Confession in schools

[admonsta]

I just want to get another opinion on this, because I was quite surprised.

Background: I attend the Latin Mass whenever I can, but it is far away and when I can’t make it I go locally. My children attend the local Catholic school. I suspect some people think I’m a little “too Catholic” because I attend the Latin Mass.

I have a friend who is the Religious Education Coordinator for the school - she liaises between the church and the school in matters of religious education. She was asking us for suggestions about the Reconciliation program. Others were offering up their ideas (word searches, parent meetings every two weeks instead of every week etc). One of the biggest issues they were talking about was kids continuing to receive the sacraments after their first. I had been waiting for an opportunity to speak about my own issue, so I piped up:

Me: “I have a suggestion. I think that after the first reconciliation has been done, there needs to be more opportunities for the kids to go. I have trouble getting my kids to confession because there’s one on Wednesday mornings during school, and half an hour on Saturday morning, which is often right in the middle of a sporting event…”

Friend: “Let me just stop you there - you CAN leave a sporting event.”

Me: “Yeah, I agree, but the school is very strong on having school Masses, I just think that it would be very helpful to have a regular time when kids who have made their confession can go and do it. If I knew they had it on, I could prepare my kids beforehand, and it would be very helpful.”

Friend: “Well, it’s the parents’ responsibility to get the children to confession.”

Other Friend: “That’s right.”

Then they turned away and continued talking to each other. Besides hurting my feelings, I am surprised that they weren’t more concerned with the lack of confession opportunities in our community.

I do realise that there is one active priest and a retired priest in our fairly spread out parish, so perhaps it is just too much to ask.

Am I wrong? Or perhaps a little over-zealous?

Should I continue to try and get more confession here, or just take my kids to the Latin Mass, where I can be sure of confession before or during every Mass?

 

[latingirl]

If you can go to a parish that offers confession more, I would take the kids there. I have tried to change things in a parish before and it didn’t work.

 

[Chantal25]

I think this is a great idea. Don’t forget to pray and to ask for prayer, many impossible things has been made possible. Don’t give up.

 

[Aeden]

Twice a week is once more than at the church I go to, but I definitely agree with you, the more the merrier with confession opportunities.

 

[monicatholic]

a catholic school is supposed to be a place of education in the context of a lively Catholic culture. a lively Catholic culture is prayerful and sacramental, including the sacrament of Penance.

the tension is this-- sometimes parents of the school children assume the kids are getting ‘religion’ at the Catholic school and don’t bother to live any Faith at home. sometimes parents decide that Wednesday morning school Mass “counts” for Sunday obligation. sometimes parents want everything ‘religious’ to happen at the school, thus relieving parents of any responsibility of Faith.

some Catholic schools are very aware of the balancing act between creating Catholic culture and letting less committed parents off the hook.

i work in a Catholic parish and school. if a dedicated parent offered ideas about ways to increase the faith life of the students, i would listen.

if the problem was lack of priests, i would say so.

 

[grace68]

I just want to get another opinion on this, because I was quite surprised.

Background: I attend the Latin Mass whenever I can, but it is far away and when I can’t make it I go locally. My children attend the local Catholic school. I suspect some people think I’m a little “too Catholic” because I attend the Latin Mass.

I have a friend who is the Religious Education Coordinator for the school - she liaises between the church and the school in matters of religious education. She was asking us for suggestions about the Reconciliation program. Others were offering up their ideas (word searches, parent meetings every two weeks instead of every week etc). One of the biggest issues they were talking about was kids continuing to receive the sacraments after their first. I had been waiting for an opportunity to speak about my own issue, so I piped up:

Me: “I have a suggestion. I think that after the first reconciliation has been done, there needs to be more opportunities for the kids to go. I have trouble getting my kids to confession because there’s one on Wednesday mornings during school, and half an hour on Saturday morning, which is often right in the middle of a sporting event…”

Friend: “Let me just stop you there - you CAN leave a sporting event.”

Me: “Yeah, I agree, but the school is very strong on having school Masses, I just think that it would be very helpful to have a regular time when kids who have made their confession can go and do it. If I knew they had it on, I could prepare my kids beforehand, and it would be very helpful.”

Friend: “Well, it’s the parents’ responsibility to get the children to confession.”

Other Friend: “That’s right.”

Then they turned away and continued talking to each other. Besides hurting my feelings, I am surprised that they weren’t more concerned with the lack of confession opportunities in our community.

I do realise that there is one active priest and a retired priest in our fairly spread out parish, so perhaps it is just too much to ask.

Am I wrong? Or perhaps a little over-zealous?

Should I continue to try and get more confession here, or just take my kids to the Latin Mass, where I can be sure of confession before or during every Mass?

I do not think you were wrong in suggesting this. This is an awesome idea. The school my kids attend has confession going on right now during lent. They come on certain days for a certain grade level. My daughter is in second grade and has made her first confession, but I did not see a date for the second graders. I am able to take my daughter to confession outside of school, but there may be parents who cannot or do not. This is a wonderful opportunity for them to receive this sacrament. I understand what your friends are saying. It is our responsibility as parents, but there is the possibility that parents do not do this or they may not be able to get their children to confession. If I was you, I would take your children to the Latin Mass, so they can get to confession and I am sure that is quite a wonderful experience to be able to attend a Latin Mass.

God bless and you are in my prayers that you are able to continuing pursuing confession at school and are successful.

Kerri

 

[Anglewannabe]

Sadly, our ideas that we think are great fall flat on other people. I don’t think the problem is they disagreed with you, I think the problem is the rudeness in how they did it.

I would be hurt to. I probably would say ‘I am on this committee to bring my ideas. I understand if people disagree but I don’t understand why they are rude about it. If I need to keep everything to myself for fear of being disrespected, then there is no point of me being here.’

By the sounds of it, having confession at school is not going to happen anytime soon. It is up to you to decide if it is worth the fight or not

 

[Em_in_FL]

I do not think you were wrong in suggesting this. This is an awesome idea. The school my kids attend has confession going on right now during lent. They come on certain days for a certain grade level. My daughter is in second grade and has made her first confession, but I did not see a date for the second graders. I am able to take my daughter to confession outside of school, but there may be parents who cannot or do not. This is a wonderful opportunity for them to receive this sacrament. I understand what your friends are saying. It is our responsibility as parents, but there is the possibility that parents do not do this or they may not be able to get their children to confession. If I was you, I would take your children to the Latin Mass, so they can get to confession and I am sure that is quite a wonderful experience to be able to attend a Latin Mass.

God bless and you are in my prayers that you are able to continuing pursuing confession at school and are successful.

Kerri

I also think it’s a good idea to continue to press the issue.
Our parish school also has the kids all going to confession for Lent (they also go a few other times during the year, including both Advent and Lent)…

 

[PatriceA]

a catholic school is supposed to be a place of education in the context of a lively Catholic culture. a lively Catholic culture is prayerful and sacramental, including the sacrament of Penance.

the tension is this-- sometimes parents of the school children assume the kids are getting ‘religion’ at the Catholic school and don’t bother to live any Faith at home. sometimes parents decide that Wednesday morning school Mass “counts” for Sunday obligation. sometimes parents want everything ‘religious’ to happen at the school, thus relieving parents of any responsibility of Faith.

some Catholic schools are very aware of the balancing act between creating Catholic culture and letting less committed parents off the hook.

i work in a Catholic parish and school. if a dedicated parent offered ideas about ways to increase the faith life of the students, i would listen.

if the problem was lack of priests, i would say so.

This was my experience as well when my daughter attended our local parish school.

I still think its a great idea. I would maybe try to find other like minded parents at the school and keep pursuing the idea. There’s got to be more that think similar. The two that opposed the idea don’t speak for everyone. Sometimes the parents with the great ideas get tired of trying and give up, they may not have even been at the meeting.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

You were absolutely right, and your friends’ responses were rather strange. I think I would’ve wanted to ask my friend, “why do you NOT want confession available at the school,” because honestly, their reactions sound like they are coming out of defensiveness, rather than a statement about you.

It IS the parents’ obligation to get their children to the sacraments, but it is the Church’s obligation to make the sacraments available. Your school acts as a representative of both the parents and the church, so why wouldn’t it be reasonable for it to make the sacrament available and help the children get to it. Why would the place that takes on the role of formation of children NOT want to do what it could to encourage children’s participation in the sacrament? Plus, depending on how old the students are at the school, it really would be better to have confession available if they are also going to have Mass available. Especially with the peer pressure associated with sitting in the pew with your classmates leading to some kids receiving when they shouldn’t - confession would reduce that problem.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

Plus, when it comes to confession, based on the way most Catholics neglect this sacrament, “letting the parents off the hook” should not be a factor. Any parent that will feel “let off the hook” by the school offering confession is most likely not going to prepare or bring their child to confession properly anyway. Offering confession (and supporting it with encouragement and a instruction) in school will have one major effect - the large number of children who otherwise would never go after their first one, will actually be exposed to it for several years, thus providing a huge positive difference in their lives and in their understanding of their faith. That is worth “letting parents (who wouldn’t grab the hook anyway) off the hook.” Confession isn’t about parenting. It’s about the soul of the person receiving the sacrament.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Plus, when it comes to confession, based on the way most Catholics neglect this sacrament, “letting the parents off the hook” should not be a factor. Any parent that will feel “let off the hook” by the school offering confession is most likely not going to prepare or bring their child to confession properly anyway. Offering confession (and supporting it with encouragement and a instruction) in school will have one major effect - the large number of children who otherwise would never go after their first one, will actually be exposed to it for several years, thus providing a huge positive difference in their lives and in their understanding of their faith. That is worth “letting parents (who wouldn’t grab the hook anyway) off the hook.” Confession isn’t about parenting. It’s about the soul of the person receiving the sacrament.

BINGO! And if it’s a Catholic School they should be embracing and encouraging the Sacraments!!!

 

[monicatholic]

Plus, when it comes to confession, based on the way most Catholics neglect this sacrament, “letting the parents off the hook” should not be a factor. Any parent that will feel “let off the hook” by the school offering confession is most likely not going to prepare or bring their child to confession properly anyway.

i’m not saying the decision should go this way. I’m merely pointing out the tensions.

but. studies have shown that children whose parents are NOT involved with their Faith lives have a much less chance of remaining Catholic through college age. there were also some studies that indicated ways that children can actually be inoculated against the Gospel. parents distanced from their children’s faith lives is part of those devastating factors.

Catholic schools need to reform their mission to include re-catechizing the parents and holding them to a higher accountability as the primary teachers of the Faith to their children. but if a Catholic school is doing a poor job of catechizing the students, they’re certainly not not going to be able to handle re-catechizing the parents.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Catholic schools need to reform their mission to include re-catechizing the parents and holding them to a higher accountability as the primary teachers of the Faith to their children. but if a Catholic school is doing a poor job of catechizing the students, they’re certainly not not going to be able to handle re-catechizing the parents.

Oh, I agree… providing Confession during school doesn’t solve the “practicing faith as a family” problem… that certainly cannot be ignored either. It must be actively discussed and whole-family catechesis needs to always be embraced.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

The line “Let me just stop you there” is so - um… weird. It’s as if the person wanted to stop you from treading down some dangerous road or something. That is perplexing to me.

Perhaps they may have a tough time matching your request, perhaps they would be unable to. But why would anyone be opposed to more opportunities for confession?

 

[manualman]

Lame. My kids parish school has the kids go to confession monthly. That’s the recommendation of the church to ALL the faithful, so why not live it in the school community?

But then they have school mass daily too, so we’re weirdly catholic that way.

When did catholic schools become hesitant to actually BE catholic? That’s just weird. If you believe it, LIVE it. If you don’t, go build your own low budget private school elsewhere, freeloaders.

 

[JackieMom]

Our school offers confession to 3rd grade and up several times a year. It’s optional, but most kids sign up because it means they are called out of class for a few minutes on that day! I love that these opportunities are available. I’d talk to the pastor.

 

[KCT]

When I taught in a Catholic school, our chaplain was always available - on a schedule and if a student asked.

In the parish where I now work, the pastor hears confessions for both the school kids and the Religious Ed kids.

The pastor values the sacrament and makes himself available.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

i’m not saying the decision should go this way. I’m merely pointing out the tensions.

but. studies have shown that children whose parents are NOT involved with their Faith lives have a much less chance of remaining Catholic through college age. there were also some studies that indicated ways that children can actually be inoculated against the Gospel. parents distanced from their children’s faith lives is part of those devastating factors.

I believe it. But I also think that parents who are not involved in their children’s faith lives when there is confession at school, are not going to be involved in their children’s faith lives when there isn’t confession at school. If anything, children will be going home and telling parents about confession in school, and providing an opportunity for discussion.

Catholic schools need to reform their mission to include re-catechizing the parents and holding them to a higher accountability as the primary teachers of the Faith to their children. but if a Catholic school is doing a poor job of catechizing the students, they’re certainly not not going to be able to handle re-catechizing the parents.

I would agree that this is true even more of the parishes. I suppose wherever you can reach parents is where the Church needs to be doing it.

 

[monicatholic]

I suppose wherever you can reach parents is where the Church needs to be doing it.

agreed.

the OP’s inquiry should not have been dismissed.

a school/ parish can come up with creative solutions to meet both needs-- the real need of the child for the sacrament, and the real need of the child to have his parent support his/ her faith life, up close and personal-- not just with tuition dollars, though that’s often a big sacrifice for families and shouldn’t be discounted.

simple take-home materials for parents to do with children, things that will gather parents in as opposed to scattering them in terror (even if those materials are less than my favorite hard-hitting catechesis types of materials) can help to meet a lot of needs.

school community penance services, where parents are invited-- those can help too.