Roman Catholics: Confession to Counseling

Roman Catholics are confessing less but profiting from it more. In the past two years, U.S. parish priests admit, attendance at the confession box—once a Saturday ritual for legions of devout Catholics—has fallen noticeably. “I would say that confessions are at least a third less than they used to be,” says Monsignor James A. Davin of St. Bernard Church in Mount Lebanon, Pa. At the same time, many renewal-minded Catholics are approaching the confessional in a more meaningful way—not as a mechanical means of cleansing their souls of sin but as a life-giving encounter with a forgiving God.

The practice of confession has firm Biblical roots; the Epistle of James advises: “Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed.” In the early church, penance was usually a public ritual at which penitents openly disclaimed serious wrongdoings before the assembled congregation. Not until 1215 was confession to a priest made the norm for the church, by the Fourth Lateran Council. According to canon law, Catholics must confess any mortal (serious) sins before receiving Holy Communion, and as a rule they are expected to do so at least once a year.

At the Grill. Priests see many reasons for the decline in frequency of confessions. One cause is the emphasis in the postconciliar church on the primacy of conscience—which means that lay Catholics are now far more certain of themselves as to whether or not they have sinned. “I used to consider anger a sin,” says one Los Angeles housewife who goes to Communion frequently, although she has not been to confession since Christmas. “But now I simply don’t feel guilty about yelling at the kids.” Another is the repugnant medievalism of confessional practice—lining up before a dark, grilled box to recite one’s inner secrets to an unseen judge.

Many priests now report that Catholics entering the confessional are more serious about the experience. “Where we used to get ‘I swore, I lied, I disobeyed,’ now we’re getting more conversation about the problems of life,” says the Rev. Frederick Collins, Catholic chaplain at Harvard. Adds Monsignor Joseph Alves of Boston: “I find that people are more concerned about justice and charity than they ever were before. Their concentration is on recognizing the serious sins of racial bias and paying money for political jobs.” Priests who work with college students report that boys are less worried about “how far” they went on dates, more interested in seeking advice on how to build a genuine relationship with girl friends.

The role of the priest has changed as well: he is less of a judge, more of a counselor. “A legalistic church was very easy,” says a Dominican in Seattle. “I could say to a person ‘you are wrong,’ exact promises from him never to do it again, give him absolution, and slam the sliding door. But that isn’t what confession is all about.” Theologian James Burtchaell, 33, of Notre Dame, describes the priest’s new confessional role as “nondirective counseling,” by which he means “not giving advice but helping you talk your way through problems you already know the answer to but can’t face.”

Outside Church. The new conversational spirit of confession means that more and more encounters between priest and penitent are taking place outside of church. At numerous Catholic colleges, chaplains will hear confessions in their own rooms, or even while walking on campus. Many priests no longer insist that penitents recite a detailed account of their sins, prefer freeform discussions about their wrongdoing. Occasionally, devout Catholic husbands and wives will approach a priest together for a joint examination of their spiritual failings, prior to individual, private confessions.

Dissatisfaction with the conventional format has led both priests and laymen to speculate on new ways to practice confession. Many theologians favor some form of return to the early church custom of group confession—as is done in many Protestant churches. In some Dutch churches, members of a congregation mentally express their sorrow for sin while publicly reciting an act of contrition, then receive absolution in a group from their priest, though private confession is available for those who want it. Still other Catholics have questioned whether confession need always be made in the presence of a priest. Although there are obvious dangers involved, at least a few speculative thinkers have proposed that Christians might be allowed to gather in penitential services to confess their errors to one another in the manner of a group-therapy session, or perhaps have the option of confessing to trained lay counselors as well as clerics.