Confession getting a new life among area churches

It's a Tuesday evening, not exactly high time for people to think about asking God for forgiveness.

But on this night, St. Thomas Beckett Catholic Church in Mount Prospect is bustling with parishioners waiting to confess their sins to one of five stationed priests.

At least three lines snake through the main chapel and out into the vestibule. Most of those in attendance are Polish immigrants who have come with babies, toddlers and teenage children in tow.

In the harried bustle to meet with a priest, somebody accidentally pulls the church fire alarm, prompting an unexpected greeting from members of the fire department.

"This is just crazy," says Tom Walkosz, 18, of Mount Prospect, as he waits in the pews for his dad. "There's so many more people than I expected."

No, the Catholic Church isn't exactly experiencing a large-scale revival of parishioners flocking to confess their sins.

The practice of regular confession actually has been in steep decline for decades. A 2005 poll by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate shows that only about one in four Catholics participates in the sacrament at least once a year.

And about 42 percent say they never go.

But the practice of confessing one's sins to a pastor is seeing signs of life in some unusual places in the suburbs and beyond.

Spurred by an influx of Polish and Latino immigrants, some suburban churches, such as St. Thomas Beckett, are seeing a stark revival of parishioners interested in participating in regular confession, especially during the Christian holy seasons of Advent and Lent.

Area Protestants, many of whom were raised to shun liturgical practices such as private confessions, are opening up to the traditionally Roman Catholic practice with some personal twists.

And some churches have even gone to the Internet, allowing the faithful to post confessions online in their quest for repentance.

Hearing the call

The Catholic Church, for its part, has tried a variety of tactics to put an emphasis on the dwindling practice.

Two years ago, six churches in the Chicago Archdiocese held a 24 Hours of Grace program in which priests were stationed at confessionals overnight.

Roughly 2,500 people participated.

"It was a little bit of a gimmick, to be honest, but it worked," said the Rev. Mike McGovern, pastor of the Church of St. Mary in Lake Forest, who helped organize the program. "The idea was (to figure out) how to invite people who were not practicing their Catholic faith."

Last February, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., bought ads on radio stations and billboards urging Catholics to come to confession during Lent.

And earlier this month, the Vatican held a crash course in Rome for priests to hear confessions as part of an effort to restore confidence in the practice among the faithful.

While no area dioceses actively track figures or study the levels of participation for the sacrament, most Catholic church leaders say that, anecdotally at least, they see confessional lines more often filled with immigrant worshippers.

At Divine Mercy Polish Mission near Lombard, pastors have organized both morning and evening schedules this week for the hundreds of parishioners who will seek the sacrament in advance of Easter.

"They grew up in the Catholic tradition and look to us to keep them alive spiritually in this new country," said the Rev. Zygmunt Ostrowski, one of the pastors.

In addition to his work at the Lombard church, Ostrowski makes weekly trips to perform Mass and listen to confessions each Sunday for Polish immigrants at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Joliet.

At Maryville's Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel in Des Plaines, the Rev. Miguel Martinez hears daily confession from members of the parish, whose Saturday and Sunday services, celebrated mostly in Spanish, are attended by nearly 8,000 people during the summer.

On Sundays, people begin to line up for confession at 9 a.m. and the steady stream doesn't let up for five or six hours, Martinez said.

"My experience is that people come regularly to confession, but 90 percent are immigrants," he said. "Second-generation, I'd say they very seldom come to confession. Usually, it's when they receive the sacraments, or when they are going to be godparents."

Like many Mexican immigrants, Wheeling resident Leticia Huerta attended church regularly while growing up in Mexico. Her faith strengthened in her early 20s when she met her husband, a devout Catholic.

Huerta, who works as a secretary at Our Lady of Guadalupe, said she goes to confession whenever she feels the need for it, or about four times a year.

"For me, as a Catholic, confession is extremely important," she said. "It's the absolution of my sins, and my reconciliation with God. It is something that makes me feel good and a better Catholic."

Beyond Catholics

Outside of the Catholic faith, some Protestant communities also are increasingly becoming receptive to the traditionally Catholic rite.

Last summer, the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod, a 2.5-million-member branch that's among the largest Protestant denominations in the nation, voted to revive private confessions with a pastor.

Last year, Wheaton College held a symposium on the Emergent Church movement, which is composed of Protestant faithful interested in refocusing their efforts on studying and participating in ancient Christian practices and liturgies.

"The typical Protestant pattern of singing a few hymns isn't satisfying to some people," said Jeffrey Greenman, the associate dean of biblical and theological studies at Wheaton College.

At the Life on the Vine Church in Long Grove, members gather at least once a week in groups of three or four to listen to each other's confessions.

While the practice isn't quite as ritualistic as one-on-one confessions in the Catholic faith, the Rev. David Fitch said group confessions are a way for his congregation to escape the trappings of modern life and focus on both God and their own spirituality.

"You have to understand that a large population of twenty-somethings are not interested in mega-church, Disney-style productions," he said. "They just want to talk to people and are being left out. There's no place for them to go."

Confessing online

For those who aren't interested in the intimacy of expressing their transgressions face to face, even the Internet has emerged as a method for some people to proclaim their sinfulness.

Thousands of people have posted their sins on ivescrewedup.com, a confession Web site started by an evangelical congregation in Cooper City, Fla.

The largely anonymous postings -- most people are identified by their age and the town they live in -- detail everything from theft to extramarital affairs and murder.

Another Christian ministry, the XXX Church, has videotaped people confessing their addictions to X-rated material. Some of the confessions have been posted on YouTube.

While it's an emerging alternative, not all Christian scholars advocate the practice of airing sins online, and the Catholic Church is strictly opposed to the practice.

"We live in a culture that's pretty voyeuristic," said Greenman, the Wheaton College dean. "It's not exactly good for Christian tradition to be showing off your humility."

• Reflejos staff writer Elena Ferrarin contributed to this report.