Everything You Knew is Wrong

Today, the homily was about how important the sacrament of reconciliation is and how people don’t use it enough today.  I wondered where this came from (after all, we had a few people in line who didn’t make it in to confession before mass started) and then I was skimming this morning’s newspaper and saw this article that ran in the paper today.  Maybe a coincidence, maybe not…

The article will eventually be deleted, so I’ll quote out some of my favorite passages.

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.

It’s an alarming trend for Catholic leaders, who see confession as essential to spiritual health. What’s at stake is a route, laid out in the Bible, to examine your conscience, overcome sin and achieve grace.

Signs of concern keep popping up. Pope Benedict XVI talked up the sacrament in at least three recent public appearances, even casting it in modern psychological terms as a remedy for “guilt complexes.”

…

O’Toole also pointed to a new emphasis since the 1960s on the social dimensions of sin, the notion that sin isn’t so much “I punched my sister” as it is things like racism, sexism and damaging the environment. Stuff that’s generally harder to talk about in the confessional.

The professor added that rates of Communion skyrocketed after Vatican II in the 1960s, while rates of confession plummeted. Catholics, he said, got the idea that the Eucharist itself provided forgiveness. For minor sins, Doyle said, that’s true.

All of that is much more complicated than the simple reason one parishioner offered for why she prays every night but hasn’t confessed in at least 15 years.

“I feel like I don’t need somebody between me and God,” said Ginny Hartkern, 59, of St. Brigid’s Church in Watervliet. “I think you can speak directly to God. You don’t need an intermediary.”

…

So is there any bright spot in the Catholic confession landscape?

Yes. Several Catholic priests agreed that the few people who still use the sacrament are using it really well.

Today’s penitents are far more likely to talk about “sins of omission,” as Doyle put it. People might lament their failures to put in enough effort at work, say, or to be generous with their money or time.

The Rev. Paul Smith, sacramental minister at churches in Altamont and Berne, said parishioners now delve into things like bigotry — into the attitudes that underlie their misbehavior.

“They’re willing to go deeper,” he said.