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TimothyH
Guest
Those are your words, not mine. You are the one talking about a cardboard box, not me.
I said a decorative room divider for confession. Those were my words.
This is all I’m talking about.
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I said a decorative room divider for confession. Those were my words.
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babochka
Guest
In my experience, Confessions lines are most linked to its convenient availability and the attitude of the pastor.
The Cathedral downtown, with traditional confessionals, always has a line during its lunchtime confessions. I’ve never been there at other confession times, so I don’t know.
Another parish has confessions before every Sunday Mass. They have Masses every hour on the hour in the tiny church and the confessionals are inside the church, so Confessions are happening while Mass is going on. Always a line.
Another nearby suburban parish built in the 80s (ugly, with Reconciliation rooms - but always an option for a screen) has a fantastic priest who really values the Sacrament and preaches on it. Confession lines are long. Really long.
Another local parish always has lines, often 10-15 deep for each of 3 priests. They offer confession three times each week and have something in-between a confessional and reconciliation room. (No cozy seating and soft lighting, but it is a room, with a screen and kneeler that you can walk around to reach a chair.)
My own parish always has 3 or 4 people in line, with no confessional and no reconciliation room. Just an icon of Jesus. That’s not a long line, but we are a parish of 20 families, so not bad. We offer confession for 30 minutes before every service, which for most people means Sunday morning. My pastor preaches regularly on the need for confession.
The FSSP parish, with its confessionals and multiple scheduled time each week, plus the emphasis of the priests on the sacrament always has lines.
Another parish that I’ve tried to go to, but never succeeded, has traditional confessionals. They offer confession for 30 minutes each week, purportedly. I’ve tried three times, and the church has been locked up tight, with nobody else around each time.
Just anecdotal, of course, but I personally have not noticed a correlation between the style of confessional and the number of people approaching the sacrament.
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JuniperoSerra
Guest
I have never noticed this. Not ever.
However I have noticed that the best priestly confessors here locally have far more demand for their services than other priests.
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babochka
Guest
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otjm
Guest
That, however, is likely to be due to issues other than the style of the confessional.
Two of our local parishes have long lines for confession, one more often than the other, and both have reconciliation rooms. In fact, one of them has lines long enough that if you get there less than a half hour before confessions end, you stand a really good chance of not getting in. It has less to do with style than it does to the general attitude of the parish towards reconciliation.
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otjm
Guest
This question is not being addressed, so here goes. Can you cite with reasonable approximation the place (parish and diocese) where abuses have occurred, the year and if possible the month? Or is this just a question because that is what you would prefer to have?
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Phemie
Guest
You’re right that it probably would be a good thing to bring back. Seriously, did our parents worry about someone overhearing them as they knelt behind a curtain before the 60s renovations? We all learned to stay a respectful distance from the confessional and to concentrate on things other than what was being murmured inside. And we all hoped for a priest who’d wasn’t hard of hearing.
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Phemie
Guest
My only experience in recent decades have been what I’ve noticed during Lent and Advent Penitential Services.
The priest who is assigned the reconciliation room, where there is a possibility of anonymity, is always the one with the longest line. The ones where there is simply a kneeler and chair in the open, whether in the sanctuary in full view of the congregation or out of view in another room, tend to get much less traffic.
Of course it may also have all been a coincidence, having more to do with WHO was assigned or chose to hear confessions in the reconciliation room than with the space itself.
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phil19034
Guest
I don’t have any specifics. I have heard of accusations of abuse happening during confession (don’t know the truth of it). There was also the youth protection program I went through with the Church that says no one should be alone with a child.
So it just came to me, that by moving back to confessionals (modern ones which allow the option of sitting and allow the option of faces to face) you could keep the priest physically seperate from the person confession, protecting both from harm.
NOTE: I trust out priests. I see this more as a why to protect them from lies, but to also protect our kids if there is a predatory priest still out there
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otjm
Guest
Rumors are just that. I seriously doubt that abuse has occurred during confession, no matter the format of the confessional. I know of no instances from the history we have of actual abuse of children by priests that occurred in a reconciliation room. I have followed the information which has come out about priests abusing children; and I cannot say that I have head all of the stories; but I have yet to hear of abuse of a child in those circumstances.
And if one thinks about it, that is one of the most unlikely places a priest would abuse a child, if for no other reason than that there are normally others waiting outside the reconciliation room, and there is limited time to abuse - coupled with the child walking out of the room. No priest knows how many are waiting outside.
In other words, I find it highly unlikely either that abuse has ever occurred there, or ever will. The abusers, as far as I can ascertain, were always careful to have their victim in an isolated place and time.
the short of it is that i am fully aware of abusing priests, and while that is an issue (abuse), it does no good to posit something which appears entirely out of the realm of any reported facts. It is one thing to be aware of the problem, to be on guard against it, and to not minimize the possibility. It is another to posit something which makes no sense whatsoever.
In short, it is a non issue.
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TimothyH
Guest
I’m more concerned with a priest yelling or getting angry with my children in the confessional than I am concerned about sexual abuse. My children and I have three regular confessors. I know them well and would trust them with my children’s lives.
If you don’t send your children into the confessional for two or three minutes because they might be sexually abused then you had better not let them be alone in the dentists chair. Better home school too. And don’t let them go to play at their friend’s house, ever.
Quite frankly, I find the sexual abuse argument silly.
-Tim-
If you don’t send your children into the confessional for two or three minutes because they might be sexually abused then you had better not let them be alone in the dentists chair. Better home school too. And don’t let them go to play at their friend’s house, ever.
Quite frankly, I find the sexual abuse argument silly.
-Tim-
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phil19034
Guest
I guess I agree, but again I’m thinking more about protecting the priests from false claims and being able to say on paper that “children are never alone in a room with an adult”
Again, 99.9% of my post was a why to protect the priests more than anything
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dans0622
Guest
That wouldn’t be my preference. For me, the smaller the space, the better.
I’d support spending money on something more substantial and, thereby, giving people jobs.
Dan
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Elizium23
Guest
Amen. Iconoclasm such as being opposed to elaborate church furnishings is counterproductive. For example, in my parish the pastor has undertaken an extended project to beautify the inside of the church, from altar pieces to statues, and marble facings and other adornments. Some people looked at the new additions and said “why not give that money to the poor?” and I helpfully brought up that we are; the artist who is building all the statues and adornments is a very poor man In Mexico with a large family. Through the patronage of the parish he is able to support himself and probably his whole village more effectively.
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