Confession as it was seems to have barely survived. Crowds like Harrod’s sale at Easter and Christmas, of course, as before. But unlike before, many fewer clients, I think, on a Saturday night. We may, of course, all be better people. We may have simply outgrown trivialising the Sacrament .It is certainly a phenomenon which is well worth a careful study. Could it be that general absolution may well have to be introduced due to shortage of priests? If so, of course, the problem of that rather complex notion which calls for individual confession later will solve itself.
We certainly cannot blame the confessional manner of. today’s priests .There were always priests who could handle it, and others who seemed to think they were speaking for themselves and not Christ. They were soon identified by the empty seats outside. The lesson that it’s supposed to help people back in and not chase them away seems to have been learned. Confession still survives in Hollywood and American TV, both of which have instinctively identified with the dramatic potential of the confessional, and they usually get it right. For some reason- take your pick- the BBC fights shy of it.
The only thing missing for me in the traditional film confession and the climactic impact of the shutter rattling back, and the profile of the priest behind the grille is the tension of putting fingers in ears before this, to avoid hearing the confession from the other side .Inevitably there were those who used the confessor as a patient might use a psychiatrist, to the irritation of those waiting to have their pot scraped, as the expression was. My uncle received some very disapproving tut-tuts from those around him once when, after an inordinately long wait, there was a clunking sound from the confessional, and the priest burst out of his side to run to the sacristy to get a glass of water for a lady who had fainted. My uncle’s theory that he had gone for the police did not go down too well with some others in the line.
My fourth Sacrament, Confirmation, called for a slightly larger blue suit and a red sash. It may have been the war, but I have always felt that some of the natural effervescence of that sacrament was lost at the time, or did not get through to me. But then, its life-affirming dynamic-and that of the Holy Spirit-did not then and does not now seem to be emphasised enough either. I do remember from the Acts of the Apostles being highly impressed by its transformation of the apostles, cowering in their hideyhole into the force which was to transform the entire middle eastern world, in historical terms, in a matter of years.
Battle-hardened veterans of the long walk up the aisle to the toffee-coloured marble altar rails after the First Communion, we were not that concerned about Confirmation as such. The problem was the cuff. Again, oddly enough, the idea that the Sacrament gave the ability to have, or at least be aware of, the courage needed to face change, is something which seems to have taken less precedence. It was highlighted in the Sacrament by a tap on the cheek from the Archbishop. Rumours of this, life being what it is, were passed on to us from the year ahead. Heart-rending tales of stunning punches and blows were suddenly part of our daily fears. Regrettably, all that tended to be remembered about the conferring of this sacrament- arguably the third most important-I’ll leave that with you-was the tap. This did, however, provide one of the most agile adjustments to a situation I have ever come across.
For some time after the war, St Mungo’s Academy, the gigantic Glasgow secondary school which was Glasgow’s oldest, had so many Second Year classes after the post-war baby boom that it had four annexes. One of them was so rigorous in ambience that it was claimed that it had been designed to house German POWs during the war, but the Nazis had invoked the Geneva Convention , and had threatened reprisals. It was constantly under siege by the local inhabitants, and had, at any time, three sets of brass toilet fittings, coveted for their scrap value- one in use, one just stolen and one an evidence production in Tobago Street Police Station. A little later it obviously had about as many former pupils as New Zealand had inhabitants in the first decade of the century, and decided to open a club. It bought an enormous house in Great Western Road from a brilliant local English eccentric called A.E. Pickard.
The club house had a superb marble staircase,which had attracted the attention of a group making a short film about the trial and execution of St John Ogilvie, the Jesuit martyred at Glasgow Cross. A lady acquaintance, unaware of this, was visiting the club with a non-Catholic friend, and entered to find various dignitaries, dressed in seventeenth century costume coming down the marble staircase. Before she could say a word, a man dressed as a Catholic priest was dragged out in front of her, and skelped across the coupon by the most dignified of the dignitaries with a punch which John Wayne or even Joel McCrea would have been proud of, leaving him taking a count at the foot of the staircase. Her friend looked at her, certainly perplexed, and possibly askance. With the speed of light she replied, “Don’t worry about that- they must be rehearsing for our Sacrament of Confirmation,” and swept into the bar.
There was a particularly good legend about a tough boy who had put up two fists to the Bishop after the tap, and the classmate in front of me was capable of it. But I was so disappointed when he reneged on this that I don’t remember mine at all.

Our St Maeve’s expert, perhaps feeling guilty about the popularity of his contributions on this site, insists that we remind you that nostalgia is a form of intellectual cancer. As he points out, as a means of providing the Eucharist the traditional parish with celibate staff served its purpose. But that was then. This is now !