Confession Changes

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If you or the priest have a smart phone with you and have not disabled all the microphone permissions, your sins might be being recorded without either of your knowledge.
 
halogirl said:
You can sit next to the priest in a quiet area of the church where your backs are facing the others.
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I simply prefer the confessional - and I suppose a lot of people do so. So why not make the confessional in a way that completely separates the priest and the penitent. And then if someone opts for face-to-face Confession they can go with your suggestions. By CC we are to be able to confess anonymously, no matter if that means with a curtain behind them or being inside an actual confessional.
 
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All the confessionals I’ve been in are totally separated in terms of a barrier but still they are putting windows in. Let’s not worry about it too much let’s just use the sacrament
 
When I was in RCIA, one of the sacristans in the parish came with boxes and boxes of tissues to take to the confessionals. She saw our surprised looks and said something like: “We are also amazed of the amount of tissues needed in the confessionals.”

I don’t mind if the priest is behind a window/visible but my first thought was that the penitent shouldn’t be forced to be seen by other people. I would hate to be met by someone saying: “I saw you crying in the confessional. Did you have serious sins to confess?”
 
HeDa said:
I don’t mind if the priest is behind a window/visible but my first thought was that the penitent shouldn’t be forced to be seen by other people. I would hate to be met by someone saying: “I saw you crying in the confessional. Did you have serious sins to confess?”
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I think people who have never seen what we’re talking about are overestimating the size and visibility of the window and also the position of other people with respect to the window.

First of all, window or not, people do not sit or stand close to confessionals. They don’t want to overhear anything. In the US people will leave a distance of about 20 feet between themself in line for confession or praying or whatever, and the confessional. At that distance, all you can see through the window would be movement. Like if the person is getting up to leave, or if there was some sort of unusual activity (such as a criminal act being inflicted on either the priest or the penitent).

You cannot see the face of the penitent, especially since the window is generally set up so that only the back or side of the penitent’s head is going to be facing the window.

You cannot see facial expressions or whether someone is crying.

And of course nobody is gauche enough to ask someone what they said or did in the confessional, unless maybe it would be an overly concerned parent asking their child who came out with tears streaming down their face.
 
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We have a right to anonymous confession. I am not going to confession while people look at me through a window.
 
Do we have this right, ie for people not to see us in the confessional? Canon law only says that we have the right to a fixed grill between the confessor and the penitent. Certainly the older confessionals in many cathedrals and basilicas do not hide the penitent from those who are outside. Granted, in those they are not looking at you through a window, they are simply looking at you, as you are visible to one and all, excepting the confessor.

I personally think we need to go back to those style of confessionals and keep it all anonymous and get rid of face-to-face.
 
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As the priest cannot even say “Joe Schmoe came to me for confession”, it makes sense that a lookie-loo window is outside the spirit of the law at minimum.
 
TheLittleLady said:
We have a right to anonymous confession. I am not going to confession while people look at me through a window.
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We do not have a right to an anonymous confession. The right is to a fixed grate or a grill in confession, which does not necessarily even preserve one’s anonymity from the priest. And the rest of the world, there are plenty of “traditional” confessionals, older than the United States itself, in which the penitent is clearly and completely visible, and not just through a small window.

Coming from a Catholic tradition in which confession looks like this:(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

I guess I have a hard time understanding what the big deal is.
 
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Canons 983 and 984 speak about how the priest cannot reveal, nor require the person to reveal, what was said in confession. Requiring me to confess in front of other people, in my opinion, violates the spirit of these canons.
 
I am so used to confessing before other people in France. Especially during Lent and Advent when confessions take place in the church or in summer when it takes outside the church. Everybody can see me when I’m confessing. They even had a video showing me confessing. So long as nobody heard a word of what I was saying, I don’t see the problem.

When I see somebody confess, I gave thanks to God for such an humble soul confessing their sins to God. I only see humility.
 
babochka said:
The right is to a fixed grate or a grill in confession, which does not necessarily even preserve one’s anonymity from the priest
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No, canon law does not call that out per se, but preserving one’s anonymity from the priest is the intent.
TheLittleLady said:
Requiring me to confess in front of other people, in my opinion, violates the spirit of these canons.
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Well, even ignoring the traditional European confessionals, how does standing in a openly expose line not do so? Its a difficult question, I realize. But it does seem impractical to allow for the knowledge of one’s confession taking place to always be private.
 
Standing in line is one thing (and if I were uncomfortable with that, I would make an appointment).

While I realize that not everyone can lip read, many of us can. That is one reason I do not want anyone watching me confess.
 
tafan2 said:
But it does seem impractical to allow for the knowledge of one’s confession taking place to always be private.
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Well said. I don’t think you can hide ‘going to confession’.

That makes me wonder, am I as a third-party witness bound by the seal of confession to not disclose that i saw person X at confession at church Y on Friday, just wondering?
 
tafan2 said:
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babochka:
The right is to a fixed grate or a grill in confession, which does not necessarily even preserve one’s anonymity from the priest
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No, canon law does not call that out per se, but preserving one’s anonymity from the priest is the intent.
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I don’t know if it is the intent now, but it was not the intent when St Charles Borromeo introduced the screen in the 16th century. The greater chance of anonymity was but a side effect.
 
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Kima said:
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babochka:
We do not have a right to an anonymous confession.
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Canon Law says we do.
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Canon law says that you have a right to a fixed grate or grille. There are any number of reasons why that might not result in total anonymity. These include being known to the priest, being seen in line while the priest is walking into the confessional, or having a grate that the priest can see through. While most Latin Rite priests I know do what they can to preserve anonymity even in these situations, anonymity is not guaranteed by canon law or reality.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Standing in line is one thing (and if I were uncomfortable with that, I would make an appointment).

While I realize that not everyone can lip read, many of us can. That is one reason I do not want anyone watching me confess.
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Would you feel comfortable in something with translucent windows, like this?
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
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