#12402 Is Confession Catholic Therapy? – Ask a Priest - Fr. Sebastian Walshe
Catholic Answers Live
Catholic Answers
4.8 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“Is confession Catholic therapy?” This episode explores the role of confession in spiritual healing, alongside discussions on the Catholic understanding of salvation, the challenges of prayer devoted to Mary, and navigating marriage in the Church when one partner is hesitant. Tune in for a thoughtful examination of these important topics.
Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter
Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com
Questions Covered:
- 02:00 – Is confession Catholic therapy?
- 09:45 – What is the Catholic view of Salvation as it relates to faith?
- 14:22 – I struggle with the time prayer devoted to Mary?
- 20:13 – Can you explain the foundation of the Catholic church?
- 29:05 – How can I get married in the Church, but my spouse doesn’t want to?
- 34:24 – I am struggling with accepting and understanding Confession. After a general confession, I find myself thinking of new sins or doubt of making a good confession
- 42:45 – Are sins committed in dreams sinful, and how can one deal with minimizing “sins” in dreams?
- 46:50 – Going through OCIA, what tips and pointers can Fr. offer as he goes through the process?
- 52:28 – What to do when she attends Mass and witnesses folks doing odd things…I.e. Drinking coffee, brings dog etc….?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent. |
| 0:05.2 | When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers. |
| 0:11.5 | Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Welcome back Catholic Answers live. |
| 0:32.7 | My name is Edgar Lujano, producer for the show and filling in for Sykele today. |
| 0:37.1 | Don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow, so you'll get your daily dose of Cy Kellett starting tomorrow. Over today, you are stuck with me, but the great thing about it is we've got a great guest for the second hour. We have Father Sebastian Walsh here with us, and it's an Ask a Priest. So if you have a question, if you always wanted to ask a priest, he is here for you. 8883-384. That's triple-831-truth to ask your question to Father Sebastian. Father, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Good to be with you, Edgar. Great to have you on the show. Now, you're at St. Michael's Abbey, I assume, or? Yes, that's right. I'm at the Abbey right now. |
| 1:12.3 | Okay, great. So I'm assuming you get, obviously, lots of Catholic visitors, but I'm assuming |
| 1:17.0 | you also get a lot of maybe non-Catholics or some newbies kind of walking through the grounds |
| 1:21.4 | on occasion? Oh, certainly. We get about, I think, about 200 visitors a day, actually. And a lot of those visitors are, you know, tourists. |
| 1:30.3 | They're, you know, they're just people from the area sometimes, a canyon down the road. |
| 1:36.3 | Sometimes there are people from local, you know, assisted living places or whatever. |
| 1:41.5 | You know, people just hear about it. |
| 1:42.8 | And a lot of people come because it's a beautiful, you know, work of architecture and art, and it's a beautiful setting. And so |
| 1:49.4 | we get a lot of non-Catholics that come. That's great. So whenever I've, I mean, obviously, |
| 1:55.3 | in the online world, we get a lot of questions from non-Catholics. But one thing that I've noticed reoccurring is people |
| 2:04.0 | not really understanding what confession is and I've heard it from the secular perspective who |
| 2:09.2 | don't understand Catholicism they always they tend to ask is confession a form of Catholic |
| 2:14.3 | therapy and what would you respond to a question like that? |
| 2:19.3 | Well, I can understand why someone might say that. |
| 2:22.0 | In fact, there's a famous line by Fulton Sheen when he says that, you know, |
| 2:26.9 | people are paying hundreds of dollars to do what Catholics have been doing for free for centuries. |
| 2:32.5 | But no, it's not accurate to refer to as Catholic therapy. |
| 2:36.9 | That would certainly be less than what it really is. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Catholic Answers, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Catholic Answers and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.