Strangest place you ever made a Confession?

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Also, is it okay to ask a Priest to hear a Confession if something is really bothering me outside of church? Let’s say in a grocery store, airport, on the street?

Would love to hear replies from lay folks and also from Priests if any out there.

Thanks****
 
Simon_X said:
Also, is it okay to ask a Priest to hear a Confession if something is really bothering me outside of church? Let’s say in a grocery store, airport, on the street?

Would love to hear replies from lay folks and also from Priests if any out there.

Thanks****
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It can be done anywhere. A priest heard my confession in a car park one time.
Father Benedict Groeschel has said people have approached him often when he’s on the way to catch a train and he’s heard their confession.
Obviously the most appropriate place is in church but a particular place is not necessary for a confession to be valid.
 
I’ve heard that the day Pope John Paul died, priests were all over Rome, hearing confessions in doorways.

The strangest place for me was a Starbucks, where I’d met a priest for coffee. The confession was unplanned. Actually I think it might have been him who told me about the confessions in Rome when I protested that Starbucks was a really weird place for confession.
 
The two strangest for me would be an industrial kitchen (the kind that makes hundreds of meals a day) and a very large closet
 
Walking through the training area (i.e. out in the sticks) of Camp Wainwright.

I was on a two-month NATO field exercise in Alberta (Rendez-Vous '85). Once during that time a military chaplain came out to our bivouac for a pastoral visit. I saw the black Latin cross over his name tag (I didn’t know at the time only Catholic padres wore the cross), I approached and said, “Excuse me, Padre, but are you a Catholic priest?” and he replied, “Sure, can’t you tell by my saintly aura?” 😃

So we went for a walk and I made my confession.
 
I ran into a Catholic priest on a cruise ship. He was the ship’s Chaplin for the week and I attended Mass almost every day.

One evening… while we were both sitting outside of the dinning room and waiting for the doors to open I asked the priest a personal confessional question that had been tormenting my soul.
He gave me some great advise.

BUT…at my church where the priests are so busy serving Thousands of church members’ needs… it is best to make an appointment if you need to confess right away.

We have 2,800 familes registered… so I am guessing we have 5,000 members.

There are some churches that have 10,000 members.

One time some of our priests went to a youth conferance and left us with just two priests. One priest said to us during Mass…
“Please don’t die or committ any sins this week we are short on help”. I laughed and thought it was funny. But quess what? I committed a sin and then I realized I had messed up our Priest’s plan.lol.
 
I have not confessed anywhere out of the ordinary, but I am reading St. Anthony Mary Claret’s autobiography right now, and when he was an archbishop in Cuba he traveled the countryside and would hear confessions and offer Masses in tobacco barns.
 
By a campfire, in the swamp in Louisiana, on a camping trip.
 
This is FAR from strange - but it was such a wonderful experience outside the confessional.

It was during Lent, and there were wonderful all evening confession dates at a local parish. They ran out of “real” confessionals, so they had little stations set up around the VERY large church with a priest in each one.

I got in a line and waited forever - then finally when it was my turn it struck me as I sat down that we were in the Eucharistic chapel!!! The elderly priest was amazing - I smiled and said to him before we started, “great location, Father!” 🙂 He said that he could not be in better company, and that it was such a blessing to hear confessions with Jesus by his side.

It was so emotional for me to say my confession in front of the tabernacle.

So - while it was not a strange place, it still wasn’t exactly normal.😉

~Liza
 
I wouldn’t say it was ‘strange’…on my first visit to Lourdes in 1986, I went to confession to a priest sitting on a wall between the Gave River and the Grotto.

But it was a pretty neat location, wouldn’t you say? 😃
 
Deacon_Ed_B said:
By a campfire, in the swamp in Louisiana, on a camping trip.
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Mine is similar: at a picnic table while on a camping trip. 🙂

Here’s what Canon Law says in regards to where Confession should be heard:
Can. 964 §1. The proper place to hear sacramental confessions is a church or oratory.
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§2. The conference of bishops is to establish norms regarding the confessional; it is to take care, however, that there are always confessionals with a fixed grate between the penitent and the confessor in an open place so that the faithful who wish to can use them freely.
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§3. Confessions are not to be heard outside a confessional without a just cause.
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So I guess it comes down to §3 and what constitutes a “just cause”. You could probably argue that anytime you’re in a state of sin and would have to wait more than a few hours for Confession at a Church would be a “just cause.”
 
Joe_5859 said:
Mine is similar: at a picnic table while on a camping trip. 🙂

Here’s what Canon Law says in regards to where Confession should be heard:

So I guess it comes down to §3 and what constitutes a “just cause”. You could probably argue that anytime you’re in a state of sin and would have to wait more than a few hours for Confession at a Church would be a “just cause.”
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Did not know this Joe, but would have to agree, don’t think most would ask to make a confession unless felt some need or sense of urgency. So, glad the priest are able to accommodate when they can…God Bless…
 
lizaanne said:
This is FAR from strange - but it was such a wonderful experience outside the confessional.

It was during Lent, and there were wonderful all evening confession dates at a local parish. They ran out of “real” confessionals, so they had little stations set up around the VERY large church with a priest in each one.

I got in a line and waited forever - then finally when it was my turn it struck me as I sat down that we were in the Eucharistic chapel!!! The elderly priest was amazing - I smiled and said to him before we started, “great location, Father!” 🙂 He said that he could not be in better company, and that it was such a blessing to hear confessions with Jesus by his side.

It was so emotional for me to say my confession in front of the tabernacle.

So - while it was not a strange place, it still wasn’t exactly normal.😉

~Liza
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Liza,

That is very cool…That reminds me of the time I made a Confession before the tomb of Father Flanagan at Boys Town (they have a separate chapel at their Church). The kneeler was set up before his above ground tomb. As you make your confession, you can feel the presence of this (future Saint) man. Of course, saying your confession in an adoration chapel would be very awesome. 👍
 
When our parish in Kentucky was building a new church and the old one had been torn down, we had Mass in the school gymnasium.

The “confessional” was in the janitor’s closet. Oddly appropriate, though — surrounded by buckets, mops, and cleaning supplies, we got a different kind of “cleaning.”
 
In an airport baggage claim area ( off in the corner of course).

I had been sitting next to a priest on a flight and my travel schedule at the time had not allowed me to get to confession with anything close to the frequency I liked.

So I asked the priest if he would hear my confession, and we agreed that after we got off the plane, we would find an appropriate spot.

So he heard my confession while we were waiting for our bags to arrive. 👍
 
When I was in college we went on a retreat at a camp someone had graciously let us use for the weekend. I went to confession in one of the bedrooms. I was going through some drama with a former boyfriend and former friend, and I received such excellent advice during that confession.

I’ve also been to confession at various locations in church - the cry room, the sacristy, a pew over on the side, but I don’t suppose that is exactly odd.
 
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