This scene in Albany speaks volumes about the state of confession in America. The sacrament, once a pillar of Catholic practice, is crumbling. And the way people confess, both what they say and where they say it, is shifting from the old laundry lists of minor misdeeds recited in austere anonymous boxes.
Only 26 percent of Catholics go to confession at least once a year, according to a 2005 poll by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. A University of Notre Dame study in the early 1980s put the number at 74 percent.
That is a huge decrease but doesn't surprise me. Stop the silly homilies about social justice and start back to basics. Frustrating. I have hope the shift will start turning the other direction. If not in my lifetime, then my children's.
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i quite agree! A parent (non-Catholic) was asking me about confession today & another non-Catholic mom was asking could she go! i mean it's drippy catholics who can't see the benefits!
From my very own diocese!
I read in the archives of This Rock about a parish where the priests make themselves available for confession every day, for several hours a day -- and the lines are always around the block. Why? Because the priests constantly preach to their parishioners that they are sinners in need of repentance!
Happily there is a Church in the neighboring diocese which has confession daily before and after each Mass. There is always a line, and very often more than one priest available. Sadly Iknow of no such Churches in my own diocese that do this. My husband who is on the parish council suggested having confession prior to Mass on the first Sunday of the month. Of course the idea was shot down. For some reason Churches here want to have confession available at the least convenient times of the day. Average church goers aren't going to remember or set aside odd times on a Saturday to do something rarely talked about or encouraged. We never go to our own parish for confession because it is difficult to get our family out the door early on a Saturday Morning. We are so happy to have the option of going across the river, but feel bad that we cannot be part of our own parish on those days. God bless
My husband who is on the parish council suggested having confession prior to Mass on the first Sunday of the month. Of course the idea was shot down. For some reason Churches here want to have confession available at the least convenient times of the day.
This is what we get when we have lay people usurping the authority of priests. Priests have more at stake than lay council members: priests must answer to God for the souls of their parishioners!
In the local church here, there are no confessionals. No one wants to go to confession because you are sitting in the back of a very small church behind a screen, really everything said can be heard. The people in the church usually talk to try to cover the confessions, but that isn't good either. So most will not go. There is one church in the diocese that has confessions daily, several times. We go there, or to a parish that has confessionals. Who designs a Catholic church building without confessionals? I have to wonder.
Priests have more at stake than lay council members: priests must answer to God for the souls of their parishioners!
Scary thought isn't it? Especially when you witness the lame, feel good homilies that are meant to appease everyone and result in making them complacent in their sins. Priests really need our prayers.
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