Bad confession experiences....

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Michael_Howard

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I was wondering how many folks out there have had bad confession experiences with your priest. I had one today and it wounded me. How have you dealt with these experiences and have they weakened your faith or made it stronger? Thanks and God bless!
 
I cant even get a priest to hear my confession . read the thread below.
 
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OFTHEANGELS:
I cant even get a priest to hear my confession . read the thread below.
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Does this sort of thing weaken your faith or give you a greater resolve to make a difference wherever you can? Just curious…
 
What thread below? The thread below has nothing to do with confession!
 
Hard to respond unless you are more specific as to WHY it was bad. Was the priest disinterested? Not helpful? Not give absolution?

Lisa N
 
…i am one of the lucky ones… i cannot remember a negative experience in the confessional booth…

…yep, blessed in fact:thumbsup:
 
I can’t remember a bad experience, but when my father was young he says he had a terrible experience with a priest berating him, and he stopped going to confession for decades. He only went again when he was in his 70s and in the hospital, and it was a very cleansing experience for him.

I often think how much damage a priest can cause to people at such a vulnerable moment in their lives as going to confession. I don’t say that many priests do cause such damage, but I hope they all realize the potential.
 
Not strictly confessional-related, but confession-related.

When I was about 12 the pastor at my church visited our religion class. He asked us to write comments or questions on index cards anonymously and he would discuss them. On mine I simply commented on how scared I’d be before confession, and how wonderful I felt afterward. He made fun of my comment, saying something like, “Sounds as though this person is just glad to have it over with!”

That really hurt me – that a priest would say something like that. As a result I did not go to confession again until I was nearly 40 years old.

I pray that, because you are more mature than I was, you will understand that your experience is not typical, and that there are many holy priests who are wonderful confessors.

'thann
 
We had a visiting priest at our parish for several months, and in the confessional he actually RECOMMENDED to me that I commit immoral sexual acts. When I disagreed with him, he stuck to his guns. He also used to rail against the hierarchy and the “Cruel”
practice of not ordaining women, etc. I began to avoid his masses and to avoid going to confession if I thought he was going to be in the confessional. But I went another time, and knelt by the screen, and as soon as he opened his mouth, I thought O Lord, not him again. But I confessed my sins, and as soon as I did HE, true to form, started recommending homosexuality to me again. That did it.
I wrote to the archbishop of our archdiocese and so, apparently, did other people. His faculties to serve in the diocese were revoked by our archbishop and he was gone bye-bye, for which I thank God. I hope that he one day turns to God and stops giving wicked counsel in the confessional. Jaypeeto2
 
No really bad experiences here; the closest as an adult is when the priest seems impatient with me for confessing what he apparently thinks of as insignificant sins (and no, I’m not scrupulous). But that happens only rarely.

Bad experience as a kid – I would confess missing Mass on Sunday, and the priest would get really angry and start yelling at me. Sheesh. I was just a kid – I couldn’t drive. He would tell me to get a ride with a friend, but most of my friends were Jewish – they weren’t going to my church!
 
Hi guys!

I had a bad confessional experience in, of all places, Medjugorje. It was devastating to me not only in my spiritual life but in my family life as well.
 
the priest was recommedning homosexaul sex?? thats makes me want to puke
 
A bad experience in confession was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was my 2nd confession in a normal setting (since the first was my general confesson as a convert – a 2-hour event during a week of total silence/solitude in a hermitage). The priest (whom I had sought out, having known him 20 years earlier) yelled at me, accused me of . . . well, let’s not go there. Anyway, I left the church devastated and a jellyfish: too disturbed even to pray. When I got home, I grabbed a rosary since it was “stupid” prayer that didn’t require much thought.

Since I have a deep love of the priesthood, I realized that this priest would probably realize that he had behaved badly but would have no way of contacting me. So the next morning I went to Mass at that priest’s Church. He recognized me, embraced me, and asked me to meet with him later in the week. I got two things out of it:
  1. a new frienship with a good priest who had been having a bad day
and
  1. the rosary as a habitual form of prayer.
Goes to show you that even a bad experience in confession can be a good thing if you hand it over to the Lord.
 
I went to my first confession, and the pastor started yelling because I was not saying anything. I finally managed to get the courage to talk very low.

It made me real nervous. I served mass with him frequently many times after that, starting the following year. I got along fine with him. I always wondered if he knew if it was me or not.
 
Other Eric:
Hi guys!

I had a bad confessional experience in, of all places, Medjugorje. It was devastating to me not only in my spiritual life but in my family life as well.
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My heart goes out to you friend!
Medjugorje is totally fake. The more I hear about it, the more evil I hear comes from it.
You are not the first to have a family broken up because of it.

There is supernatural there, but I’m not sure it’s good.
 
netmil(name removed by moderator):
My heart goes out to you friend!
Medjugorje is totally fake. The more I hear about it, the more evil I hear comes from it.
You are not the first to have a family broken up because of it.

There is supernatural there, but I’m not sure it’s good.
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Hi netmil(name removed by moderator)!

I suppose that I ought to point out that I do not blame what happened to me on Medjugorje. Supernatural evil would not be encouraging people to daily prayer and frequent reception of the Eucharist. The Church has reserved judgment on the matter and so will I. I’d also like to note that since then I’ve met two or three people who had a similar confessional experience in places far from Medjugorje. Perhaps this problem has less to do with supernatural evil and more with fallen human nature.
 
Other Eric:
Hi netmil(name removed by moderator)!

I suppose that I ought to point out that I do not blame what happened to me on Medjugorje. Supernatural evil would not be encouraging people to daily prayer and frequent reception of the Eucharist. The Church has reserved judgment on the matter and so will I. I’d also like to note that since then I’ve met two or three people who had a similar confessional experience in places far from Medjugorje. Perhaps this problem has less to do with supernatural evil and more with fallen human nature.
Click to expand...
Evil doesn’t always come dressed in red with horns. Sometimes it comes dressed in light to fool the pious. We are to watch for false prophets.
The devil does not counterfit tin, only gold.

Please understand that the reason the Vatican has not ruled on this apparition is because it cannot until the apparitions stop. The handlers of these seers know that. So they do not stop.

JPII went to the former Yugoslavia and did not visit there.
B16 said that he does not believe that there is anything supernatural going on there.
The Vatican HAS stated that no one should go there on a tour to venerate the site.

Why would conversions matter to a Gospa who said that all religions are equal in her son’s eyes?
 
I was not very strong in my faith for a while, so I did not go to confession for a long time. When I finally came around, I went to confession, and after I finished confessing, the priest instructed me to say the Act of Contrition. Since I had not said this prayer in years, I could not remember it. I admitted this to him and he yelled at me. Then he started praying it and had me repeat each line after him. He was so loud about the whole thing that the people waiting outside the confessional must have heard him. To this day, I still carry a copy of the Act of Contrition with me in the confessional for fear that my mind will go blank and I don’t want to get yelled at again.
 
Yup. Some were just irratating but one was bad. I was actually at a well know orthodox Catholic conference. Hubby and I were having a hard time sticking to NFP (we were still trying to shake patterns we’d developed over the years that were not open to life).
When I confessed it the priest freaked out. He actually wouldn’t let me speak until I promised not to repeat that particular sin again. He was yelling at me in the confessional. He blamed it on my husband saying I needed to tell him to have some self control that we are not barn yard animals. I finally promised what he asked of me and then he asked me itf there was anything else. I promptly said no because I was scared to tell him anything else. I was shaking and fighting back tears when I walked out of the confessional. I got some water and sat down, trying to compose myself. I almost left the conference but in the end I stuck it out.

Two years later at the same conference I had a priest tell me to get my tubes tied, confess it and get it over with.

I now only go to confession at my church.
 
Yes!

I reminds me that this MUST be God’s church if we can have things like this happen, and it’s been 2000 years…
 
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