We Don't Need Confession Anymore, Do We?

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In my parish, more than a thousand people receive the Blessed Sacrament every week. But the line for reconciliation is just a handful of the same old sinners.

Did we miss a memo?
 
I am also wondering why that is? This is why my husband says that Catholics are hypocritcs. I was the same until just a month ago. I was in a continual state of mortal sin by receiving the Eurcharist with unconfessed mortal sins. I believe everyone is in mortal sin with the standards that the Catholic Church gives us.
 
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cargopilot:
Did we miss a memo?
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LIQUID WARNING! LIQUID WARNING!

(Oh bother. Now Dad has to clean the coffee out of the keyboard again!)
 
Why do so many people ignore the grace that is received by seeking the sacrament of Penance?
 
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Melanie01:
Why do so many people ignore the grace that is received by seeking the sacrament of Penance?
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There is so much confusion over post-Vatican Council II changes. I have heard older people say, “It USED TO be that you had to go to confession before Mass.”

I remind people that it still is the rule, but they don’t seem to believe me.
 
Honestly, I don’t think some people know… If I was asked last year whether or not one could recieve the Eucharist in the state of Mortal Sin, I probably would have said yes… And no one ever told me… I found out on my own when I began to study deeper into my faith.
 
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Melanie01:
Why do so many people ignore the grace that is received by seeking the sacrament of Penance?
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Have you looked up confession times in parishes in your neighborhood? In my diocese, most parishes have confession once a week, 30 minutes max, at a time that doesn’t correspond to a Mass.

I think two things need to happen to bring people back to this sacrament:
    • People need to hear regularly from their priests that their soul is in danger without the sacrament; and they need to be told what daily actions many people may engage in that would constitute a mortal sin.
    • The sacrament needs to be widely available before each Mass (and especially not only “by appointment”).
At my TLM parish, confession starts at 30 minutes before each Mass and goes right up to the Sanctus. Whereas most parishes don’t have enough penitents to keep the priests occupied, my parish doesn’t have enough priests to hear everyone’s confession.

I don’t say this to start an argument, but we regularly hear the message I noted above, and we have fairly broad access to the sacrament. It is taken very seriously. I believe this approach would find success in every parish. Or it would at least be a good start.
 
In our parish, we have confession every Saturday for an hour, and usually have 2-3 priests. The lines are long at all confessionals and the ages run the gamut from the young to the old. When we have penance services during Lent, the church is full, with at least 8 priests available for the congregation. At least in my parish, it looks like the Sacrament is alive and well. 👍
 
Scotty PGH:
Have you looked up confession times in parishes in your neighborhood? In my diocese, most parishes have confession once a week, 30 minutes max, at a time that doesn’t correspond to a Mass.

I think two things need to happen to bring people back to this sacrament:
    • People need to hear regularly from their priests that their soul is in danger without the sacrament; and they need to be told what daily actions many people may engage in that would constitute a mortal sin.
You’re so right. I think maybe the priests are afraid of driving away parishiners by doing that.
    • The sacrament needs to be widely available before each Mass (and especially not only “by appointment”).
Right, again. But in my parish, the scheduled, once a week, time for confession is hardly visited. Often, Father just sits there, by himself. If no one comes, why bother.

At my TLM parish, confession starts at 30 minutes before each Mass and goes right up to the Sanctus. Whereas most parishes don’t have enough penitents to keep the priests occupied, my parish doesn’t have enough priests to hear everyone’s confession.

That’s one of the many reasons I love attending the TLM, when I can. I really feel I’ve ‘been to Mass.’

I don’t say this to start an argument, but we regularly hear the message I noted above, and we have fairly broad access to the sacrament. It is taken very seriously. I believe this approach would find success in every parish. Or it would at least be a good start.
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I do wish the priests would crack down on this, as the FSSP parish priests have. Either people just don’t know or don’t care. After the TLM, it’s a little painful and embarrasing to return to my home parish.
 
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Tonks40:
In our parish, we have confession every Saturday for an hour, and usually have 2-3 priests. The lines are long at all confessionals and the ages run the gamut from the young to the old. When we have penance services during Lent, the church is full, with at least 8 priests available for the congregation. At least in my parish, it looks like the Sacrament is alive and well. 👍
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I sure wish I could say that.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon9.gif
 
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Melanie01:
Why do so many people ignore the grace that is received by seeking the sacrament of Penance?
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Because if they even know that contraception, masturbation, pornography, are sins at all, they know they will be expected to give it up. So they prefer to fly by the seat of their malformed “conscience,” thinking that “conscience” gives them an out.

I sound like a cynic but 90 percent of the time when people stay away from confession, it has to do with dread of confessing sexual sin. But you could throw in missing Mass on Sunday (huh? Is that still a sin since Vatican II?).

As an earlier poster noted: a lot of people do not have the first idea of what constitutes mortal sin.

Oops. Gotta call my confessor. I’m due this weekend.
 
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Cargopilot:
Often, Father just sits there, by himself. If no one comes, why bother.
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Cargopilot,

I totally understand what you are saying. It must be a little disheartening for the priests. But, I think it is also fitting, in a way. I mean sometimes there is an adoration chapel (without exposition) and the chapel sits empty for maybe days at a time too. I would hate to see priests pull back on scheduling confession times because no one is coming. I think that the grace of sacramental forgiveness should just be made available – and that there is a kind of nobility to it – and well, if no one comes for a whole year and then even one person shows up, it was worth it.

The Fr. Solanus Casey center in Detroit, Michigan has this posted on the door:
**
**Confessions: **
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Monday–Saturday (except National Holidays)
On the hour at: 10, 11, Noon, 2, 3, & 4 PM **

Wow!! :yup:
Fr. Solanus Casey, wasn’t even able to hear confessions! He was simplex priest. And yet people lined up to talk to him. Someone who knew him once told me that he would sometimes physically push people into the confessional when he heard their problems.
🙂

He is now venerable – on the road to beatification.
 
Scotty PGH:
Have you looked up confession times in parishes in your neighborhood? In my diocese, most parishes have confession once a week, 30 minutes max, at a time that doesn’t correspond to a Mass.
Click to expand...
Yup. My parish is better than a lot of others in the area, scheduled time is for a whole hour on Saturdays (most parishes only have 30 min.). It is difficult, though. I work every third Saturday, and it seems like those are the days when I need to go in for confession. Since the only parish near my job that has confession time has it at the most inconvenient time possible for my job, I have to drive back home and pray that I make it before 4pm, then drive back to work.

As sad as it is, I can understand why many don’t go- it is a big hassle, and if you’re not properly catechised, why would you put yourself through that?
 
Another problem is that people no longer realize that they are in a state of mortal sin.

A refresher course could be used by all…
 
…i respectfully submit, that we need the sacrament of reconcilliation more now then ever before…

Pride commeth before the fall…

…and i think we are wobbely now…IMHO…

 
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SeekerJen:
Yup. My parish is better than a lot of others in the area, scheduled time is for a whole hour on Saturdays (most parishes only have 30 min.). It is difficult, though. I work every third Saturday, and it seems like those are the days when I need to go in for confession. Since the only parish near my job that has confession time has it at the most inconvenient time possible for my job, I have to drive back home and pray that I make it before 4pm, then drive back to work.

As sad as it is, I can understand why many don’t go- it is a big hassle, and if you’re not properly catechised, why would you put yourself through that?
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Come to SS Cyril and Methodius in Sterling Heights!
We have confessions 1/2 hour before every Holy Mass. Yes, every one! Even 6 am weekdays. See Father Val if you can. A wonderful confessor!

saintcyrils.org/
 
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PiusXIII:
There is so much confusion over post-Vatican Council II changes. I have heard older people say, "It USED TO be that you had to go to confession before Mass."I remind people that it still is the rule, but they don’t seem to believe me.
Click to expand...
Before Vatican II we were only required to go to confession before Mass if we were in mortal sin and wanted to receive communion. If one was in mortal sin, then confession was required once per year in Easter Time. Most of us were so afraid of dying before confessing our mortal sins that we went much more often. What puzzles me is that those rules never changed, yet many of us who were around well before Vatican II aren’t showing up for confession either. We certainly should be knowledgable about what is a mortal sin and all of that because we heard it all in school, from the pulpit, and in confession many many times. I can understand why the recent generations don’t get it, but us oldsters? Maybe its tied into the same problem that so many priests and nuns were so ready to bail out almost immediately after Vatican II. Some pressure already building up to leave was maybe stimulated because Vatican II didn’t make the changes that are still being fruitlessly pursued by some groups today, like abortion, voting rights on Church matters, married or women priests, and so on and on and on? I am thinking that an awful lot of the pre-Vatican II confessions were sexual sins and since we have rejected all of that mess as sin, we sin no more. A dangerous self deception.
 
3 years ago, as I went through R.C.I.A., the Sacrament of Reconciliation was not emphasized at all. When I asked my sponsor about it, she said she went once a year as it was only for those in mortal sin. I decided to investigate myself, went to a Catholic bookstore, and bought a copy of “A Guidebook For Confession” with a forward of the words of John Paul II in an address to American bishops 4/15/83. I’m so glad I did. The Sacrament has become an integral part of my spiritual life.
I can’t speak for others, but I certainly do need it.
 
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