Jun

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Confession

June 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The Vatican recently announced that it plans on publishing a handbook to help deal with the problem of the declining use of the Sacrament of Confession.  According to the LA Times,

“Archbishop Mauro Piacenza has told Vatican Radio the sacrament of penance has been experiencing a “deep crisis” for decades. Piacenza, an official for the Vatican office on clergy, says fewer people distinguish between good and evil, and as a result don’t go to confession.”

While I agree with the Cardinal’s statement, I don’t think a handbook will be enough. The Curt Jester and Creative Minority Report both have great posts on this. I agree with them that much more needs to be done to fix this. The problem is that while Catholics don’t value the sacrament, priests also don’t do enough to stress the importance of Confession or properly preach about it.

I have witnessed this first hand. About a year ago I was talking to a friend I know through a prayer and discussion group in my local diocese. At the same time a retired priest who serves as that group’s chaplain was also present. The topic of confession came up. This individual attends mass regularly with his wife and children. He also said that he attends Eucharistic adoration weekly.  But when it comes to confession, he hadn’t been in over three years. He said that he will go when he feels he has something important to confess and doesn’t like going with the usual “grocery list” of small sins.  What surprised me even more was the priest’s response. He actually said “Well, its very hard to commit a mortal sin. Under Church guidlines, mortal sins are not easy to commit.”  I think my mouth hit the floor on that one. I politely replied that I believe in frequent confessions regardless if its mortal or venial sins and that I didn’t agree with Father’s statement.

My friend then started complaining about the new pastor at his Church. He said that the pastor, during his homily, told the congregation that unless you are as sinless as the Virgin Mary, you should be using confession frequently.  My friend found it offensive that this priest said that and was stressing the need for confession so much in his parish. The pastor, who I know personally and respect, is a young but very conservative priest.  He hears confession for at least 30 minutes daily and 1 hour on Saturdays. How many other parishes offer daily confession?

This proves what I said earlier. We have Catholics who don’t understand or value confession and priests who are teaching just bad theology on the subject.  We need priests to emphasize that sin is real and confession is an important source of God’s mercy and graces rather than deny the seriousness of sin.  I know it would be difficult, but we need priests, like this young pastor,  to offer confession daily and stress our need for frequent confession.  This same pastor once said that he is amazed how long the lines for communion are and while the confession lines are so short.  We need more priests like this pastor, who have the courage to tell thier flock that if you haven’t been to confession in a long time, then you shouldn’t be receiving communion.  In order to rebuild our Church we need to start with ourselves and recognize the need for repentance and confession.  We often hear how we have lost respect and reverance for the Eucharist.  The first step in restoring that is frequent confession so that we can recieve the Body of Christ in a state of grace.

Click on this link for a good guide and list of resources about the Sacrament of Confession.  Catholic Home and Garden’s Confession Guide

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