Mass schedule search engines reveal a serious problem affecting many parishes: the lack of clear and real information about the availability of the sacrament of Confession. In too many Catholic churches, no specific schedule appears, but the biggest problem is that when some reference does appear, it usually boils down to a routine and not very useful formula: “confessions thirty minutes before Mass”. In practice, that notice very rarely guarantees that there is a priest in a confessional, available and waiting for the penitent.
The experience is usually very different. Half an hour before Mass, time is running out, the priest is focused on the celebration, constant interruptions arise, and the faithful almost always end up in the uncomfortable situation of interrupting the priest in the sacristy or going around asking in the parish facilities. That situation discourages anyone and confirms what we had already denounced about the lack of confession: the Church is going through a serious practical neglect of this sacrament, precisely when it is most needed to give it visibility, concreteness, and pastoral normality if the goal is to save souls.
As a small attempt to contribute something and help, from Infovaticana we launch confesion.info, a participatory map to locate open confessionals, with defined schedules and with a priest really present. It is about offering the faithful a clear, simple, and useful reference: a confessional and a schedule. Something as elementary as that can make the difference between facilitating access to the sacrament or continuing to push the faithful into an uncomfortable, uncertain, and discouraging search. To complete it, we ask for help from all readers so that they help us point out schedules and locations. The map shows in green the confessionals open in real time.
And to the priests: please, set a specific schedule every day and keep it. Sit in the confessional, not in the office. Make yourselves visible. Confession cannot depend on the faithful interrupting, asking, or insisting. The pastoral initiative corresponds to you.
The solution is immediate and within reach of any parish: an open confessional, a clear schedule, and a present priest. Everything else is operational excuses that, in practice, end up keeping the faithful away from the sacrament.