One of the trickiest words in all of journalism is “unprecedented.”
Consider the top of this Lenten story in The Boston Globe:
In an effort to get the reluctant faithful back to confession, the Archdiocese of Boston is launching an unprecedented campaign — called “The Light Is On For You” — using radio spots and a website to promote special confessional hours in nearly 300 parishes during Lent.
But the church faces an uphill battle: Three-quarters of American Catholics either don’t participate in confession at all, or go less than once a year. In the Boston area, more than 80 percent of Catholics don’t even attend church regularly. … According to canon law, one should confess at least annually, and the first confession is made at age 7. …
The days of long lines at confessionals are gone for a variety of reasons. Saturday afternoon hours are inconvenient for many families. Many parishioners and priests take a more liberal view of sin and forgiveness these days. Some parishioners feel they can pray directly to God for absolution. Others feel they don’t need a priest as they unload to therapists, co-workers, and Facebook friends.
Whatever you think of the doctrinal issues involved, this is a huge story and one that has received very little news coverage — especially in light of the fact that it represents a redefinition of the primary sacrament of the ancient Christian faith.
Say what? Yes, for centuries Christians believed that there was a direct link between confession and the act of receiving the Eucharist. Is this simply a fussy theological detail? I don’t know. Ask Rep. Patrick Kennedy and some other postmodern Catholics about that.
The problem with the word “unprecedented” in the lede is that the campaign is new in Boston, but not elsewhere. I’ve been reading and writing about these kinds of campaigns throughout the past decade. All the lede had to do was saying that the Boston archdiocese was “joining” in an ongoing campaign, rather than saying it was “launching” an unprecedented campaign. This effort is new in Boston, in other words. It is not new — period.
Later on, the Globe does make this clear.
The new initiative, which started last month on Ash Wednesday, follows a similar program in Washington, D.C., and other cities, and will be repeated each Advent and Easter at all churches in the Boston Archdiocese.
Priests are available every Wednesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m., with the last night for the Lenten season on March 31. Though the traditional confessional boxes remain, where the priest sits behind a screen and the confession is anonymous, parishioners may also make an appointment with a priest to confess face to face in the rectory or a “reconciliation room,” designed for such encounters.
The story deals with part of the central issue — which is the fact that American Catholics now have a few of sin and confession that is, essentially, Protestant. The story shows that, but never does the theological math.
And what about those pre-Vatican II Catholics? It is clear that older Catholics — who still go to confession, as a rule — have a different understanding of the faith than the post-Vatican II generations. But what is the essential difference here? What happened at the time of Vatican II, and after that seismic event?
The story is, for the most part, silent on that.
The biggest problem is that the story never explains the doctrinal link between confession and taking part in the Mass. While millions of Catholics no longer belief that they literally need to go to confession every week, before receiving Holy Communion, it is clear that the Catholic church continues to say that a link is there, one with eternal consequences. Weekly confession is no longer the norm, but never going to confession is not an option. You can look it up.
This is especially true during the 40-day season of Lent that leads up to Easter.
Why do so few Catholics go to confession during this pivotal season, before the most holy day on the Christian calendar? Several years ago, a priest here in Washington — Father William H. Stetson of the Catholic Information Center near the White House — put it this way, when I asked him precisely that question:
The biggest problem … is that so many Catholics no longer think of themselves as sinners.
“There are all kinds of actions that the church teaches are seriously sinful that the typical modern Catholic no longer believes are seriously sinful,” said Stetson, who, as a 75-year-old priest, has seen many changes sweep through the Church of Rome. “Therefore, these typical Catholics walk up to the altar week after week to receive Communion without a single thought entering their minds about repentance or confession or anything like that.
“So you have to take that into account when you talk about Lent. In a penitential season you are supposed to feel real sorrow for your sins, which can be hard to do if you really do not think that you’re sinning.”
And why has this change taken place?
Here is another piece of the puzzle — a piece that is hinted at, briefly — in the Globe article. But I ran into this view of the crisis over and over when I started researching this topic early in the past decade.
The bottom line: Look to the pulpits.
… (B)ishops and priests know that more Catholics need to go to confession. They know “The Catechism of the Catholic Church” still teaches “having attained the age of discretion, each of the faithful is bound by an obligation faithfully to confess serious sins at least once a year.”
This may come as news to millions of Catholics.
“This Easter will mark my 10th year as a Catholic,” noted one convert, in an online discussion. “I have very rarely missed Sunday mass or a holy day of obligation. Sometimes I’ve even gone to daily mass. Point is, I’ve heard well over 500 sermons. Not once — not once — do I recall having heard confession mentioned. … For most American Catholics today, confession is almost as rare and exotic a devotional practice as donning a hair shirt.”
That’s a story, a story that is much bigger than one publicity campaign in Boston.
It’s even a good story for this time of year — a season of repentance and forgiveness.
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Comments (10) |
March 12, 2010, at 3:20 pm
What about the tagline at the end of the video:
“Embracing the Divine Within.”
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March 12, 2010, at 5:09 pm
Another angle that should be looked into by the media is the fact that it is not only Catholics who have sacramental confession—and how well things are going in those churches confession-wise. Orthodox churches have sacramental confession as well as many Anglican churches as well as what are called the ancient Oriental churches (The Thomas churches of India, for example). I frequently wish that the media personnel who write on the Catholic religion would have enough breadth of knowledge of religion to at least mention threads connecting Christian churches—especially those connecting Catholic, Orthodox and ancient Oriental churches. So much of what the Catholic Church does or teaches is not quirkily Catholic only, but part of a much broader Tradition shared by the other churches that trace back to apostolic times and not just to the Protestant Reformation.
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March 13, 2010, at 10:41 am
I’m 65 and don’t remember there ever being a time when confessing weekly was the norm. In Catholic grade school, we were all marched into church for confession about once a month at the most. And going on your own was never weekly except for scrupulous people. The typical person didn’t commit mortal sins every week.
Going to confession was never a requirement to participate in Mass. Not everybody went to Communion every Sunday back in the day. There were many reasons for that other than not having been to confession that week. First there was recognition of a serious sin that would prevent receiving until absolved. And I knew several friends’ parents who were in irregular marriages and never went to Communion but were at Mass everyday.
The most common reason for not receiving was the fast which began the night before at midnight and only ended after receiving Communion. It wasn’t only food, but also anything to drink that would break the old-time fast. When brushing teeth, you spat out the rinse water. A person might have accidentally broken that fast or gotten really hungry and went ahead and ate before going to 11 AM Mass.
The grade school children typically went to the earlier Masses because they couldn’t make it to 11 AM without eating. There were fewer adult people going to Communion the later in the morning the Mass was scheduled. There were no Saturday night Masses back then. Even wedding Masses had to begin before noon.
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March 13, 2010, at 12:58 pm
I would also note that Lutherans retain private confession, though it is also fallen on very hard times. The connection between Eucharist and Confession is handled through a general confession at the beginning of the Lutheran Liturgy.
For the article - Is this lack of confession in the Unites States context also seen world wide?
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March 13, 2010, at 1:10 pm
One issue that is touched on, but only briefly, in the article is that of the confession of a child (“I lied 10 times. I was unkind 50 times.”) versus that of an adult, who should recognize his/her patterns of sin, and use the sacrament to explore ways to recognize the triggers (temptations) that lead to a particular sin, and avoid them with the grace one receives. I suspect most boomer adults never advanced to an adult appreciation/practice of the sacrament, due to poor catechesis in middle and high school present in the late 60’s and 70’s, and the way confession was offered in that time period. There was a long line, the priest sat behind a screen, and he was obviously impatient for you to get in and get out in as little time as possible. The combination of a hasty and bored priest, and a reluctant, embarrassed sinner often led to 25 years between confessions, or to a trivial interaction. It was just easier to say “I ‘whatever sin you care to name’ed 30 times”, say your 10 Hail Mary’s, and you were out. The sacrament was effectively “de-sacramented”.
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March 13, 2010, at 1:57 pm
What I think the article needs is the statistic of what percentage of Catholics who attend Mass on a weekly or near-weekly basis go to Confession more than once per year. That 22% of self-identified “Catholics” who grew up in the post-Vatican II era go more than once per year tells me little of significance.
Nearly all my relatives on my dad’s side of the family considers themselves “Catholic” but most do not regularly attend Mass. I would suspect that hardly any of them go to Confession more than once a year and that it’s probably been several years for many of them.
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March 13, 2010, at 10:24 pm
I have a suggestion as to why the Catholic Church probably *doesn’t* want *too much* confession going on. There is a parish in Olympia, WA with 7700 parishoners. Two priests. If 10% of the parishoners decided tomorrow to spend 15 minutes a week in confession…..Do the math; that’s 175 hours a week, two guys, 87.5 hours each. Maybe they don’t want that to happen, since they’d like the priests to live more than a week, you know, maybe eat, sleep? Celebrate Mass somewhere in there? It’s an enviable problem to have that many faithful, utterly irresponsible to leave them actually unattended. Not to say anything about a clergy shortage or why, but it might be an issue? Maybe if there were more POSSIBLE contact with a clergyman the sacrament might be more likely attractive? But be careful, don’t all show up (or even 10% of you!) at once!
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March 14, 2010, at 7:47 pm
“If 10% of the parishoners decided tomorrow to spend 15 minutes a week in confession…”
If one is confessing on a weekly basis then confession shouldn’t be taking 15 minutes each time. I would think more like 1-2 minutes at most.
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March 14, 2010, at 9:51 pm
I think that most priests would be happy to see the pattern that is historically used in the Eastern churches — confession four or five times a year, linked to the major cycles of penance and feasting, such as Nativity Lent, Easter/Pascha, the Dormition Fast, etc.
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March 15, 2010, at 3:49 pm
First of all, the article makes a serious error in that it misquotes canon law. Canon law states “after having attained the age of discretion, each of the faithful is bound by an obligation faithfully to confess serious sins at least once a year”. Perhaps the writer did not understand what is meant by “serious sins”, but those would be mortal sins. Ergo, if a Catholic is in a state of mortal sin, they are bound to confess those sins once a year so that they may receive communion. It is the reception of communion that Catholics are obliged to receive once a year. If a Catholic has no serious sins on their soul, then there is no “obligation” to go to confession. This connection was missing from the article.
For that matter, the Catechism of the Catholic Church even states “Without being strictly necessary, confession of everyday faults (venial sins) is nevertheless strongly recommended by the Church”.
Sadly, the article in the Globe starts with an incorrect statement, and builds an article around it. As well, it falls into the trap of not separating practicing Catholics from non-practicing Catholics when quoting statistics as to what percentage of Catholics go to confession. If they aren’t going to Mass then it’s doubtful they’re going to bother with confession
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