Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI has raised the alarm over the decline in confessions, urging priests not to become "resigned to empty confessionals" but rather to help the faithful rediscover "the beauty of the sacrament", which answered "a deep and humble longing for forgiveness".
A survey in La Repubblica of practising Italian Catholics today said that only 2 per cent went to confession more than once a month. 10 per cent went once a month, 58 per cent "once or twice a year", and 30 per cent "never."
In a letter to the priests around the world marking the start today of the Year of Priests, the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Mary Vianney, the Curé d'Ars, the Pope said the saint had "taught his parishioners primarily by the witness of his life...he was convinced that the fervour of a priest's life depended entirely upon the Mass".
He added: "Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this sacrament. In France at the time of the Cure of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the Sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence."
The pontiff said that St. John Mary Vianney's followers knew "that their parish priest would be there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness." Penitents had from all over France, and he was often in the confessional for up to 16 hours a day, with his parish dubbed "the great hospital of souls."
The Pope urged priests to learn from St. John Mary Vianney to "put our unfailing trust in the Sacrament of Penance, to set it once more at the centre of our pastoral concerns, and to take up the 'dialogue of salvation,' which it entails". The French saint had "awakened repentance in the hearts of the lukewarm by forcing them to see God's own pain at their sins reflected in the face of the priest who was their confessor", while for those who came to him "already desirous of and suited to a deeper spiritual life" he had "flung open the abyss of God's love, explaining the untold beauty of living in union with him and dwelling in his presence."
Pope Benedict said that, "Our own time urgently needs a similar proclamation and witness to the truth of love." Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said however that recent surveys showed a third of Catholics regarded confession as "pointless", 10 per cent saw it as "an impediment to direct dialogue with the Lord" and 20 per cent said they found it "difficult to talk to another person about their sins."
Monsignor Girotti said the "sense of sin" had been weakened in the modern world, and those who did go to confession tended not to disclose specific sins but to talk in general terms and "ask for help" with their problems. Many priests were also at fault because they did not make themselves available to hear confessions often enough, Monsignor Girotti said.