I belong to a vibrant, growing parish. We are blessed with over 3,000 registered families, with an ebb and flow of approximately 30 families per month. Ministries abound. The parish school has a waiting list. New buildings are under construction to meet
burgeoning need. By all usual indicators, we are perceived as a strong Catholic community. After receiving Sacrament of Reconciliation one Saturday, I paused to reflect on why, in such a robust parish, line outside confessional was so short. I decided to crunch a few numbers. Suppose that our 3,000 registered families have four members each - husband, wife and two children. Further suppose that only one of two children in each family is over age of reason, which means they have received their First Communion. Given this demographic, there are then three people in each household whom (we hope) routinely receive Eucharist. These same people would incur a commensurate obligation to receive Reconciliation, so they are in a state of grace to receive Holy Communion. This yields a total of 9,000 Catholics in need of sacramental absolution. Minimum.
Reconciliation is typically administered on every Saturday of year except Holy Saturday, which means 51 Saturdays are available for Sacrament. Again being conservative, let’s assume these parishioners desire to partake of Reconciliation only twice a year. This means a minimum of 18,000 confessions to be administered annually. Simple arithmetic reveals that on each of these Saturdays our dedicated priests would have to hear confessions of 353 souls.
Maybe my math is off, but it’s rare to see more than a handful of people in line. Thanks to Blessed Mother’s promise, First Saturday each month usually has most activity. On many other occasions, however, I arrive at church with not a single person waiting to enter confessional in front of me. There sits a priest patiently waiting for even a few of his flock to appear. Grace and mercy for asking with no one to ask. Gifts for taking and no takers.
Even factoring in few hundred people that attend Penance Services held each Lent and Advent, numbers fall far short of our registered families, let alone vast ocean of non-registered souls who worship in stealth. So, where is everyone? Why staggering shortfall? Why willingness to forgo boundless mercy of a loving God? My math must be really far off. Or, maybe, some other force is at work.
Perhaps answer lies in a telling passage in Catechism. It states, "Without knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. Only in knowledge of God’s plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another." (CCC 387)
In essence, passage warns that our failure to seek God means that we lose our sense of sin. Is there a more apt description of modern America? Would anyone argue that word "sin" has altogether been stricken from our vocabulary, relegated to yellowed pages of Baltimore Catechism? We have deemed it an offensive term. Its use is considered highly judgmental and intolerant. No one sins anymore.
