From Mr Raymond Hewitt Sir, The Church will change when it returns to the long confessions.
Parish retreats and missions are for the pious, and the brief 6.30 to 7pm confession times abounding in church bulletins stab at parish sanctity.
The huge unconfessed laity of a parish does not want retreats or mission, and certainly never a scampered reconciliation in the confessional.
The growing need of the hesitant and absolutely fallen away Catholic is to be forgiven and reconciled through the confessional — and then only in the manner of arriving in church in privacy, to confess with others when the nave is still and the penitent's eyes moist in recollec tion of this sad condition.
Parishioners will recall the church when confession was I 0 to 11 Saturday mornings and 6'o'clock until 8 evenings.
But why should the Church need to be told this?
The Church must again undertake this great work of sanctification. the long confession, and, surprise, surprise, learn of one very young man, doubtless of two, of the parish aspiring to the priestly state, all because he saw month upon month that someone, a man of God in the confessional, the priest of earth and heaven, was awaiting him (or them) within.
He finally went, of course. How else did we get our priests, especially so when unknown to him the Holy Spirit ever in attendance was never not so very far away either.
Yours faithfully, RAYMOND HEWITT Nuneaton, Warwicks.