Should my non-catholic wife and I go to confession for our son?

[dbowen2]

I was raised catholic and became protestant for many reasons including my wife (my wife is not catholic). Since having 5 and 7 year old boys, and wanting them to be raised in a Christ-centered school our children now attend a Catholic school and just recently were baptized.
My oldest son will be doing his first reconciliation next week and to support him, I will be doing it as well (teacher suggests that parents do it). I was wondering, can my wife do it as well without being a catholic to support our son? Just want to know…before she gets there. Do we still enter the closet and say, "bless me father, for I have sinned…and rattle off the sins?
The bible does instruct us to bear our sins onto one another…I’m just not sure how a non- catholic would do it without receiving the sacrament. I know that this is not a sacrament in the protestant world of affairs.

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Canon 844 §4. If the danger of death is present or if, in the judgment of the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, some other grave necessity urges it, Catholic ministers administer these same sacraments licitly also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.

While I do encourage you to go to confession at the same confessions service as your son, I don’t quite think the situation rises to the level of a “grave necessity” in which a Protestant would be permitted to receive the sacrament. For starters your wife as a Protestant, most likely, does not believe in the sacrament. Sacraments are where we encounter the presence and action of Jesus Christ, they are not things that we just “play act” or “go along with” for personal reasons.

When you enter the confessional, you kneel or sit (depending on the set up) and say, “Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been (amount of time) since my last confession and these are my sins…” You confess your sins, the priest will give you a penance to pray after confession, then you say the Act of Contrition and the Priest will conclude the sacrament with the words of Absolution.