I hate that and think it is a truly selfish thing to do.
If I was planning a long confession (which I don’t) I would go to the back of the queue.
Confessions (and other things) longer nowadays?
- Thread starter HomeschoolDad
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If I was planning a long confession (which I don’t) I would go to the back of the queue.
I don’t think I’m ever in there more than one minute.
Sometimes I have heard the priest talking for a long period in someone else’s confession (inaudible) and wonder what he has so much to say about?
No, that is like saying someone can eat as much food from the table as they need knowing that there isn’t enough eft afterwards for everyone and knowing some will starve.
If you are going to have a giant confession you should either go last or book an appointment.
Better still the priest should have a longer confession slot than 20 minutes.
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babochka
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Yes! This is important.
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Chistian-ity
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Longer mass seems kind of like a good thing to me maybe? Anyways, I plan on doing my first confession soon, and it will probably take me quite a while to satisfyingly list every sin I’ve committed. Not to mention everything else. Perhaps the problem is that not many people frequent confession. It would make sense if the majority of people going have not been in for awhile and are letting their sins accumulate. Unlike you, maybe these people sin more/are really thorough/haven’t gone in a while/need serious help from the priest. So I suppose this would be a culture shift. 
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JimG
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I remember going to a parish mission once given by a fairly well known priest. One night was a confession service, and he said that even if you haven’t been to confession in 25 years, he would have you out of the confessional in four minutes or less.
It is indeed a culture shift. In years past, people went to confession frequently, the lines were long, many people just had a “laundry list” of venial sins, or perhaps a besetting mortal sin they were trying to overcome, and it was over fairly quickly. Confessions were behind the screen, and an appointment for a face-to-face confession would have been fairly uncommon.
Nowadays, confessions tend to be longer, quite frankly there is sometimes a lot of “remedial catechesis” to do, and most churches, seeing that many people don’t go to confession anymore, do not make the sacrament available as freely as they once did. One hour once a week, usually Saturday afternoons, is the norm. They do assume that you will make an appointment if you need to, and smaller parishes may make confession available only by appointment. If you truly need to go to confession, a priest will always make time for you if he can.
There are many reasons that people tend not to go to confession anymore, but that is for another thread. The concept of frequent confession as just part of one’s spiritual life is not prevalent nowadays. That is very, very unfortunate.
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