Hearing Confessions

[shirleyz]

I am a RCIA catechist and we have two candidates being received into the Catholic Church. After teaching about the Sacrament of Reconciliation and during Lent we let candidates know that they need to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation before the Easter Vigil and they can go whenever they feel ready and they can go to our priest or any priest of their choosing. One of the candidates went during a regular scheduled time to receive the sacrament and was turned away because our pastor was caught off guard for a first confession. He told him to come back another time. This a new pastor for us…he’s been at our parish since June of 2016. I have been a catechist at my parish for 25 years and this is the way we have always done it and we were never told by the new pastor that there is now a new procedure. I have had a talk with the candidate and he said that everything was OK, but I have noticed that he is more quiet then normal and standoffish at our sessions. Was it appropriate for our pastor to refuse a first confession during a regular scheduled time?

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I am a RCIA catechist and we have two candidates being received into the Catholic Church. After teaching about the Sacrament of Reconciliation and during Lent we let candidates know that they need to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation before the Easter Vigil and they can go whenever they feel ready and they can go to our priest or any priest of their choosing. One of the candidates went during a regular scheduled time to receive the sacrament and was turned away because our pastor was caught off guard for a first confession. He told him to come back another time. This a new pastor for us…he’s been at our parish since June of 2016. I have been a catechist at my parish for 25 years and this is the way we have always done it and we were never told by the new pastor that there is now a new procedure. I have had a talk with the candidate and he said that everything was OK, but I have noticed that he is more quiet then normal and standoffish at our sessions. Was it appropriate for our pastor to refuse a first confession during a regular scheduled time?

Oh, this is an awkward and unfortunate situation. I am very sorry for the candidate.

In parishes where I have been the parish priest, I always made it clear that those who were coming into the Church had to make arrangement for their Confessions to be heard apart from either a public penance service or the regularly scheduled confession…whether they did so with me or with any other priest. Normally, I was the only confessor in the parish and a general confession of this sort can take significant time.

If someone comes on Saturday afternoon at the regularly scheduled time, it can take up most if not all of the allotted time…then I can have 15 upset penitents who wanted to be absolved. I can’t stay to keep hearing because I have a congregation of people who are waiting for the evening Mass to begin.

It is really unfortunate that just going at the regularly scheduled time was even given as an option…unless, perhaps, your parish is one fortunate enough to have multiple priests hearing confessions at the same time.

 

[1ke]

I have been a catechist at my parish for 25 years and this is the way we have always done it and we were never told by the new pastor that there is now a new procedure.

Perhaps it didn’t occur to you that this isn’t a new procedure, from your pastor’s perspective.

Sounds like maybe there is some lack of communication between you and your pastor. I would have had a sit down meeting with him at the beginning of RCIA and hashed out how he preferred to do things for the rites, for confession, for dismissal, for catechesis, etc.

Perhaps he was assuming you’d schedule first reconciliation.

Was it appropriate for our pastor to refuse a first confession during a regular scheduled time?

I’m not sure why you are trying to frame this as your pastor doing something “inappropriate” versus “appropriate”. You don’t seem to have considered that you had a part to play in this by what you did or didn’t do.

I’m sure it didn’t occur to you since your prior pastors have been OK with the random appearance of candidates for first confession. But, from your pastor’s perspective perhaps all his prior parishes scheduled it and had some sort of group examination of conscience followed by first confessions-- that is how my parish did it when I was a candidate. And I have always talked to my pastor(s) about how they want to do things since I’ve been running RCIA.

He’s human. He was caught off guard. He was not prepared to help someone through a first confession. Perhaps time was short. Perhaps there were others in line. Perhaps he wants to do something special with the candidates and therefore wanted to wait. I’m only speculating here because the way you find out is to actually talk to your pastor.

Is there a reason you haven’t made it a point to apologize for not checking with him on how he wanted to handle first confessions and how he would like to proceed from here through Mystagogy?

 

[shirleyz]

Thank you Father for your quick response. I can understand what you are saying and we will be following our pastor’s wishes in the future. When we spoke with our pastor,he was very upset with us. We told him, in a nice way, that we have always done it this way and if he wanted it done differently he should have told us. I feel our new pastor should have told us how he wanted it done. It would have saved a lot of embarrassment for our candidate and for us. God bless!

 

[shirleyz]

1KE…yes, we did apologize and so did our pastor for getting angry with us. When he first arrived at our parish we had a meeting about our RCIA program and he basically told us to just continue doing what we have always done. And you are right, we assumed that telling our candidates to go when they were ready was OK with him.

 

[1ke]

1KE…yes, we did apologize and so did our pastor for getting angry with us. When he first arrived at our parish we had a meeting about our RCIA program and he basically told us to just continue doing what we have always done. And you are right, we assumed that telling our candidates to go when they were ready was OK with him.

Gotcha!

Assumptions happen all the time, in our work and personal life. And sometimes they bite us.

The important thing is to make sure no one is assuming bad motives on the part of the other. Clearly the pastor didn’t realize what “keep doing what you are doing” implied. And you didn’t have a way to know some things weren’t included in that blanket statement.

You’ll get in a groove. The candidate is the important thing. They were probably embarrassed-- it’s hard to get up the courage to go do your first confession and he probably had a lot of anxiety. Take time to try to talk to them one-on-one outside of RCIA time. When others are around and everyone wants a piece of you… not the time to try to smooth it over with the candidate and get them to open up.

 

[Gorgias]

We told him, in a nice way, that we have always done it this way and if he wanted it done differently he should have told us.

When you had your little sit-down with him at the beginning – the one in which he “basically said keep doing what you’re doing” – did you tell him that you spring 1st confessions on him during regular confession time?

If not, then how could he have known that “he wanted it done differently” and would have to have told you?

p.s., besides which – when a new pastor comes to a parish, he generally tries not to change things right away, but rather, gets a feel for how things operate first. So, my bet is that he wouldn’t have wanted to say “do this and that and change this thing and that thing.” So, it wouldn’t have been foremost on his mind to delve into the details of how your RCIA program is run. I’m betting he might, though, now that ya’ll hit this little bump in the road…

 

[FrancescaMaria]

I wonder, does he also turn away someone who has not been to Confession for 10, 20 or 30 years? How would that be different? I agree that it is best for everyone to make an appointment when a longer time period needs to be covered, but I think it is not unusual that sometimes people who have been away for a while come to the regularly scheduled times.

 

[Gorgias]

I wonder, does he also turn away someone who has not been to Confession for 10, 20 or 30 years? How would that be different?

It would be quite different, I’d think. For the person who’s been away, it’s a matter of remembering what confession is like; for the person experiencing a first confession, the priest might want to take a different tack, explaining more about the mechanics of the confessional, etc, etc.

 

[TheDoctor]

I wonder, does he also turn away someone who has not been to Confession for 10, 20 or 30 years? How would that be different? I agree that it is best for everyone to make an appointment when a longer time period needs to be covered, but I think it is not unusual that sometimes people who have been away for a while come to the regularly scheduled times.

No one knows for sure, however what I am certain of is that Father would make a pastoral decision based on the circumstances just as he did with the OP. Throwing hypothetical situations up does not really address the situation (for me anyway).

 

[InThePew]

It would be quite different, I’d think. For the person who’s been away, it’s a matter of remembering what confession is like; for the person experiencing a first confession, the priest might want to take a different tack, explaining more about the mechanics of the confessional, etc, etc.

For what it’s worth, I just scheduled somebody’s 1st confession yesterday and this thread reminded me to make a time outside of our regular confession times since a 1st confession may take more longer since more direction is likely to be required from the priest.