St. Peter’s is very good for confession. Why? Well, for one thing, those Franciscans are in the box or on call for face-to-face in the mezzanine 11.5 hours a day. If a person is from out of town and in dire need of confession, St. Peter’s a great place. If a person is from a suburb and has a situation where regular confession at the home parish is well, less than desirable for a variety of reasons, St. Peter’s is great. Hop a train, walk a couple blocks, while examining one’s conscience; walk into St. Peter’s, go to confession, do one’s penance, and walk back to Union Station to go home. Maybe get some lunch on the way back.
St. Peter’s is also very good if one works downtown and needs to catch Mass on a holy day or Sunday.
It’s a good “visit” parish. Go in, chat with the Lord, rearrange one’s shopping bags, take a load off, light a candle (well, press the button on a candle).
St. Peter has a great ministry for the homeless who end up in the Loop. It is also good for its AA meetings, and a variety of classes for those who have business in the Loop, and can’t get back to their home parishes.
My husband and I give regularly to St. Peter’s.
However- I can think of better places for tourists to go to Sunday Mass, unless the time of the Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s worked into the schedule for a plate of pancakes and fresh eggs at St. Lou of Mitchell’s.
