Priests in the Confessional

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Recently I ran into some people online bashing Catholics for confessing their sins to a priest. Although most of us understand why this is necessary, I think that their confusion most likely comes from the priests in the confessional. I’m a young adult person, and for the majority of childhood life, my confessions were extremely vague (I didn’t say how many times I did this sin, or go into much detail). This ultimately lead to a bad habit of just confessing vague sins. But the worst part was that the priests didn’t help me break the habit.

That changed last year when I visited a new parish for confession, and in the confessional the priest bombarded me with questions. I thought to myself, “dude back off…why do you need to know?” I was embarrassed about some of my sins, and didn’t really want to tell him, so I just kinda lied. Afterwards, I made a mental note not to go to confession at that parish ever again. But after falling into the same sins over and over again, I realized I needed to change something.

I went back to the parish I disliked, even though I knew it would be uncomfortable. I gave the best confession I have ever given, and it was crazy how good I felt afterwards. The priest warned me about the dangers of my sins, and gave me instructions on how to pray to the holy spirit for help, what to pray for, and tips for overcoming some of my sins. It was the first time I really felt like the priest and I were friends, and that he was concerned with my soul. After all, we are really just talking to Jesus in the confessional.

What I am saying here, is that we really need to pray for more honest and strict priests. People have problems with the Catholic Church because it contains a lot of hypocrites, (obviously other denominations contain them too, but its just easier to gang up on us). Please help me with this prayer request
 
Rbaker said:
What I am saying here, is that we really need to pray for more honest and strict priests.
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As St. John Paul II used to point out, so many Catholics are sacramentalized but they’re not evangelized.

While I think wonderful confessors are an absolute treasure, the need for a deeper and more robust catechesis and evangelization extends beyond the confessional, and even beyond the priesthood.

By the way, I love your story, and I hope you’ll tell lots of folks about your experience. Confession is such an awesome Sacrament, it is such a shame that so many people are afraid of it or utterly ignore it.
 
LaetenturCaeli said:
As St. John Paul II used to point out, so many Catholics are sacramentalized but they’re not evangelized.

**While I think wonderful confessors are an absolute treasure, the need for a deeper and more robust catechesis and evangelization extends beyond the confessional, and even beyond the priesthood.
**
By the way, I love your story, and I hope you’ll tell lots of folks about your experience. Confession is such an awesome Sacrament, it is such a shame that so many people are afraid of it or utterly ignore it.
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Can’t tell you how much I agree with this.
 
We live in a culture that confuses flattery for friendship. Thus every criticism is interpreted as a direct personal attack (e.g. homosexual behavior). Priests need to be gentle in the confessional (we don’t the priest that hears a sin and says “WHAAT!? How could you do such a thing?”), but they do need to be firm, and warn them of the dangers, and seriously tell them the means they must use for amendment. I have a priest that’s like this, and it is good; you know he’s telling you the truth.

Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas
 
what a great story! you make me want to run to confession 🙂 I will help you with this prayer request.
 
I was worried about a sin and considered it grave, so I was eager to get to the confessional. To my surprise, the priest laughed. Talk about not what I expected.

To his credit, after the laugh, he gave me some very sound feedback and absolved me of my sin. He meant no malice, I think his personality was just showing through. I spoke to another priest (who is a friend of his) and said that he had done the same thing to him, so I don’t feel singled out or even resentful about it.

In hindsight now it just makes a good story.

Ryan
 
I think priests should be honest, firm yet realistic and gentle. It takes a lot to make yourself vulnerable before another person. Of course some penitents warrant stern or sharp corrections. There are many who do not think they have sins why discourage the few who do? I have never really had a priest who let me off the hook ever. I had priests laugh out loud to my confession but I was in my early teens perhaps the things I said were so petty or foolish.
 
Usually, with me, the priests at my parish understand if you’re struggling with a certain sin. They’ll be like, “Yes, it’s wrong, and you need to confess it, but you’ll probably be struggling with this sin for most of your life.” Other times, they’ll just kinda gloss over it.

But if you really do need a gut check, they’ll tell you that you need to shape up.
 
Since moving in February, I’ve been blessed to find an elderly Diocesan Priest, retired from “front line duty” who attends a Youth-Group every week and hears confessions during Adoration.

One of the first things he explained to me was something he read in a book during the 1940s, that warned young priests/seminarians that they should offer practical advice in the confessional and not “become a sacrament-dispensing machine.”
Father always welcomes me and asks how things are before we start. His advice often uses simple analogies that are very helpful, and is well in-tune with what I struggle with.

Every Priest, however, has their own unique way of helping the penitent (correct term?). Some I have had (those in my previous parish) try to be more encouraging, or try to explain the origin of the problem, and asked me to seek this out in my life and pray on it.

I believe that each have their practical merits in that time and place, and that God uses them to teach you different ways of understanding even those same sins / vices that we deal with.
 
You can choose your confessor, it’s written in code of Canon law, somewhere.
 
Proper catechesis on confession is a vital point here as well. Its all very well wanting good confessors, but so many Catholics don’t go to confession regularly anyway. I have heard people say for instance that the penitential rite at the start of Mass forgives all sins and therefore confession is no longer needed (or at least only once a year). More needs to be done to educate people on the need for confession.
 
I always want to know what is meant by firm?

Does it mean that he would say:“don’t do it”, he is very aware that the human psyche reacts to orders, he studied psychology sometimes during his life, the confessing person will do exactly the opposite and also addictive sins are to be taken into consideration, and ultimately Jesus will judge us.
 
I’m posting this from Canon Law in response to kdbueno’s comment, expanding on his reference. 🙂

*Can. 991 Every member of the Christian faithful is free to confess sins to a legitimately approved confessor of his or her choice, even to one of another rite.
*
vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P3H.HTM

I hope this helps.
 
I’ve been Catholic for just over a year, so my experiences are very limited. I often go to another parish for confession during the week. Recently while the pastor was away there was a fairly new priest hearing confessions. He took a lot of time hearing each confession. In fact he took so long that not everyone who was there could confess. The first time he was hearing confessions I was one who had to leave without confessing. This annoyed me greatly of course.

When he did hear my confession it was interesting. He asked a lot of questions. Interestingly twice he started to ask me a question but then said he remembered I had already told him about what he was asking about. I don’t remember telling him the answers and don’t remember saying something related that would have given him the knowledge he sought. Maybe he confused me with someone else, but I doubt it.

He really tried to get to the root of my sins. He got on to me a bit. It was an uncomfortable confession. It took way longer then I wanted. I had things to do after all! But it was a great experience. It really helped me to get serious about tackling some of my sins. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I’d want every week. But it was a necessary jolt my spiritual life needed.
 
exnihilo said:
I’ve been Catholic for just over a year, so my experiences are very limited. I often go to another parish for confession during the week. Recently while the pastor was away there was a fairly new priest hearing confessions. He took a lot of time hearing each confession. In fact he took so long that not everyone who was there could confess. The first time he was hearing confessions I was one who had to leave without confessing. This annoyed me greatly of course.

When he did hear my confession it was interesting. He asked a lot of questions. Interestingly twice he started to ask me a question but then said he remembered I had already told him about what he was asking about. I don’t remember telling him the answers and don’t remember saying something related that would have given him the knowledge he sought. Maybe he confused me with someone else, but I doubt it.

He really tried to get to the root of my sins. He got on to me a bit. It was an uncomfortable confession. It took way longer then I wanted. I had things to do after all! But it was a great experience. It really helped me to get serious about tackling some of my sins. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I’d want every week. But it was a necessary jolt my spiritual life needed.
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This was really great to read. I am not currently Catholic. I attended the last part of RCIA this last spring and plan to attend again starting this fall with the hopes of joining the Church next Easter. I feel I can relate to your post partly because the priest at our current Church often challenges people. He isn’t afraid of addressing some of the tougher issues and often asks people to think twice about why the Church holds the positions it does.

I have not been able to make a confession yet but I am at the point where I know I want to join the Church and I have begun to think of all that I will confess when the time comes. I have really come to respect our priest and hope that he doesn’t see me in a different light, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder what he will say in the confessional. Because this would be a first confession and I have already had to live with these sins for a while now, I feel like I have already self analyzed a lot of it, however I hope that he is just as critical and offers some good insight as the priest did in your case.
 
exnihilo said:
I’ve been Catholic for just over a year, so my experiences are very limited. I often go to another parish for confession during the week. Recently while the pastor was away there was a fairly new priest hearing confessions. He took a lot of time hearing each confession. In fact he took so long that not everyone who was there could confess. The first time he was hearing confessions I was one who had to leave without confessing. This annoyed me greatly of course.

When he did hear my confession it was interesting. He asked a lot of questions. Interestingly twice he started to ask me a question but then said he remembered I had already told him about what he was asking about. I don’t remember telling him the answers and don’t remember saying something related that would have given him the knowledge he sought. Maybe he confused me with someone else, but I doubt it.

He really tried to get to the root of my sins. He got on to me a bit. It was an uncomfortable confession. It took way longer then I wanted. I had things to do after all! But it was a great experience. It really helped me to get serious about tackling some of my sins. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I’d want every week. But it was a necessary jolt my spiritual life needed.
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I had a very similar experience recently! I’m a new Catholic, and so I have the same limitations in my experience. I had also (until recently) only ever attended Confession with one of the two priests in my parish, both of whom know me well (and are thus familiar with most of the major events/challenges/struggles in my life).

While I was attending catechesis in WYD, I realized that I really NEEDED to take advantage of the opportunities for Confession. I do believe it was the Holy Spirit leading me to the particular confessor I chose (picked only on the basis that he could hear Confessions in English), because it was an incredible experience (though I like to believe anyone who volunteered to hear confessions at WYD would be equally as skilled and as kind).

When I confessed the sins I had identified, he started asking me all these questions that seemed, to me, completely unrelated to what I had been there to confess - until he asked one about a particularly painful situation in my life (that I thought I had under control) and in trying to answer it, I just broke down in tears.

It was such an eye-opening moment for me. First, this was really when God’s mercy and love crystallized for me as more than just an abstract concept as this priest, who I had known for only minutes, sat there with one hand on my head to comfort and support me while I cried - I’m not a “feelings” person, but in that moment I could feel all the love and compassion that God has for us. Second, it let me see how I was ignoring an important part of my spiritual life, by shoving difficult situations down and putting on a brave face instead of really turning to God and asking for His help and support, and how that neglect was leading me to other sins. Third, if ever I needed help to believe that it really is God working through the priest in the confessional, that was the moment it was given to me - I will always marvel at how that priest knew to ask the questions he did. And yet I am so glad he did ask them, because the lasting peace I’ve gained, the experience I can carry away has been simply invaluable.
 
Rbaker said:
Recently I ran into some people online bashing Catholics for confessing their sins to a priest. Although most of us understand why this is necessary, I think that their confusion most likely comes from the priests in the confessional. I’m a young adult person, and for the majority of childhood life, my confessions were extremely vague (I didn’t say how many times I did this sin, or go into much detail). This ultimately lead to a bad habit of just confessing vague sins. But the worst part was that the priests didn’t help me break the habit.

That changed last year when I visited a new parish for confession, and in the confessional the priest bombarded me with questions. I thought to myself, “dude back off…why do you need to know?” I was embarrassed about some of my sins, and didn’t really want to tell him, so I just kinda lied. Afterwards, I made a mental note not to go to confession at that parish ever again. But after falling into the same sins over and over again, I realized I needed to change something.

I went back to the parish I disliked, even though I knew it would be uncomfortable. I gave the best confession I have ever given, and it was crazy how good I felt afterwards. The priest warned me about the dangers of my sins, and gave me instructions on how to pray to the holy spirit for help, what to pray for, and tips for overcoming some of my sins. It was the first time I really felt like the priest and I were friends, and that he was concerned with my soul. After all, we are really just talking to Jesus in the confessional.

What I am saying here, is that we really need to pray for more honest and strict priests. People have problems with the Catholic Church because it contains a lot of hypocrites, (obviously other denominations contain them too, but its just easier to gang up on us). Please help me with this prayer request
Click to expand...
I like when priests are direct too. I have a very good confessor in that way. I think it just shows that they’re orthodox, and plus they care about our salvation. 🙂 I was taught that lying in confession or leaving things out (even intentionally leaving out number of times), results in an invalid confession - so the person has to basically repeat everything again, if they remember. Things we forgot get forgiven anyway, but if we remember them later, we need to say them too.

Making a good Confession really does give graces, and gives a lot of peace interiorly, I’ve found. I’m glad that this priest helped you 🙂 I think that just emphasizing the fact that we are essentially meeting Jesus in this Sacrament, can help a lot of people who don’t see the need for Confession.

God bless you!
 
Monica4316 said:
I like when priests are direct too. I have a very good confessor in that way. I think it just shows that they’re orthodox, and plus they care about our salvation. 🙂 I was taught that lying in confession or leaving things out (even intentionally leaving out number of times), results in an invalid confession - so the person has to basically repeat everything again, if they remember. Things we forgot get forgiven anyway, but if we remember them later, we need to say them too.

Making a good Confession really does give graces, and gives a lot of peace interiorly, I’ve found. I’m glad that this priest helped you 🙂 I think that just emphasizing the fact that we are essentially meeting Jesus in this Sacrament, can help a lot of people who don’t see the need for Confession.

God bless you!
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Intentionally lying or withholding a mortal sin is grounds for the Confession being invalid.
God bless you!
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And to you!
 
Rbaker said:
Recently I ran into some people online bashing Catholics for confessing their sins to a priest. Although most of us understand why this is necessary, I think that their confusion most likely comes from the priests in the confessional. I’m a young adult person, and for the majority of childhood life, my confessions were extremely vague (I didn’t say how many times I did this sin, or go into much detail). This ultimately lead to a bad habit of just confessing vague sins. But the worst part was that the priests didn’t help me break the habit.

That changed last year when I visited a new parish for confession, and in the confessional the priest bombarded me with questions. I thought to myself, “dude back off…why do you need to know?” I was embarrassed about some of my sins, and didn’t really want to tell him, so I just kinda lied. Afterwards, I made a mental note not to go to confession at that parish ever again. But after falling into the same sins over and over again, I realized I needed to change something.

I went back to the parish I disliked, even though I knew it would be uncomfortable. I gave the best confession I have ever given, and it was crazy how good I felt afterwards. The priest warned me about the dangers of my sins, and gave me instructions on how to pray to the holy spirit for help, what to pray for, and tips for overcoming some of my sins. It was the first time I really felt like the priest and I were friends, and that he was concerned with my soul. After all, we are really just talking to Jesus in the confessional.

What I am saying here, is that we really need to pray for more honest and strict priests. People have problems with the Catholic Church because it contains a lot of hypocrites, (obviously other denominations contain them too, but its just easier to gang up on us). Please help me with this prayer request
Click to expand...
WOW! What a GREAT testimony and evidence of ONE of the reason’ s Jesus DID institute the Sacrament of Confession {John 20:19-23} is precisely specific and clear.

Catholic sacramental Confession is the SACRAMENT of Known Forgiveness.

What out Protestant Brethren do is a 16th century very human invention; not God’s way.

Pray much
and here’s a hint Jesus gives us
**
Take Up your Cross and Follow Me**
Phil.2: 8 “And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross Luke.9 :23 And he said to all, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.Mark.8: 34 And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Luke.9: 23 And he said to all, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke.14: 7 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”

Patrick
 
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