Hub’s friars: We hear more confessions than any other U.S. church

St. Anthony Shrine takes more confessions than any other church in America — so says top friar Father Tom Conway.

Seven days a week — even beginning at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesdays — the priests estimate they hear about 35,000 confessions a year.

“We’re located downtown. In a city. And all confessions are anonymous,” Conway said last night. “We do hear everything — everything you can think of.”

The confessions range from people worried about family, work and going too long between confessions to looking at their life “from 30,000 feet,” the friar said.

Conway, executive director at the shrine, said above all, nobody is judged.

“Sometimes a person has confessed their crime,” he said. “Immediately there’s this trust … they’re just aware that it’s really a sacred moment.”

Many friars will say that it’s common to cry when you’re in confession admitting your sins.

“I’d say there are sometimes big confessions. Those are the ones where you’ve been away for a long time. You may not have confessed for five years, 10 years. I’ve been in that situation,” said George Taylor, a 46-year-old Boston resident who attends confession weekly at the shrine. “I think confession is where most people meet the church again, because most feel unworthy to go right to a Mass.”

Taylor went from barely attending church to volunteering at the shrine’s food pantry.

“It’s a spiritual method for self-improvement,” Taylor said. “Imagine yourself standing before God … when you think of the enormity of what confession is, at least for me, it’s an emotional thing.”