The new penitents

The weekly visit to the confessional, followed by a quick Hail Mary, has gone for most Catholics. Yet a change in approach means Reconciliation is flourishing

IT IS Saturday morning, and in Catholic churches throughout the country, pews that 30, even 20 years ago would have been full of kneeling penitents, are scattered with just a few people. At my own church, part of a Benedictine abbey in west London, only a dozen people receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation ? still more commonly known as confession. Most of the penitents are elderly, and the traffic in and out of the box is brisk. The priest on duty is finished well before an hour is up.

The scene confirms the popular view that this is a sacrament in decline, yet there are signs that Catholics still value it ? even if the habit of weekly or monthly confession is changing.

Such a practice is not, contrary to popular belief, one with centuries of tradition behind it. Rather, going to weekly confession was a twentieth-century phenomenon that began with the teaching of Pope Pius X, who encouraged weekly confession on a Friday or Saturday in preparation for Communion on a Sunday.

Fr Allen Morris, secretary to the Department of Christian Life and Worship at the Bishops? Conference of England and Wales, says that for centuries people went to Confession once a year. Such practice accorded with Church teaching then as it does now.

?If a person has committed a serious sin, the norm is to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance before they next go to Communion ? unless for some reason they can?t do that. There is no obligation to go to Reconciliation if a person has not committed a serious sin,? he says.

Fr Morris believes some people who made their first confessions in the Sixties or Seventies may still have a distorted notion of what it means, influenced by memories of sitting outside the box making up a list of sins.

?That is a travesty of what the sacrament is about. We have got away from reciting a formula like an automaton and that is a good thing,? he says.

However, Fr Morris is supportive of the present Pope?s emphasis on the need for a person-to-person reflection of an individual?s life. It is, he says, an important sacrament, for which there is a real need and value.

?If a person is not having some sort of regular examination of his or her way of living, they are missing out on something that is a healthy part of Christian life. It can be done informally,? he says.

This reflects a trend that has already been noticed in a number of university chaplaincies, where there are usually set times for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but priests try to make themselves available at other times as well. Fr Christopher Gorton, chaplain to two colleges in the centre of Manchester, says students especially appreciate this approach.

?Flexibility helps particularly with that age group where things have to be immediate. They may feel there is something that puts them at odds with God and they want to sort it out as soon as possible,? he says.

Fr Christopher McCoy, national coordinator of the Conference of Catholic Chaplains in Higher Education, agrees. He says students may go to confession less frequently but the quality of it can be better.

?It often starts as a conversation for 45 minutes or half an hour, then turns into confession. It can come out of a ?let?s look at my life and where I am going? sort of conversation. It is a more fluid kind of relationship.?

Fr McCoy recalls that when he took part in the Student Cross pilgrimage to Walsingham on Good Friday, a number of the young people came to confession on the walk.

?It was like the road to Emmaus. The context was interesting. We were simply walking side by side and I suppose it felt less threatening. People were opening up in a particular way. It is they who are articulating what may be wrong with their lives.?

It seems to be a question of making the sacrament available when people feel they need it and at times they can attend. As several priests pointed out, an hour in the parish church on a Saturday morning is impractical for many people, particularly families. Then there are people who prefer not to go to their own parish priest, but visit a more ?anonymous? figure.

These are among the likely reasons why people take the opportunity to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation in cathedrals and city centre churches. Many of these have priests available every day to hear confessions. Westminster Cathedral, for instance, is one of London?s most popular venues for confession. The cathedral chaplains usually hear about five hours?-worth a week each and call on help from volunteer priests from other parts of the diocese of Westminster, particularly during Holy Week.

The sub-administrator, Fr Michael O?Boy, says people of all ages come to the cathedral for confession, with younger ones coming particularly at the weekend. ?Our experience is that it is very much a living sacrament in the life of the Church,? he says.

That is the experience of Fr Michael Scanlon, parish priest at St Peter?s in Woolwich, southeast London. He says it has been a record-breaking year for the numbers going to confession in his busy church, where the sacrament is offered several times during the week and at weekends. The attendance figures are impressive: more than 250 received the sacrament on Divine Mercy Sunday, around 300 in Holy Week. During the latter, sessions expected to last 45 minutes stretched into two or three hours. And the reason?

?I think this parish offers people the opportunity to go to confession. We encourage our parishioners through sermons to use the sacrament on a regular basis. We remind them about the mercy of God.?

Another factor, says Fr Scanlon, is the changing profile of the congregation. In recent years it has come to include Catholic immigrants from countries such as Nigeria, Uganda and the Philippines who are accustomed to receiving the sacrament frequently.

Popular times for confession are on Sunday evenings during Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. Penitents, says Fr Scanlon, appreciate the sense of serenity in the church at that time. Another is during a Holy Spirit prayer group meeting on a Wednesday evening.

?Going to confession is one of the most important things we offer up in our life and I encourage people to do it. People come who have been away for many, many years. There is a new springtime out there. This is the experience of some other clergy as well.?

While priests like Fr Scanlon put great emphasis on the importance of Reconciliation, a lay-led organisation in the Church is encouraging them to give more thought to the Sacrament of Penance. Caritas Social Action wants them to consider offering more practical advice to penitents rather just asking them to say prayers. Its director Sarah Lindsell suggests, for instance, that a penitent who confesses to beating his wife should be directed to a local anger-management course. Otherwise, she fears, it might be difficult to break the cycle of beating-confessing-forgiveness.

Such suggestions are not always well received by the hierarchy, and Lindsell is treading carefully. She accepts that it is not for a lay person to intrude on the relationship between confessor and penitent but feels Caritas can play a part in helping priests to extend their pastoral role.

?After all, a GP these days does not just have to prescribe penicillin. He can suggest homoeopathic remedies or acupuncture.?

Lindsell believes that many priests leave the seminary ill-equipped to address the social needs of their parishioners. In her view, the range and complexity of problems today make such knowledge vital.

?These days a woman won?t just tell her priest ?my husband beats me?, she will also say ?my son is taking drugs? and ?we are behind with the rent?. We should be responding to that.?

But is Caritas trying to turn priests into social workers or counsellors? I put the question to Fr Tim Finigan, a priest of Southwark diocese and a member of the traditionalist group Faith. He didn?t think so and, indeed, said he had already put Lindsell?s ideas into practice. But he was keen to stress that confession should not become a counselling forum.

?The confessional is not a place for counselling or a general chat. People have to clearly understand that the sacrament is for the forgiveness of sins. If somebody wanted to talk generally about their life, we would need to go somewhere else,? he said.

Fr Finigan recommends monthly confession to help parishioners to develop a sensitive conscience. Even if relatively few go so frequently, neither he nor any of the other priests I spoke to believe the sacrament is in crisis. Several cited good levels of attendance at services of Reconciliation and parish days of recollection as evidence to the contrary.

Two years ago Pope John Paul II called for ?a vigorous revitalisaton of the Sacrament of Reconciliation? in his apostolic letter, Misericordia Dei ? The Mercy of God. Perhaps this is happening without us even realising.