Growing up, individual confession was a relic of another time in another Church. I’d seen examples in movies like Sound of Music and The Nun’s Story. My Protestant grandmother told me about being left in the car each week as a teenager, while her Catholic friend was forced to go confession with her family.
Another friend, who had memorized the Latin Mass in its entirety as a pre-Vatican II altar boy, entertained me with stories of made-up confessions to prank the priests. But from the perspective of the twenty-first century, individual confession didn’t feel very relevant, even in the Masses I attended with friends.
Then, I visited my grandfather in Italy. While in Rome, we visited Santa Maria Maggiore, a massive basilica second only to the Vatican itself in size and reputation. Twenty or thirty confessionals lined the walls.
There weren’t even any pews—the confessionals were the only furniture. It was a stunning architectural statement, completely refocusing attention on a sacrament that was relatively obscure—or so I had thought.
Each confessional bore flags, often three or four, representing the languages spoken by the priests inside. Red and green lights indicated whether the priest was inside. Most were green, and numerous people lined up in front of confessionals bearing the flag of their country.
It felt like stepping into another ecclesiological world, one where individual confessions were an important part of many Christians’ lives.
Of course, in most places, confession is greatly diminished in importance. Since Vatican II, Catholics are normally only required to confess once a year. In mainline Protestantism, it’s been largely abolished for centuries.
Among Protestants, the greatest focus on individual confessions is undoubtedly in the Episcopal Church, but there’s not much focus there to begin with. The 1978 Book of Common Prayer lays out very few exhortations about the sacrament, other than saying it is open to anyone at any time.
Most Episcopal priests do not offer scheduled times for confession, except sometimes on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday. And, perhaps more to the point, it’s not a big part of Episcopal church culture.
I never really noticed any of this, except to appreciate confession’s diminished importance. In the stories I had heard, individual confession was just another instrument used to create shame.
All that changed a few months ago. Thanks to my YouTube algorithms, I discovered a new group of vloggers (video bloggers) and social media influencers: young, devout women who were returning to various aspects of traditional Catholicism.
I know I just lost some of you at “traditional Catholicism.” Hang with me here.
Before we go further, I want to note that I do not believe that confession to a clergy member is necessary for salvation. I certainly do not think that it should be a mandatory part of a church’s teaching, as it was for my grandmother’s friend. In my opinion, the shame and guilt surrounding the pre-Vatican II confessional is spiritually and mentally unhealthy.
But.
The women I found online were embracing regular confession for a completely different set of reasons. They didn’t just talk about it as a form of obedience to Church teaching. Rather, they embraced it because they found that individual confession can radically reshape Christians’ lives and their relationships with God.
Of course, there might be important adaptations that need to take place for a Protestant context–adaptations that will differ for each denomination. But here’s the bottom line: we can encourage confession to clergy or other trusted people as a means of spiritual growth, without deeming it necessary for salvation.
Why is it so important, though? Why might the mainline Protestant church consider individual confession as a means of spiritual growth?
1. Confession reshapes lives through the discipline of recollection.
Have you ever had a spiritual practice that involved recollecting your day or week? Maybe at the end of each year, you go over the previous twelve months? If so, you’ve probably experienced how helpful it can be to identify life patterns and reflect on whether they’re useful.
Regular confession builds this practice in. People who go to confession prepare by spending time looking back over the last seven days. They recall the times they followed God’s call and the times they didn’t.
The Catholic women I watched measured their actions against a variety of yardsticks. Some use the Ten Commandments or another Biblical set of guidance. Others use meditations or guidance from their church leadership. The method isn’t the point—it can easily change depending on denominational or personal beliefs.
This practice of recollection is not new, even outside of confession. St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, also asked his followers to review their relationship with God each day in a prayer called the Examen. He knew that simply recollecting each week allows us to recognize healthy and unhealthy patterns in our lives—and to start changing them.
2. Confession can reshape lives by curtailing shame.
Shame researcher Brene Brown explains that “if we share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive. If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.”
As I talked about two weeks ago, postmodern technology leaves very few places for people to safely confess experiences of shame. And, even if we have other, trustworthy people in our life, there are going to be things we can’t confess to them.
Sometimes you have to keep things private from your loved ones for their own sake. Other times, you simply can’t bring yourself to tell them something that might ruin the relationship.
Yet the alternative—keeping things entirely to ourselves—breeds more shame. That’s where individual confession comes in. You can probably think of a time when a secret ate you up—maybe it even caused mental health problems or spurred you to make a decision you regret.
Confessing in a private setting, to a safe person, can help shame have less hold. Of course, too often, clergy have been the “wrong person” to share shameful stories with. That’s a place where the culture around individual confession needs to change.
3. Confession can reshape lives by reminding us of forgiveness.
Each individual confession concludes with an absolution. Traditionally, it often includes encouragement from the clergy.
While forgiveness is a central part of the Christian tradition, most people could benefit from a regular reminder about it. When we’re forgiven after listing our sins, it’s harder to pretend that forgiveness doesn’t apply to us, or that it somehow can’t cover what we just did.
Of course, for some people, forgiveness after confession is also associated with shame. For those people, an absolution that focuses on our Belovedness, rather than forgiveness, might be more appropriate and equally transformative.
4. Confession reshapes lives by creating accountability.
In the Catholic tradition, this usually involves a certain series of prayers. As I’ve discussed throughout this series, clergy can use a number of other ways to facilitate reconciliation, growth, and reformed behavior.
They can ask them to seek professional psychological help. Or join a support group. Or take up a gratitude practice, like appreciating a family member once a day throughout the week.
Many pastors preach about practices that their entire congregation can use to reform. And that’s very helpful.
But sometimes, those practices need to be personalized. And some congregants who are struggling with big problems might also need a clergy member to help keep them accountable.
5. Confession reshapes lives through regularity.
Currently, I go to confession once a year on Ash Wednesday. There’s no way I can remember all of my sins from the year—I can’t even remember all of the big ones. Even if I did, there’s nowhere near enough time to go through everything.
But more importantly, throughout that year, shame has built up. It’s become easier to buy into the stories that beat me down and tell me there’s no hope of being forgiven. And I’ve lost months of opportunities for accountability and focused spiritual growth.
In other words, going once a year can defeat the point. In order to fully reap the benefits above, confession needs to be regular.
I get that this idea of regular, individual confession is going way out on a limb for most of my readers. And not so long ago, I was pretty skeptical, too. Individual confession is just such a foreign concept in mainline Protestant culture.
But it’s important to recognize that it doesn’t have to look like Catholic or Episcopal confession. You don’t even have to call it confession—you can call it spiritual direction or just “Honest Talk with Pastor X.” It can happen in your office or over technology.
And it definitely doesn’t need to be a huge drag on your time. If you want to minimize the time per person, you can teach your parishioners to prepare for confession ahead of time and ask them to save chit-chat for coffee hour.
Traditionally, in Catholic churches where confession is regularly practiced, it only takes three-to-five minutes per person. For an average congregation, once they get comfortable with the practice, that’s only an hour or two out of your week.
But the difference it can make is profound.
Do you think individual confession could help your church? Comment below, and let me know!