I remember many a time in one of those confessionals growing up. As a pre-teen to teen when I was in catholic school, there was something at once inviting and forbidding about that booth. It was terrifying to be called by your name by the priest as soon as you made your opening salutation: “Bless me, father, for I have sinned, it has been (so long) since my last confession.”
“What do you have to tell me, Stanley?”
Upon which, no real sins could be admitted to, so I defaulted to a prepared plausible list. So, no sexual ones – the real ones and the most numerous are ever confessed – your name mentioned or not. The best you can manage is “I had 3 impure thoughts and said some impure words.”

After those guilt-ridden lies, you close and get this: “For your penance, say 3 hail marys and 4 our fathers.” End of session.

Sometimes, when I thought I came close enough to reality in my confession, I would walk out of the church and pray with all my heart that God would kill me right then before I committed another mortal sin.

Overall, for a kid, confession only worked OK if you were a girl, from what I could tell. There were certainly no good boys that I knew.

All of this underscores the effect of not knowing what it meant to be born again by hearing and responding to the real gospel. You knew enough as a catholic to keep you guilty and bound. You couldn’t even get a priest to admit he was going to heaven. His usual answer was “I hope so.” That is despite the fact that you were told unequivocally that if you made 9 first Fridays in a row, you were assured of heaven. I had several strings of those, easy. Some strings were multiples of that number.

It was a poor legacy for those claiming direct descent from Peter and having the very vicar of Christ in office while anathemizing everyone else in Christendom for their renegade doctrines.