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Fr. Douglas Dietrich prepares to hear confessions at his office window, at St. Mary's Parish in Lincoln, Neb. Credit: Jeff Schinstock/CNA

By Mary Farrow, CNA, March 18, 2020

Lincoln, Neb., Mar 18, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA) – Demand for confessions at St. Mary’s in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, has always been high: it’s a centrally-located church with convenient, daily confession times and often multiple confessors.

During the parish’s normal 11:30-noon weekday confession times, penitents on their lunch breaks line up, often 20 people or more deep, for absolution and sacramental grace, before returning to work, or before attending the 12:10 p.m. Mass.

“It’s a big ministry,” Fr. Douglas Dietrich, the pastor of St. Mary’s, told CNA. “And then we have a lot of people who come by the door and call up and just want to go to confession; that’s great.”

“I always joked about how I should just put up a walk-up confessional” available outside his rectory office window, Dietrich told CNA. ….

Read more here: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/bless-me-father—but-from-6-feet-away-coronavirus-and-confession-60496