The topic of this morning's four-minute drill is: "Whatever happened to confession?" Something has definitely happened. Just take a look at our memories. Younger Catholics have practically no memory of standing in confessional line Saturday afternoons. They have no memories even of being nervous in the box, the memories that a lot of us older Catholics hold onto.

Something has definitely happened. Just take a look at the numbers. For most of the twentieth century, confession was our high-volume sacrament. For most Catholics, once a month was the norm. And for many it was more frequently than that! It was fairly typical for parish priests to report that 15% of their parishoners went to weekly confession and 60% of their parishoners went at least once a month. Take the Catholic Cathedral of Salt Lake City, for example.... Salt Lake City, Utah, which is not exactly a Roman Catholic stronghold. In the 1950's, there were about 3000 parishoners in that parish. And in 1952, we know that the two priests there heard an average of 182 confessions a week, or close to 9500 each year. But, by 25 years later, in 1977, most priests in the United States reported that they were hearing 20 or fewer confessions each week. At the beginning of the century the normal scheduling of Saturday confessions was about five hours in length. At the end of the century it was thirty minutes or less.

Now, there is no one explanation for this steep numerical drop, but there are at least four major contributing factors. Let me share them with you.

Number one: While a significant number of parishoners found frequent confession a real value in their lives, a great many did not. The strong sense of guilt sometimes produced was not helpful. And the speed with which confession was often heard was not helpful. Now, the average speed of confession, we have figured out, was two minutes or less for each confession. (I don't know about you, but my memory was it always felt a lot longer than that!) But it led many to describe their experience of confession as "slot machine" or "assembly line" or "laundry list." And then, when the changes of Vatican II came, it gave kind of a silent permission for dissatisfied parishoners to just stay away.

Number two: The single most significant factor, I think, has to be the changing understanding of the nature of sin, that mortal sin is really far less common than we once feared, that sin is more deeply personal and also more social than we once thought, that the old black-and-white clarity is less obvious than we once held. All this has contributed to shorter confession lines.

Number three: Another major factor was the very healthy and correct disconnecting of weekly communion from weekly confession. It's interesting, in 1954, a national Catholic question and answer magazine was asked this question: "Is it OK to go to communion each week without going to confession each week?" The answer was, "Theoretically, yes, but we do not recommend that practice." Now the same magazine was asked the same question fifteen years later, and the answer was, "Yes. It's OK, and it is and it should be the most usual and normal practice."

Number four: (The way we celebrate liturgy in the Mass) Not only has the Saturday evening vigil changed our Saturday church schedule forever, and not only has full participation with communion become the expected norm when we celebrate, but, with the use of English, we now find words of sorrow, contrition, confession and forgiveness proclaimed at each and every Mass. The long lines at the confessional are not going to come back. Too many things have changed, and many of them for the better. But the sacrament of confession remains an important, a valuable, and a powerful instrument on our spiritual journey and for our daily lives. How can that be so? Well, that's a topic for next weekend, "Whatever happened to confession, Part 2."