Questions about logistics of Confession

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SonofMonica

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Hi, I have a few questions about the logistics of Confession:

The Catechism states:
“Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eurcharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.” (#1415)
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Now, having attended a local Catholic parish for a couple of months now, I am confused as to how all these Catholics that are showing up to Mass and receiving communion every Sunday could possibly have been to confession in between. Confessions are at 4:15 on Saturday (45 mins. before 5:00 vigil) and then after the last Mass on Sunday.

So my question is, how in the world could people be properly confessing in this situation? On Saturday, it’s only allotted 45 mins. for confession before Mass for 300 people showing up? If you go to Mass on Sunday then you’d either have to beat out the crowd of 300 on Saturday or go to confession after Mass then try to go a whole week without sinning?

Every parishoner I see at the Church takes communion, so either somehow they’re all confessing (or not, illicitly) or I’m missing something. Is there some sort of rule that says if you have confessed within the last year then you’re okay, or something?

Thanks. :confused:
 
in Christian charity we are obliged to put the most generous possible interpretation upon any action we observe in our brothers and fellow parishioners, so we assume they have either confessed at another parish, or by appointment during the week, or are in a state of grace because they have not sinned mortally since there last confession. I agree wholeheartedly with what I assume is the spirit behind your question: does anybody, the priest or parishioners, care at all about sin and the need for confession any more? It is my personal opinion that there are not a few priests who do not fully appreciate (and I am trying to be charitable) the power and necessity for this great sacrament, because if they did, they would spend hours, not minutes, in the confessional, and their parishioners would get the message.
 
The answer (or part of it) is in your quotation from the Catechism:

**
Anyone aware of having sinned mortally
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must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.**

Believe it or not, quite a few Catholics manage to go for lengthy periods without sinning mortally.
 
I also wish there was more time dedicated to hear confessions,not only at Easter,but in ordinary time.
 
The lack of attention given to this sacrament by priests, bishops, all the way up to the Pope is a sore subject with me. Not educating and RE-educating Catholics about the REQUIREMENT of confessing mortal sins, (which include but are not limited to failure to Mass and then receiving Communion) is such a hypocrisy. It’s horribly irresponsible of priests, bishops, etc.

In our parish, couples who are “shacking up” and even having children out of wedlock go to Communion regularly. Folks who stumble into church only on special occassions including funeral masses receive Communion and I know for a fact that they haven’t been to Confession for years and years. When I tell some of them who are acquaintences what the Church requires they tell me that they just tell God that they’re sorry and that’s enough. They are very flippant about it so they really aren’t sorry to begin with. But how can you blame them when the priests NEVER, EVER mentions the subject of Confession or sin.

There is a big campaign going on now with a video shown after all masses a few weeks ago about raising money but there has never been one about how important it is to recognize a mortal sin, about the importance of confessing and being absolved and how this is required before receiving Communion. It just goes to show where the Church’s priorities are.
 
There are very many Catholics who manage to remain in a state of grace for long periods of time. There are also very many who need help to form their consciences about what constitutes mortal sin, and there are errors on both ends of the spectrum here. Some are too lax; some are too scrupulous. There are many who struggle mightily with issues of serious sin. And sadly, there are many who simply don’t give a darn.

In my diocese, I used to be very disappointed about the lack of emphasis on individual confessions. Many parishes had those awful communal penance services where there was only one priest and many hundreds of people, so they simply “had” to give general absolution without mentioning the obligation to confess mortal sins in an individual confession at the first opportunity. People flocked to those so they would not have to say their sins out loud. It was very sad.

Now, we have a wonderful new shepherd, Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who brought us a program for Lent this year called, “The Light Is ON For You.” Every Wednesday night during Lent, in every parish, a priest was in the church ready to hear confessions. A person could walk into literally ANY Catholic church on a Wednesday evening and be reconciled. There were ads on buses, in newspapers, on TV, and the Archbishop himself did the radio ads. Signs outside of parish churches proclaimed, “The light is on!” Many, many people availed themselves of this opportunity, and hopefully have decided to continue confessing regularly. We had an article in the Catholic paper quoting some priests who initially thought it would be a waste of time who were happily surprised to find lines of people waiting on Wednesdays. And one priest said he would do the whole program for the whole of Lent for the sake of one of the confessions he heard the first night. A person came back to the Church after over 30 years away.

God bless Archbishop O’Brien, and may more bishops follow his lead!

Betsy
 
baltobetsy said:
There are very many Catholics who manage to remain in a state of grace for long periods of time. Betsy
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Yes, for example I have gone over a week now without the need for confession! That means I have been to mass twice since my last confession. Hey, what can I say? It’s about progress, not perfection. 😃
 
Thanks all for the thoughtful replies. I certainly didn’t mean to impugn anyone’s motives or sincerity in presenting themselves for communion. It just seems odd, for example, that you wouldn’t have confession available, say, before Mass on Sunday instead of afterwards, and things such as that. Doesn’t exactly seem to promote confessions whenever you have it while people are normally leaving to go eat pot roast 🙂

I guess appointments are one answer, but it just doesn’t seem like that would be realistically happening for a parish of this size. shrug.

If the situation is really as bad as some of you are saying, it seems like there has been a failure to present Eucharist/Confession as two sides of the same sacrament, so to speak. There’s tons of Eucharistic language put forth in Church teaching (hence its draw to many) but there’s not a lot of mention in there about the requirement of Confession. If it is that vital, why isn’t it normally mentioned?

Do you think people are so uncatechized that they think that when the priest says “May God forgive us our sins and bring us into everlasting life” that’s good enough? Maybe people think that we can’t truly be guilty of mortal sin because it’s just our nature to sin and none of us really desires it? Maybe it’s because of ecumenism?
 
Confessions on Sundays ,say an hour before each Mass would be ideal.People would be freshly confessed and pure to receive communion.
But they should be offered also in the evenings( for an hour or hour and a half) two or three days during the week.Do not forget that some people attend daily masses and may need to confess in order to qualify for communion.
There are people on the other hand that do no accept the confessing to a priest,even if you explain to them,that the pastor is there by Christ’s mandate and represents him, and no matter how many hours the parish devotes to confessions.
They miss the point that in having to confess to another,(as opposed to in their own minds)
the ugliness of the sin becomes more apparent,and humility becomes necessary.
Confession is an equalizer for kings and paupers.It involves setting aside a time to examine your conscience and then go through all the steps, including the prayers assigned as penitence.
It is the love for Christ and the whole hearfelt experience that hopefully helps one keep away from further repeating the sin.It often bring tears to one’s eyes.
If one just says God forgive my sin,somehow it has not the same humbling qualities.
 
SonofMonica said:
Thanks all for the thoughtful replies. I certainly didn’t mean to impugn anyone’s motives or sincerity in presenting themselves for communion. It just seems odd, for example, that you wouldn’t have confession available, say, before Mass on Sunday instead of afterwards, and things such as that. Doesn’t exactly seem to promote confessions whenever you have it while people are normally leaving to go eat pot roast 🙂

I guess appointments are one answer, but it just doesn’t seem like that would be realistically happening for a parish of this size. shrug.

If the situation is really as bad as some of you are saying, it seems like there has been a failure to present Eucharist/Confession as two sides of the same sacrament, so to speak. There’s tons of Eucharistic language put forth in Church teaching (hence its draw to many) but there’s not a lot of mention in there about the requirement of Confession. If it is that vital, why isn’t it normally mentioned?

Do you think people are so uncatechized that they think that when the priest says “May God forgive us our sins and bring us into everlasting life” that’s good enough? Maybe people think that we can’t truly be guilty of mortal sin because it’s just our nature to sin and none of us really desires it? Maybe it’s because of ecumenism?
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I’d argue that there is a failure of catechesis, yes. It’s restricted neither to the Catholic church nor to the sacrament of confession.

There are plenty of non-Catholics (including Bishops such as Spong) who are so poorly catechised that they’ll disbelieve such fundamentals as the divinity of Christ and the reality of His resurrection, ignore His command to celebrate Communion, ignore His commandment against divorce (as exemplified by the COE blessing of Prince Charles’ adulterous marriage to the divorcee Camilla), ignore constant (held by all Christian churches until 1930) apostolic teaching against contraception and (even longer-lasting) abortion. Ignore seven books of the OT 🤷

While some or many Catholics may disagree with such teachings, most of them are at least better catechised than non-Cs on topics like the above.
 
LilyM said:
I’d argue that there is a failure of catechesis, yes. It’s restricted neither to the Catholic church nor to the sacrament of confession.

There are plenty of non-Catholics (including Bishops such as Spong) who are so poorly catechised that they’ll disbelieve such fundamentals as the divinity of Christ and the reality of His resurrection, ignore His command to celebrate Communion, ignore His commandment against divorce (as exemplified by the COE blessing of Prince Charles’ adulterous marriage to the divorcee Camilla), ignore constant (held by all Christian churches until 1930) apostolic teaching against contraception and (even longer-lasting) abortion. Ignore seven books of the OT 🤷

While some or many Catholics may disagree with such teachings, most of them are at least better catechised than non-Cs on topics like the above.
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No need to get defensive! I think you’re really talking about a failure to believe the right things as a Church, rather than a failure to teach one’s own beliefs. I’m not sure what basis we would have to demand that a non-Roman Catholic church teach Catholic teachings. It’s great if they do, but I wouldn’t call that a failure of catechesis, with the exception of the divinity of Christ stuff from Spong et al.

Episcopalians don’t teach contraception is wrong, because they hold that it isn’t wrong. By contrast, the official teaching of the Catholic church quite correctly teaches private confession, but it isn’t being taught. That’s what a failure of catechesis is.
 
SonofMonica said:
IIf the situation is really as bad as some of you are saying, it seems like there has been a failure to present Eucharist/Confession as two sides of the same sacrament, so to speak. There’s tons of Eucharistic language put forth in Church teaching (hence its draw to many) but there’s not a lot of mention in there about the requirement of Confession. If it is that vital, why isn’t it normally mentioned?

Do you think people are so uncatechized that they think that when the priest says “May God forgive us our sins and bring us into everlasting life” that’s good enough? Maybe people think that we can’t truly be guilty of mortal sin because it’s just our nature to sin and none of us really desires it? Maybe it’s because of ecumenism?
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Well, for venial sins, that is true - absolution at the start of Mass is ‘good enough’. One could argue that it’s equally uncatechised to say that we automatically have to go to confession before receiving.

And if one doesn’t intend to commit mortal sin, no mortal sin is committed, as mortal sin involves a rejection of God.

Eucharist/Confession aren’t necessarily two sides of the same coin, if by Confession you mean individual confession. We have to admit our unworthiness and ask forgiveness, which we do at the start of Mass in the Kyrie or equivalent. But Eucharist does not mean we have to have been in the box immediately beforehand, if no mortal sin has been committed.
 
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