “perfect” out of love for God, we trust that God will forgive him.
 
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Father, how does one communicate in the confessional that one wishes to confess again Sins already confessed and forgiven, in order to correctly let the priest know you haven’t done these since last confession but for reasons of devotion e.g. The first Saturday promise, or to keep the correct conditions to gain an indulgence for a previous Sin, that you wish to confess them additionally.

In particular what wording should one use to convey this?

Thank you
 
  1. Do you mind if someone catches you in public and asks to make a confession?
  2. How do you handle confession with people you employ in the parish. If someone in marriage and family ministry confesses infidelity does it affect your positioning of that employee?
  3. Do YOU prefer face to face or anonymous?
  4. How do you encourage people to form and trust their conscience?
 
AlbMagno said:
And you still haven’t answered the one about bioethics 😒
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As I recall, that one got overrun with lots of (name removed by moderator)ut from other people before I was able to take the time to jump back into the discussion. It was a busy time for me anyway, and once it stacked up with a few dozen posts of discussion, I wasn’t able to keep up.

I am still a regular, and still have lounge access, but I haven’t had a chance to look at that thread again, and likely won’t.
 
jack63 said:
One more questions clearly not related to confession… What happened to your Batman Icon? It was the best Icon anybody had…
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I had intended to take a forum hiatus, perhaps indefinitely, so I switched to this. Who knows, I might still do it.
 
stpurl said:
Father, what would you recommend for examinations of conscience before confession? I mean, maybe there is a really good resource for Catholics who haven’t been for a while, as well as for Catholics who are fairly regular-goers but want to deepen their faith life, or ones that you have found are particularly good with teens or young people. Can you give us any guidelines?
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Fauken said:
I’m sure you’ve seen multiple versions of the Examination for Conscience. Is there a particular one you’d recommend as being the “best”? I know that’s a rather vague term, but have you seen one that you would recommend the most?
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My advice to you on examinations of conscience is to find the one that works for you. This is true of most things in the spiritual life–what prayers to say, what Bible to read, and so on. Whichever one helps you the best is the best one. I have one or two that I like, but I usually don’t use any kind of form for it. I just think back on the time since my last confession and mention what comes up.
 
catholic03 said:
How often do you confess your parishioners? My parish has it for 30 minutes on a Saturday morning. That’s all.

Is this a normal amount of time each week or do you devote longer?
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We have confession every day in my current parish, and we did every day in my first parish, and the one in between we had it only three days a week, but for quite a number of hours available. My first parish had three priests and in total we offered about 18-20 hours a week (sometimes an hour=two hours, since you have one hour of confessions open with two priests hearing).

Is it normal for a parish to only have thirty minutes a week? I would say it’s pretty common, unfortunately, but I know of places, like my own diocese, where more and more confession is being offered. If you saturate the market, people will go more often.
 
Lookingforjoy said:
Do you think differently about your parishioners after hearing their confessions?
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Nope. I don’t remember most of what I hear, and I usually don’t recognize who it is going to confession, if they confess behind the screen. And even if I remember it, and even if I see who it is or recognize their voice, I don’t treat anyone any differently as a result. You have to realize that we hear so many confessions that it’s really hard to remember what particular people said. I have a very long memory for conversations and details, and yet I can barely remember having even heard confessions yesterday.
 
Well…do what you need to do! I’ve appreciated your comments! No doubt this forum is a double edged sword for sure. I’ve been frustrated at times, and I don’t post as much as you or others.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’d like to know why priests nowadays (outside of perhaps the traditionalists and the Latino parishes) don’t push harder for their parishioners to go to confession regularly, as in once a month year-round, instead of just Christmas and Easter when there are huge penance services with all kinds of visiting priests coming in to help. Does the fact that priests would have to devote more time to hearing confessions, at least in some parishes, have anything to do with it?
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I can only speak for myself, but I do encourage people to go roughly monthly, though not more often than that. And most of the priests I work with also push confession this frequently. As I said, in my diocese, daily confession, or at least more than the “death slot” of thirty minutes before the Saturday evening Mass, is increasingly more common, so there’s a culture of it and people go quite often.

A lot of parishes around here are cutting back on penance services, because it tends to have the wrong effect. Rather than encouraging people to go to confession, it encourages them to only go to confession twice a year, in Lent and Advent, when they are offered. Rather than doing that, parishes have just bulked up their confession times, and you don’t end up needing to have a penance service. Or if you do, it mostly amounts to having a few extra confession hours with a couple extra priests.
 
s.cono said:
Is there an Act of Contrition you prefer hearing? The one I see in the confessional isn’t the one I learned in the mid-1960s. Does it ever rattle you when a person wings it and gives you one shot from the hip? Like do you scrutinize it at all to see if it conforms to the criteria? Is it OK to simply say something like “I’m sorry Lord, through your help I’ll try to better in the future.” For the record I like the old one that starts “Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. . .” Thanks.
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I really couldn’t care less what Act of Contrition people use. As long as they say something that expresses that they are sorry for their sins, it’s fine. I don’t get rattled at off-the-cuff ones so much, unless the person launches into a lengthy sermon about how awful they are and how great God is and they go on and on and on.

There’s no need to scrutinize it, it’s not as though saying it correctly is necessary for validity. If someone is in the confessional and confessing their sins, then I can assume contrition on their part, or at least attrition, which is sufficient.

All of the sacraments actually have a pretty low bar for administering them or not. I hear a lot of talk on this forum about having requisite intentions and whatnot, and the funny thing is, those intentions are very, very, very minimal. If you’re in the confessional, confessing sins, then I assume your intention and I absolve you. It’s not some challenge or test you have to pass so as to deserve absolution. Only very rarely have I denied someone absolution, and it isn’t because they didn’t say the words right or whatever. It’s because they positively manifested a state of grave sin which they expressed, when asked, that they had no intention of ceasing. I explain to them very gently that I cannot absolve them, since it’s impossible for it to work, and I encourage them to meet with me and sort things out.
 
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