I have just come from hearing confession in a university chaplaincy; an hour of confessions; powerful, penetrating, positive. Earlier in my priestly life, I spent long hours in the confessionals at Westminster Cathedral, at some times of the year with five other priests, hearing confessions from dawn to dusk. I have no hesitation in saying that the overwhelming experience has been affirming, for both the penitent and the confessor.I have no doubt that there have been, and are, abuses perpetrated in the confessional. There is thought to be given to the way confession is presented and made available. But John Cornwell (“Light on the dark box”, 15 February) describes (in, it seems to me, purely psychological terms) a ritual that bears no relation to what I and other priests I kno