Senior Bishops in England and Wales have issued pastoral letters urging Catholics to return to Confession this Lent.
Archbishop George Stack of Cardiff and Bishops Mark Davies of Shrewsbury and Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton all made Confession a central theme of their pastoral letters to mark the start of Lent tomorrow.
The Archbishop said that lapsed Catholics would be welcome at Confession, and not judged. “It might be that you were baptised Catholic but for different reasons, no longer or rarely practise your faith. Come along. Everyone is very welcome and no one will judge you.
"We are all journeying to God’s Light in our own way, at our own pace,” Archbishop Stack wrote. He added that, because everyone is flawed, all need to be renewed by the Sacrament. “No one is perfect and we all need the Sacrament of Reconciliation to strengthen and renew us. This Lent make this the gift you seek for yourself.”
Bishop Davies gave a personal account of how, when confessing, he must "put aside all illusions about myself and about the state of my Christian life and be ready to say ‘Father, these are my sins.’"
"It would be so much easier to say: these are someone else’s sins and faults! But, no; this is here I have gone wrong! Confession is a 'reality check' when I recognise how far I still have to go in the Christian life and receive the grace to go forward.”
Meanwhile Bishop Conry emphasised efforts by the bishops' conference to modernise the way in which people use material to prepare for Confession, including with digital "apps". He added that confusion over the nature of sin could be behind a “steep decline” in the numbers of those taking part in the Sacrament over recent decades.
“In the past … many people confused sin with temptation, and even now there is still confusion about what constitutes sin,” Bishop Conry wrote, adding: “You don’t have to remember any formula of words, or how many times you have done something wrong. The priest will help you.”
Meanwhile the Catholic Social Action Network (CSAN) urged Catholics to use Lent as a time to take up volunteering for charity to fight poverty instead of giving something up. CSAN’s Policy and Communications Assistant, Phoebe Jackson said: "Instead of giving up the usual alcohol or chocolate, we would like people to consider volunteering to do something valuable for society."
Have your say Off to Confession – hooray! by Br Kieran Fenn FMS
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