A penitent walks into a Dominican church in New York City. It’s about 20 minutes before confessions are slated to start. In front of one confessional, there’s already a line 10 to 15 people deep. People are starting to gather in front of the church’s other confessional too.

A woman leans over to the penitent and asks, “Are there guides to confession in there? I haven’t been in a long time.”

“The priest will help you—just tell him you haven’t been in a while,” he says.

Scenes like this play out frequently in churches wherever Dominican Friars are found.

Many Dominican parishes, especially those in the center of large cities, have publicly scheduled times for confession six or seven days a week—sometimes multiple times a day. For instance, St. Patrick Church in Columbus, OH, has confession before every Mass on Sunday.

“We are a parish that knows that the mercy of God is always available,” said Fr. Paul Marich, O.P., the pastor of St. Patrick Church.

“Confession is a sacrament of healing,” he said. “What you do see in souls coming to confession is that great desire for the healing of Christ with whatever sin that they are struggling with or whatever wounds that they have to bring before the Lord.”

And people are seeking Christ the Healer in the sacrament. Friars do not usually keep tallies of the numbers who seek confession, but Fr. Paul estimates that 250-300 people come to his church each week for the sacrament.

His estimate tracks with numbers seen at other Dominican parishes. Between St. Joseph Church in Greenwich Village and the nearby Catholic Center at New York University, Dominican Friars hear about 200 to 250 confessions each week. About the same number confess each week at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Even in the much smaller city of Charlottesville, VA, the friars spend a combined 10 hours a week hearing confessions. And at the most recent Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage, 15 Dominican priests heard more than 800 confessions over the course of 3 hours.

Made for Happiness

Telling a stranger—or, perhaps worse, someone you know—the bad things (sometimes very bad things) you have done is rarely a pleasant experience. So the popularity of confession at Dominican parishes may mystify many in the secular world.

Yet for the penitent, this experience leads to happiness, due in part to the Dominican Friars’ approach to the sacrament.

Fr. Raymond La Grange, O.P., who served as a parochial vicar at the Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer before returning to further graduate studies, explained that the Dominicans’ theological emphasis on happiness through developing virtue shapes how they guide the penitent through the sacrament.

“You want to be happy because you’re a human, and that’s what humans do. Your ultimate happiness is in God, but you’re trying to place your happiness in something else,” he said. “So can we help you see the truth and go toward it?”

To be able to help a person see the truth, a Dominican priest completes a rigorous philosophical and theological education before he hears his first confession. Friars take about six classes on moral theology as part of their seminary studies, and these classes place a greater emphasis on God’s grace, the virtues, and the beatitudes than the typical education provided to diocesan seminarians or members of other religious orders. The Dominican Order also requires its candidates for the priesthood to pass a special exam on the sacrament before they are allowed to hear confessions.

The rigorous academic training the friars receive means they can engage deeply with people in confession.

“When I’m trying to understand or want to have…a deeper conversation about what it is that I am confessing, then I can rely on the Dominicans for that kind of guidance and that kind of deeper understanding,” said Simon Ciccarillo, a lawyer who first encountered the friars at St. Dominic Church in Washington, DC.

Just as they are intellectually deep, they are also “genuinely caring about the person making their confession,” he noted.

As a convert, Ciccarillo’s encounter with the Dominicans’ intellectual tradition was transformative. “I literally became Catholic when I converted, but I don’t think I became a complete Catholic until after I had…spent some time in a Dominican parish,” he said.

Sacramental Abundance

While people are drawn to Dominican confessors for their theological learning and compassion, there are also practical reasons their ministry sites are major centers for confession. An abundance of vocations means Dominican parishes generally have more priests assigned to them than the average parish. Additionally, Dominican parishes may also be associated with larger Dominican houses or “priories” that are home to other friars whose primary ministry is not at the parish, but who will also assist in the sacramental ministry of the parish. Since Dominican parishes can draw upon the service of a larger number of priests, they can make the sacraments more readily available than most parishes.

Having a Dominican parish offer many opportunities for confession enriches its whole diocese in a paradoxical way. On the one hand, Fr. Paul noted that the greater availability of confession lifts a burden on the local diocesan priests, since their parishioners can easily go to a Dominican priest. On the other hand, he has also seen more and more diocesan parishes in the Columbus area increase the opportunity for confession during the workweek and on Sundays.

The increase in the opportunity for confession and the number of people showing up for the sacrament are signs of hope, just as the sacrament itself is a sign of the penitent’s hope, which ultimately rests in God.

Fr. Raymond reminds us that “When a penitent considers their sins, they should think, ‘I’m sorry for them, but my hope is in God, not in me, not in what I’ve accomplished, not in what I’ve become, not in how good or bad I am. My hope is in God’.”