….or, at least make room for it in the Metro section: Confession Rite Evolves To Meet Changing Need<\/a> (washingtonpost.com; marketing questions) The Rev. William Byrne, Catholic chaplain at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus, also promotes confession. As a result, “we have pretty solid lines, probably 30 kids on Sundays before Mass,” he said. I get so tired of this “Catholic guilt” wheeze. If you’ve left the Church and you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, what are you feeling guilty about? ….or, at least make room for it in the Metro section: Confession Rite Evolves To Meet Changing Need (washingtonpost.com; marketing questions) First, a quibble — is it “the Rite” that’s evolved? Or is it that people are realizing that they’re not “too evolved” to go to Confession (unlike those who “left behind” the sacrament, presumably… Continue reading People still<\/i> go to Confession? Stop the Presses!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-christian-life","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFirst, a quibble — is it “the Rite” that’s evolved? Or is it that people are realizing that they’re not<\/i> “too evolved” to go to Confession (unlike those who “left behind” the sacrament, presumably because they thought they no longer needed it?) The option for face-to-face Confession has been around since the seventies, and it is an option<\/b> — not the norm. The vast majority of people I talk to seem to prefer the screen, and from what I’ve seen, it’s the screened confessionals that have the longest lines.
\nI was pleased to see Monsignor Kane quoted in the article. During Lent, he arranged extra time for individual confessions, with four priests available for several hours on a weekday evening. Attendance was, shall we say, underwhelming. The next Sunday he addressed the matter from the pulpit, saying (in almost these words), “We’re going to try this again next week and I KNOW we’re going to have more people there.” (His parishioners took the hint.)
\nOne of my favorite quotes from the article (emphasis added):<\/p>\n
\n“The thing that makes me mad is hearing 40- to 60-year-old Catholics talk about ‘Catholic guilt’ ” in the context of confession, said Byrne, who is 39. “I say that’s baloney.<\/b> We’re the only ones who have sacramentalized the system of offering absolution and forgiveness for sin. Our emphasis is forgiveness.”
\nByrne, who goes to confession every two weeks because it “helps keep me honest and on my toes,” said that many Catholic students at U-Md. are “tired of this subjective sense of right and wrong. It doesn’t match what their hearts are saying.” But since many have not been to confession since they were 7 or 8 years old and preparing for their first communion, he passes out a “confession cheat sheet” that explains, step-by-step, what to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nMy husband once had a co-worker inform him that his reservations about disciplining a subordinate too harshly were driven by “Catholic guilt.” (When he told our friend Iris, who attends a fundie-leaning Church, the story, her reponse was “If she said that to me, I’d show her my Catholic fist.”)
\nI also get impatient when people start accusing others of “making them feel guilty.” Please — if you don’t think you did anything wrong, why should you feel guilty? How can someone else make<\/i> you feel guilty?
\nAre all these people complaining about guilt because they’re trying to drown out the voice of their conscience?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"