Oh MAN, don’t get me started about indifferent priests hearing confession!!! OH MY GOSH, this is my NUMBER ONE pet peeve!!! URGH! I actually had to WAKE A PRIEST UP when I was done telling my sins once. I was so mad, I couldn’t contain myself, and freaked out in the sanctuary, in tears. I mean, I know that they still posess the power to absolve no matter what, but confession is supposed to be a healing sacrament, and I left that confessional more wounded than I was when I went in. I went home and called the diocese office, they put a priest on, and he acted like I was some kind of nut. This of course made things worse. On top of the sleeping priest, this guy made me feel insulted as well. I’ve had so many bad experiences. One was in Manhattan, at St. Francis on 33rd street, on Holy Saturday. There must have been 8 priests hearing confessions in different languages, one in English. There was a sign that stated the end time for confessions on each confessional door. The one hearing in English came out 15 minutes before the end time and SCREAMED (these confessionals were in the basement chapel, so picture an altar, tabernacle, pews, a crowd of people scattered praying) in a nasty voice, “This confessional will close in 15 MINUTES, I WILL HEAR NO MORE CONFESSIONS AFTER THAT!” He gave a clear message that he was miserable and didn’t want to be there. THen there was the priest at my new parish (he’s gone now) who couldn’t be bothered to stay in the confessional for the entire 30 minutes on Saturday, and would only stay until the ‘line’ was gone…who knows how long that took…so when we arrived 15 minutes before confession was supposed to end, only to find no priest, we called the rectory. He said that if we wanted him to hear our confessions, we could walk down to the rectory and he’d hear them. What, over tea in his living room??? This was in late December, and he expected us to walk 100 yards down an un-shoveled, icy sidewalk (all downhill), and there was me, 9 months pregnant. I pitched a fit again, this time in the parking lot. This did not bode well with me, as we had only just joined the parish THE WEEK BEFORE! Well, God has His own plan, and the priest resigned about two weeks after he baptised our daughter, for personal reasons. I think he didn’t want to be a pastor anymore.
Anyway, I do empathize with them, surely it is quite taxing to hear such horrible things over and over again, day after day, year after year. It must be demoralizing to hear the same voices repeat the same sins. I can understand why they might go in to ‘autopilot’ just to cope. But come on, this is a SACRAMENT!!! A very very CRUCIAL sacrament, essential to our spiritual health, and it deserves a significant amount of respect and dignity, from both confessor and confessee. I wish I knew of a proper way to deal with this problem. I wish there were diocesan protocols for dealing with this, helping priests to deal with the stresses, helping confessees to have a viable route to a valid, non-stressful confession. I feel for all the people who finally make it to confession after being away for years, only to have a bad experience. It wouldn’t take much to scare them away again. THink of how serious the impact of a bad confessional experience is. Yes, we must pray for priests, but there needs to be more. Both priests and laypeople have become far too cavalier about the sanctity and seriousness of this crucial sacrament.
Phew, sorry to rant, but I needed that. Just my :twocents: :twocents:
OH, I want to add that I have had some WONDERFUL experiences with the confessors at our diocese cathedral. They listen, give feedback, practical advise, and well-though and profound penances. Thanks be to God for their wonderful work!!!
