Do You Typically Confess To The Same Priest?

[Anne1964]

I normally go to the same priest for confession. He knows me very well and provides good spiritual direction. I used to go to a different priest every time I went to confession, but once I found this particular priest I stopped doing that. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right priest.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I have lately chosen to begin revisiting the same priest for confession, because I find him ‘accessible.’ He style is open, inviting (without being enabling or permissive!); in fact, the last time he held nothing back with his correction.

But I find that the most important element of confession for me is being forthright, and the confessor who most encourages that honesty by communicating that he expects and welcomes my honesty, is the one who is most beneficial. And when I see him on a repeated basis, I find that the anxiety about confessing my most dreaded sins dissipates; I want to confess them, because I recognize that when I am doing so I am led closer to Jesus. The familiarity with one confessor supports that desire and that result.

 

[marleelynn]

I go to the same priest for confession who is also my spiritual director. I feel comfortable going to him since he knows me well

 

[Crumpy]

I always go to confession to a priest in a neighboring parish, where the priest would not know me.

I went to confession to a priest of the parish when there were multiple priests for a holy day confession service. It was a face to face encounter. I told my embarassing sins, and when he gave me absolution, he insisted that I look at him eyeball-to-eyeball, before he would finish the words of absolution. There is certainly no such requirement in the rite of Confession and this experience bothers me to this day.

In a book by the late Fr. Thomas Dubay, he seemed to digress into a complaint about confession, and he seemed to be an advocate of the two-minute confession. Just get in there, tell your sins and their frequency and then blah-blah and get out.

Thinking this long about confession, the joke about the guy who hadn’t been to confession in a long time comes to mind. He says as much to the priest, and then says he has a hard time doing an examination of conscience. The priest say, “well, have you killed anybody” He says no and walks out and says to his buddies, “we can leave, he’s only doing murders today.”

That old joke doesn’t help me get serious about confession. I always do feel better after I have made my confession.

I don’t know if the priest would want to know, but I wonder if we should tell him how many more pentitents there are behind us, when we get in there with him?

I always kneel behind the screen. None of this face to face stuff. I don’t know what that’s about.

I think we have a right to anonymous confessions.

 

[Student09]

In a book by the late Fr. Thomas Dubay, he seemed to digress into a complaint about confession, and he seemed to be an advocate of the two-minute confession. Just get in there, tell your sins and their frequency and then blah-blah and get out.

What else would you do - talk about football? Sometimes a question needs to be answered or spiritual advice given, but if one needs extensive spiritual advice or counseling, my understanding is that that is not the purpose of the confessional. Rather, the purpose of confession is to tell one’s sins and have them absolved.

Regarding the OP, I always go to one priest.

 

[jerome_ky]

Our parish priest only does face-to-face confessions. I’ve only been Catholic for 2 years and this is all I’ve known. I was pretty unnerved when I went to my first confession and I was sitting there looking at someone. When I have had something difficult to confess I’ve taken off my glasses so I couldn’t see him, and even closed my eyes. So I think I would probably prefer an anonymous confessional and I’ve been planning to look around our diocese for them. Now, if it’s “behind the screen” as some here have said, it wouldn’t seem to matter if you go to multiple priests, or would it? If all confessionals were face-to-face I would probably stick with our parish priest, whom I really like. My problem is I “rehearse” my confessions, and as I do I picture talking to him rather than to Him.