Posted on 02/21/2009 3:02:39 PM PST by Pyro7480
STAMFORD, Conn. — The day after Msgr. Stephen DiGiovanni was installed in June 1998 as the pastor of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church here, he walked through the quiet sanctuary, appreciating the English Gothic grandeur and tallying all the repairs it required.
One particular sight seized him. The confessional at the rear of the pews had been nailed shut. The confessional in the front, nearer the altar, was filled with air-conditioning equipment. And these conditions, Monsignor DiGiovanni realized, reflected theology as much as finance.
In the wake of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, the Catholic Church began offering confession in “reconciliation rooms,” rather than the traditional booths. Even before the setting changed, habits had. The norm for American Catholics was to make confession once a year, generally in the penitential period of Lent leading up to Easter.
Monsignor DiGiovanni, though, soon noticed that there were lines for the St. John’s reconciliation room the only time it was open each week, for two hours on Saturday afternoon. So within his first month as pastor, he pried open the door to the rear confessional, wiped off the dust of decades and arranged for replacing the lights, drapes and tiles.
Then, in the fall of 1998, Monsignor DiGiovanni rolled back the clock of Catholic practice, having St. John’s priests hear confession in the booths before virtually every Mass. By now, as another Lent commences next week with Ash Wednesday, upwards of 450 people engage in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as confession is formally known, during 15 time slots spread over all seven days of the week. Confessions are heard in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese....
“Confession as we once knew it is pretty much a dead letter in Catholicism today,” the Rev. Richard P. McBrien...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I love the confession booths in our church, and they are full and busy every Saturday afternoon. There are at minimum two priests working them. The church we RCIA’d in had a room. Seemed about as sacramental as a psychologist’s office. They said we only really needed to confess as a parish, together, and to join the CC we needed to think of one sin in our lives up until that time; the priest was busy and didn’t have a lot of time for confession! (run screaming! we did)
I’m with you, wtot. We have one old Irish priest who throws back the screen and sticks his face into the hole. I about jumped out of my skin, and I usually do not go to him. It is between me and the Lord.
Oh, and PS — the kids at our parish school are expected to go to confession too. The priest told me some parents put up a stink, but he stuck to his guns. :)
It was so sweet to see the little ones going bravely forward to tell Christ their sins, and their parents going before or after them and kneeling in the same way.
I think it's a great lesson for the kids that we are all subject to Christ - grownups and children alike.
That’s good news about St. Ambrose. I haven’t been to Mass there for quite awhile. Maybe it’s time...
The funny thing is that one of them will sometimes mention in the course of a homily that people should go to Confession. But how are they supposed to do that?
We have confessions 1/2 hour before every one of our eight weekend masses, so I have no clue what it’s like in a parish like yours.
My heart goes out to you!
I find it interesting that people say that the priests don't like to hear confessions. I guess it's a difference of place as so many of the priests I've gone to, including one pretty big name bishop, consider it a solemn and sacred duty and sit in those confessionals for hours. I guess we're just lucky.
At one of the big penance services, our rector (who's a heavy hitter and a very persuasive man) had an actual Cardinal who was in town for a Red Mass hearing confessions, as well as the retired Archbishop.
Our Parochial Vicar heard my confession, but my question is, do you say, "Bless me, Your Eminence, for I have sinned"!?!??!?
I'd guess that the formula ought to be the same for everyone from the newly ordained priest fresh out of seminary to the Holy Father himself, because it's Christ himself that forgives, but I'd like to KNOW.
we have confessions before all Sunday masses during advent and lent.
“The funny thing is that one of them will sometimes mention in the course of a homily that people should go to Confession. But how are they supposed to do that?”
There’s no way our priest could hear all the confessions of the parish, if more any than a slim % actually DID go to confession, at least in the time alotted. But it sounds as as if our priest is more “gung ho” about confession than your priest(s?).
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I occasionally go to the Latin Mass about 60 miles away, in Pittsburgh. Every single time I go, there is a long line for confessions. I was there two weeks ago and went to confession. I love going in the confessional. As the lady in the article said - it’s comforting. I got used to going to the face-to-face confession, but I’ve never been comfortable with it.
Historically, confessional booths did not come into the Church until after the Reformation. If you look at earlier woodcuts of confession—usually of people doing their annual Easter Duty—it involves the Pastor and several assistant priests seated on chairs in the front of the church, with long lines of parishioners waiting to confess and receive absolution.
The closed confessional booths began in Rome and spread through Europe beginning in the sixteenth century.
Having said that, they ARE now traditional, and confessing to a priest in a back room was never customary. The centuries old custom was broken by dissident-minded ritualist and bishops, mainly in order to break yet another custom and disrupt the sacrament. It was a way of saying, in effect, that confession isn’t really necessary.
I certainly support using the booths. More important, I support having many more time slots, including regularly schedule confessions before Mass for people who can’t easily get to the church at other times. That’s tiring for the priest and makes for a long Saturday night or Sunday; but it’s an essential part of his job to ensure that people receive the sacraments, and in particular that they go to confession after they have committed grave sins, and at least once a year during the Easter season.
Interesting comments about “face to face” confession. As you may know, we don’t have confessionals. We kneel before the icon of Christ for our confession with the priest standing beside us, with his epitrachelion over our heads. Afterward (or before) there is a face to face time for some spiritual counseling. I must say it never bothered me to confess that way and I can’t remember when the last time was that I went to confession with a priest who didn’t know who I was. The foregoing notwithstanding, I can’t see why anyone would complain about using a confessional, or would want to do away with them.
I have never done the face-to-face, and I pray I will never have to.
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