Invitation to come clean

The bishops are engaging the culture in a creative new campaign to promote housecleaning.

Between Oprah and the therapist’s couch, is there any role left for the church confession?

Noting that the number of Catholics taking part in the key rite has plunged, the Archdiocese of Washington is launching its biggest marketing blitz this week, using ads on buses, subway cars, a Route 301 billboard, 100,000 brochures and radio spots in an effort to get people back to the confessional.

The unusual campaign — whose slogan, “The Light is On for You,” shouldn’t be confused with Motel 6’s promise to “Leave the Light On for You” — highlights the church’s alarm that Catholics are ignoring a fundamental ritual meant to keep them holy and close to God.

Priests and sociologists of Catholicism have theorized about the drop for years. Is it because of a culture that tells us we aren’t responsible for what we do wrong?

That’s certainly a significant part of it. 

Or could it be something less dark: that the traditional Saturday confession time has simply been gobbled up by youth soccer leagues and errand-mania?

That’s certainly true.

Or maybe something more dark: that we don’t even know what sin is anymore?

Bingo. People are hurting out there, they’re angry and afraid, but they are out of touch with the reality of sin and its power to corrupt.

“People go online and confess all sorts of things, but they don’t do it in a way of apology. And it’s very hard to verbalize what you did wrong,” said archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs, letting loose an admission of her own: “That’s why I like to go when I’m in Rome, because I won’t know anyone.”

You can accomplish that just by going to another parish, though it’s a personal matter. No matter who the priest is ‘outside the box’, he sits in persona Christi in the confessional. One confesses to Christ–and he gives the grace.

Matthew Gallaugher, a government technology worker who lives in Foggy Bottom, said he experiences a “lighter, supernatural feeling” after confession, which he attends at least once a month “to clean out the gunk” of regular life: the bickering with his wife over who would make the bed, the little snip to someone at work.

“I want to become holy, I want to be transformed, to be Christlike,” the slim 30-year-old said yesterday outside the downtown church St. Stephen Martyr, where forehead-smeared parishioners poured in at noon for Ash Wednesday Mass.

Clergy say the rise in therapy and self-help may be a contributing factor in the decline in Catholics’ going to confession. And though they praise the advancement of mental health care, they also worry that people are forgetting that confession involves more than, well, confessing.

“It’s about coming to your senses, asking God’s forgiveness, demonstrating if we did wrong we need to do something to prevent that,” Irwin, of Catholic University, said.

In a Lent letter to the archdiocese’s 580,000 Catholics, (Archbishop) Wuerl opens with a secular image, comparing confession with unloading excess “baggage.” He adds that the church’s power to grant forgiveness through confession is called “the power of the keys” because it is viewed as part of the path to heaven.

That’s biblical, of course, from Matthew 16:18-20, which was the Gospel yesterday. The forgiveness in that “loosing” is a tremendous healer.

According to Gibbs, the archdiocese spokeswoman, watching Internet pornography is the most commonly unloaded baggage to priests, who have been protected under civil law from having to reveal confessions.

From the other side of the divider, Irwin said, confessions feel humbling, like the listener is being used as an instrument to help people connect with God. “It’s draining, but spiritually encouraging at the same time. Like a doctor has to diagnose what’s wrong; it’s the same sort of thing,” he said.

To elucidate….that’s called spiritual direction. And, received in the sacrament of confession (also known as reconciliation), it’s worth infintely more than any self-help books or counseling sessions.

The bishops across the country should take up a campaign like this. Imagine all the lights going on.