Sacraments
How to Return to the Church
Preparing for Confession · 7 steps
Coming back after months or years away: the truth that you can, the conversation with a priest, confession, the situations that need pastoral help — a marriage outside the Church, a Confirmation never received — and rebuilding the habit of Sunday Mass.
7 steps · About 20 minutes
A baptised Catholic who has drifted away has not stopped being a Catholic. Baptism cannot be undone, and the door back is never locked from the inside; it is opened by a conversation and a confession. In Misericordiae Vultus, the bull announcing the Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote that the Church's very credibility depends on her showing merciful love, and asked that confessors be true signs of the Father's mercy, welcoming everyone who comes. Returning is usually simpler than people fear — one talk with a priest, one confession, and a Sunday — and where a situation is more complicated, a marriage outside the Church or a sacrament never received, there is a pastoral path for that too. This guide gives the steps in the order they usually come.
What you need
- The name of a parish near you and its confession and Mass times
- A willingness to speak honestly with a priest, and about ten minutes to do it
- An examination of conscience — the guide of that name will help — and the Act of Contrition
- Patience with yourself: a habit lost over years is rebuilt over weeks, not in a day
When to pray it
Whenever the desire comes; that desire is itself the beginning of grace. Lent and Advent are seasons when parishes hold extra confessions and welcome returners, but any Saturday afternoon confession time and any Sunday Mass will do.
Steps
Step 1: Know that you can come back
Whatever the reason for leaving — drift, hurt, anger, a marriage, unbelief, or simply years that passed — the Church wants you home, and the way back is the same for everyone: repentance and the sacraments. You were not struck off any list. If you were baptised Catholic, you remain a member of the Church; even if you joined another church or none, you return by confession, not by a second baptism, though the priest may ask a few questions to understand your history. Pope Francis wrote that no one can be excluded from the mercy of God, and that the Church is the house that welcomes all and refuses no one. Read that sentence as addressed to you, because it is.
Tips
- You do not need to have everything sorted out before you go. Go first; the sorting out is what the priest is for.
- Tell the priest plainly that you have been away a long time and are not sure how to begin. He has heard it many times and will lead you through.
- Until you have made your confession, come to Mass and stay in the pew at Communion time, or come forward with arms crossed for a blessing; you are still welcome at Mass.
- Find one person or group at the parish — a returning-Catholics programme, a Bible study, a friend who goes — and let them carry you for the first months.