Catholic confession’s steep price
Former seminarian John Cornwell traces how a sacrament went astray—and how it could be revived
February 16, 2014
By Toby Lester | Globe Correspondent
Collapse is not too strong a word. Fifty years ago, the great majority of Catholics in this country confessed their sins regularly to a priest. Confession, after all, is one of the seven Catholic sacraments. But now only 2 percent of Catholics go regularly to confession, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Georgetown University—and three-quarters of them never go, or go less than once a year. In many parishes, the sacrament is currently available only by appointment, and in Europe it has declined to such a degree that groups who study Catholic practice there have stopped even asking about it on their questionnaires. Visit a Catholic church today, John Cornwell writes in “The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession,” and you’re likely to find that church janitors have transformed the box into “a storage closet for vacuum cleaners, brooms, and cleaning products.”
To traditionalists, this might seem like yet another sign of decline in the post–Vatican II era, but Cornwell shows that this isn’t the first time Catholics have largely abandoned confession. The practice, it turns out, has evolved dramatically over the centuries, from a rare communal event to a regular private one, and at a number of points in this evolution has broken down specifically because of concerns about sexual abuse. The box itself is a relatively late innovation, designed in the 16th century to keep priests and women apart.
Cornwell thinks it’s time to reform confession again, in large part because he sees it as a key—and underappreciated—enabler of the recent sex-abuse scandals that have rocked the church. A former seminarian who has written extensively on the papacy and is perhaps best known for his 1999 bestseller “Hitler’s Pope,” Cornwell knows his subject well: He was raised Catholic, went to confession every week from the age of 7 to the age of 21, and was himself propositioned by a priest in the confessional. He ended up leaving the Church for decades, but has returned into the fold late in life, with some ambivalence.
Cornwell’s book moves briskly through the many phases of the history of confession: from its earliest manifestations, in the first centuries of Christianity, when it was a rare communal event; through the late Middle Ages, when it became a private act that profoundly affected, as he puts it, “the development of Western ethics, law, and perceptions of the self”; and into the 20th century, when, he argues, Pope Pius X’s momentous decision to lower of the age of confession, in 1910, opened the way to the sexual abuse of children. Today, Cornwell believes, confession could still be of great value, but only if church leaders are willing to reimagine its role
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/02/16/catholic-confession-steep-price/NbMVFfYljv26Gcphu17yPJ/story.html
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liberal N proud
(60,334 posts)It has been a long time since I kneeled in one of those boxes, but if I recall, they started doing it face to face, you could no longer confess with anonymity.
Now they only do it by appointment? If that is the case, no one is ever going to think they sinned enough to call up the priest's receptionist to make an appointment. I assume if they are taking appointments, they have a receptionist.
Do I need to bring my insurance card too?
rug
(82,333 posts)You go into the Reconciliation Room and there's the kneeler and the screen. But the wall the screen is in goes only hallway across the room. If you want, you can step around it and sit in a chair across from the priest. He still has regular hours there, one hour before the Saturday vigil Mass.
goldent
(1,582 posts)where people sort of do the confession in their heads, and you don't have to talk to the priest, and then there is general absolution. Talking to the priest is what people don't like to do. If you remove that, and offer it before/after mass, and you'd get a lot more participation. But I think bishops (or above) thought confessing to the priest was important, and canned the community ones.
IrishAyes
(6,151 posts)But have to say that for me personally, I like(d) having a traditional confessional. In all except the largest parishes or where they rotate priests a lot, there's no such thing as anonymity anyway. Priests are just as good at recognizing voices as the rest of us are. I wouldn't mind facing the priest so much if I hadn't encountered the 'new and improved' format toward the last. I swear that when it was done I had no different feeling than when I sat down. There's a certain value to form.
The last time I went to confession in the tiny local mission church, the priest said he didn't believe what I told him had actually happened, and anyway if it had, a 'certain person' (who happened to be the lay person many call the 'head hen') wouldn't have reacted as she did if approached properly. I had gone to confession in the first place because I felt at least a little bad about my continued fury at this woman's outrageous attacks, and I wanted help in slipping out of the grasp she had on my emotions. I took full ownership of my reaction to those events, but I certainly didn't appreciate being called a liar and provocateur in the matter. (I didn't identify her by name, btw, but he knew anyway because they were very close.) He'd seen her stand up during Mass and denounce me in every respect of my being, and he didn't even roll his eyes. When he later laughed out loud and ridiculed a somewhat festive holiday top I was wearing in front of everybody, I wore it again next week to make a point and then stopped going entirely.
I didn't stop being Catholic. That's not for him (or her) to give or take away. But especially after the Head Hen suggested that $ was missing from the office and I was the last person she saw nearby, I knew the situation will never repair as long as she's alive. So I read the obits, not in hopes that she dies, but so I'll know when the coast's clear for my return. There are some other snots there, but not too many and nobody I can't handle. They have a different priest now too. So technically I'll need quite a confession session to start over fresh - when and if. I miss it.
But you really lose a lot when confession resembles nothing more than a casual chat with a neighbor.
olegramps
(8,200 posts)The traditionalists knew it was a powerful tool that could make the person totally dependent on the church for their salvation. This was especially true if they were forced into the practice during childhood. The practice was abandoned for a period following Vatican II at the urging of mental health care specialists who regarded it as a dangerous practice for children.
Some people became so traumatized that they became morosely scrupulous leading to depression. If they hadn't actually done something, perhaps they had thought of doing it. There was no way out of the dilemma and left them in a state of perpetual agitation. The church's condemnation of any sexual activity became a nightmare for many adolescents struggling to understand and incorporate this powerful sexual component of their nature. I absolutely refused to allow my children to be subjected to what many professionals regarded as a dangerous practice.
rug
(82,333 posts)C'mon, olegramps, fess up.
olegramps
(8,200 posts)I think that the greatest threat was scrupulosity in overly sensitive people who are under the constant fear of damnation. It has been shown that it can lead to depression due to a feeling of hopelessness. The ultimate price can be suicide. The teaching of eternal damnation during the developmental period of adolescence is of prime importance, however, I think that it is not as important now as it was in the past.
The church's teaching on masturbation and premarital sex has been significantly challenged by health care professionals whose teachings are accepted as the norm in most public schools. Consequently when the church clings to its archaic teachings, its credibility has been destroyed in the minds of many younger people as being nothing more than the raving of ignoramuses.
rug
(82,333 posts)Last edited Wed Mar 19, 2014, 08:45 PM - Edit history (1)
Its approach towards sex is rigid, legalistic and abstract, everything sex is not. Well, except for rigid.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation, on the other hand, is one of the Church's greatest gifts. Properly understood and used, it is the closest we can come to the Gospel.
John 8:10-11
Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
No Vested Interest
(5,165 posts)last night. I was interested in going, but life intervened and I didn't get there.
I've been to a few of these parish-wide services in recent years, and found them adequate for my confession needs, which consists of once-a-year for the last decade or two.
For the last 5+ years, I confessed while on my once-a-year retreat. It was face-to-face with the retreat master or another priest-helper, and I was comfortable with that. Truth to tell, as a widowed senior, my sins are run-of-the-mill, practically the type you'd tell your friend or neighbor, if the conversation went that way.
My retreat was cancelled this past fall, due to low numbers expected to attend, so my annual confession didn't happen. Now having missed the parish penance service, I need to fit in an alternative. I used to go to the Jesuit church downtown in my city, where the sacrament of confession was (and hopefully still is) available before and after daily noon Mass. Very anonymous. Trouble is, I'm now a late sleeper and not as apt to be running downtown for that purpose.
Aside from conforming to the "rule" of confessing annually, I see a lot of the value of confession in the examination of conscience which precedes the actual confession. It's a good thing for us to take the time to review our actions from the standpoint of accusing ourselves, rather than justifying our behavior, which is what we do most often.
goldent
(1,582 posts)It is truly cleansing for the soul, in more ways than one.
