I Confess

They say people don't go to Confession any more. What they don't say is where this place is, unless all the people who still go are following me around and rushing into line ahead of me. Because, seriously, I can hardly think of a time when there were less than three people in line ahead of me for Confession, and half-hour waits are not uncommon around here. So I really wish they would reveal the location of this mythical place where nobody goes to Confession, so that I could go there.

Ironically, people are not very kind when it comes to waiting in line for Confession. I have had more little old ladies actually cut in front of me in line than I could count on both hands even if I were Ann Boleyn! An observation, not a stereotype: little old Italian ladies are the worst about this. In Lourdes they kept cutting in front of us to get into the baths, and it got so bad that we weren't even moving in line, so we just gave up. At least in the confessional line, the timing is good, because then you don't have much time for that mortal sin: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, including plotting to kill a little old lady."

At my church there are a number of families who have about 600 children, more or less, and they ALL get in line for Confession. There's nothing like standing behind a bunch of tiny kids, knowing you could go straight to Hell if you died because your sins are so serious, yet you have to wait for all 600 of them to confess about how they didn't pray the Rosary yesterday and said No to their mother last Tuesday. And this is on regular Saturdays! On the First Saturday of the month, or during Lent, you can just forget about getting anywhere near the confessional. I once saw a line at my church (fortunately I was not in it; I was up in the choir loft, practicing music for Easter) and it snaked around one whole side of the church, and a bunch of people were still waiting in line two hours later when our choir practice ended. I think there should be two lines: one for us craven sinners who really need it, and another one for little kids and people who don't really have anything serious on their consciences but are just going for some devotional thing. They think they will skip Purgatory if they go every First Saturday - great, but if I'm going to Hell so you can skip Purgatory, how fair is that?

I have, as so many of us do, an Archirritant (Richard Bonomo says she is not my Archenemy), and she is right up on top of my list of causes for having to go to Confession. I pointed out to RB that it would be more economical, sin-wise, for me to kill her and then confess that, then to have to go to Confession every week because I was mean to her, gossiped about her, etc. He didn't think too much of that logic, and someone else pointed out that I would just find a new Archirritant. (Another example of my logic that caused RB to practically fall off his chair laughing: he said the federal government might print more money to help offset the latest economic crisis, and when I said, "So how is that different than some guy cranking out 20's in his basement?" he said - once he stopped laughing - that one is legal and the other isn't. I knew that, but abortion is legal and infanticide isn't, yet the only difference there is in one case the baby is in fluid and in the other it is in air.)

Speaking of abortion, just a quick reminder: half of all people involved in them die. I would think this would disturb feminists, especially since a great number of those people are being killed specifically because they are female. Yes, that is the #1 handicap that causes babies to be aborted in many parts of the world. As a TRUE feminist, I find this outrageous.

So please, if anyone out there knows of a place where nobody goes to Confession, let me know.

Famous Hat