What exactly occurs during the time of Confession? I’ve seen scenes from movies where someone goes into what looks like a voting booth and says, “Forgive me Father for I have sinned.” Is this what it is like in most Catholic churchs?
yes.
“forgive me father, for I have sinned. It has been (insert time interval here) since my last confession.”
The penitant recites his sins and the preist, assuming the role of Jesus Christ the redeemer…or acting as a conduit for dispensing His redemption, take your pick…issues the recital of Our Fathers and Hail Marys as pennance, at which point the pennitant recites the Act of Contrition to wrap things up.
The old confessionals with the priest in one little roomlet, the sinner, kneeling, in another, and both of rooms connected by a small door that the priest slides open, is probably on the way out. Nevertheless, this is how it is usually protrayed in dramas because it makes for good theater.
Nowadays, you sit in a chair facing the priest, make the sign of the cross and begin: “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been <time> since my last confession. These are my sins…”
In the new setup, here’s still a small standing partition with a screen available which you can hide behind, if that’s how you want to confess.
In recent years in Ireland, pople just form a queue in the nave and take their turn to see the priest who’s probably sitting at the top of the church. You kneel and confeess without boxes or screens with the next person about 3 yard behind you.
Maybe we’ve been sinning so much that we’ve had to speed up the process !
My church–well, when I used to go to church–still had confessional booths and that was the normal way to confess your sins. That was only about ten years ago, and so far as I can tell they are still there. So at least around here, face-to-face isn’t the norm (although when I went to confession, I always opted for face-to-face. The booth thing was always kinda creepy to me.)
That would be a fast way to lose a congregation here in the states.
As it is, a lot of women (moreso than men) in my parish go to another church to confess. They’re too ashamed, apparently, to confess to their own priests. And if you’re wondering where I got that, it’s from a priest. In confession.
Continuing monotonously…
Catholics do not avail themselves of confession as they used to. In the 40’s, when I was a kid, there were afternoon and evening sessions for Confession. At Sacred Heart Church in Springfield Mass., we’d have 4 priests hearing confessions, for about two hours, and the lines ran from here to way down there.
Now, In my CT church, the session lasts from 4 to 4:45 pm and maybe 20-30 people go. Yet, just about every single person at every Mass, receives Communion, which you’re not supposed to do if you have a mortal sin still on your soul.
Seems hypocritical.
My church has the old-style confessionals and several of the new-style ones as well. The old-style ones are overwhelmingly the more popular option. I always use the old-style in preference to the new.
Perhaps the church could embrace the youngest generation with econfessions-log on to www.repent.com or some such and with a few mouse clicks you’re back on the straight and narrow. 
Cat Jones, your story makes me wonder how long it will be before there’s drive-thru confession!
Seriously, though, I had a few sessions last year with a therapist who’s also a Catholic priest, regarding some spiritual issues. In the course of one of our conversations, he told me that he has, on occasion, “heard” confession via e-mail!
Myself, I feel rather old-school. When I was a Catholic, I used to enjoy the dark, solitary gloom of the confessional. It seemed a more appropriate venue for a penitent, even though I hadn’t yet learned to sin very well in those days.
Already done:
More to the point of the OP, the usual litany of venial sins is recited by the penitent. Then the penitent begins discussing the sin that brought him to confession, since it is usually something serious and/or troubling. The priest asks a few questions to clarify the nature of the sin, then asks a few questions about what the penitent thought at the time, and how he felt. The penitent answers as completely as he can, and in the course of this dialog understands what led to the sin and how he might avoid it. The priest then grants absolution, predicated upon a penance, which is usually a list of prayers to recite in the church before leaving. The penitent is told to go and sin no more, and recites the Act of Contrition.
At least that’s how confession worked when I was a devout Catholic. I left the church a short while after it stopped working that way. I make no judgement as to cause and effect.
BTW, here’s a few variations of the Act of Contrition:
I may have it wrong, but these days, priests don’t ask questions anymore. I think one of them at my church even mentioned that they’re not allowed to do so.
Maybe some Doper will shed light on the veracity of this.
I just got back from your link.
They probably have a virtual priest manning the virtual confessional. 
And somewhere down the line, after a number of soulful confessions, a naive penitent receives, not a virtual, but a real, honest-to-God blackmail letter.
Historically, we never used the booths in the Byzantine Catholic Church. Confession has always been done face-to-face with the priest.
I browsed the absolution-online web site and noted a category of sin called “Felching and related perversions”. What the heck is “felching”? The word isn’t listed in my online dictionary.
The confessional was standard practice in my parish until the late 70s, when you could begin to choose face-to-face confessions with the priest. I never felt comfortable going face-to-face then, so I always went the confessional route… not that it mattered, since I went to a Catholic school and all the priests knew the students anyway. (From behind the confessional screen: “Okay sunfish, to atone for your sins I want you to say one Our Father and ten Hail Marys…” :rolleyes: )
I had the opportunity to experience confession in an Indian Catholic church a couple years back. That was more like what Cat Jones describes for Ireland, except the church wasn’t big enough to allow 3 meters distance between confessant and congregation. It also wasn’t exactly face-to-face; I knelt on a small kneeler (no screen) next to the priest, facing the front of the church, but the priest was sitting sideways w/r/t me and did not look directly at me most of the time.
I googled “felching” and found out all I need to know about it!
Y’know, in all my years, I’ve never said this as far as I know.