VATICAN CITY (AP) -- A Vatican official is lamenting that many faithful don't confess their sins, and says some confuse a psychologist's couch for a confessional booth.
Archbishop Mauro Piacenza has told Vatican Radio that the sacrament of penance, which the Catholic church also calls the Sacrament of Reconciliation, has been experiencing a "deep crisis" for decades now.
Piacenza, an official for the Vatican office on clergy, says fewer people distinguish between good and evil, and as a result, don't go to confession.
The archbishop said in the interview that if the faithful don't have a sense of sin, they might "confuse" confession with "the couch of a psychologist or a psychiatrist."
Piacenza also says that a dwindling number of priests means fewer confessors to hear the faithful.