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Mt19_26
Guest
I was just wondering how many people go to confession face-to-face vs behind a screen. I personally almost always go face-to-face when it’s available.
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Beebs
Guest
Mt19:26:
Actual I go to another parish altogether just for confession.
My feelings are what ever is more comfortable to individual.
It’s bad enough many don’t go already.
I wounder if the drop off of people going coincides with face to face confession. I know it held me back.
:bigyikes: Sorry, going behind a screen is bad enough.
Actual I go to another parish altogether just for confession.
My feelings are what ever is more comfortable to individual.
It’s bad enough many don’t go already.
I wounder if the drop off of people going coincides with face to face confession. I know it held me back.
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kleary
Guest
The whole thing behind the “Face to Face” confession is the liberals in the Church attempting to STOP people from going to confession.
Ken
Ken
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Lorrie
Guest
I go to confession face to face and with the same priest each time. It seems to make me feel more accountable for my sins. It would be too easy to go to confession with someone I don’t know/doesn’t know me.
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Mt19_26
Guest
I don’t think this is the case because no one is forced or encouraged to go face-to-face. Atleast not in my parish. I go face-to-face because I feel more confortable when I can look at the priest when he’s talking and I don’t have anything to confess that is particularily embarassing.
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anJayRN
Guest
Wow, that’s so charitable. Thanks! I’m sure all of us who confess face to face appreciate it!
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OutinChgoburbs
Guest
The whole thing behind “face to face” is to give those who prefer it a chance not to feel clausterphobic in a teeny booth; to psychologically “own up” to their sins, by facing the priest; to put a face on Jesus through the priest. I prefer this method every week. It does not stop me from going. Laziness, cold mornings (I go in the early AM), lack of humility and a false sense of pride might keep me from going, but not one method over the other.
The norm for the Sacramnet of Reconcilitation is the confessional. I know in some places they’ve tried to do away with it, but if asked, a priest s supposed to use the box. By the same token, if the priest prefers to hear confessions in the box, he has the right to make penitents use it.
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Affirmed
Guest
I much prefer the box. At a different parish from my own. And preferably far, far away.
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rayne89
Guest
I have no preference, either way is fine.
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Confiteor
Guest
Confession, any way you do it is great, but if you’re accustomed to doing it face to face, doesn’t it become more of a therapy session? And if you develop that kind of relationship with the priest, it seems like the focus is on the human interaction rather than the sacrament. Suppose something really embarrassing came up that needed to be confessed? Would you go elsewhere? I’ve done it both face to face and behind the screen, and my sense of the sacrament is greater when I go behind a screen and the priest is more clearly acting in Christ’s place…I also feel more free to be brutally honest and to ask questions, etc as I need not concern myself with any visual reaction to my sins, etc.
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twiztedseraph
Guest
I like being behind a screen.
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aurora77
Guest
I prefer face to face; I guess that makes me a liberal?? 
It’s much easier and personal if I can just talk to the priest rather than be behind a screen.
It’s much easier and personal if I can just talk to the priest rather than be behind a screen.
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WanderAimlessly
Guest
Definitely behind the screen for me. I prefer the anonymity.
PF
PF
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OutinChgoburbs
Guest
St. Francis de Sales in his book Introduction to the Devout Life recommends the use of one regular confessor. And it does not dissolve into a therapy session. It’s still species and number. If something really embarassing came up, by using a regular confessor, one knows that priest better than another priest and it’s actually easier to admit for me.
If a person found himself in such a situation, he could always avail himself of another priest someplace else as long as he is not “shopping” priests for the answer he wants to hear, particularly in large cities. Chicago has St. Peter’s in the Loop, where they have confession 11.5 hours a day, booth or face-to-face, your choice.
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Michael038
Guest
I prefer behind the screen. I accidently entered the face to face side once and it was just not comfortable for me.
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Patchunky
Guest
Face to face confession has around in the Eastern church for CENTURIES and NO BODY has a problem with it…:yup:
We don’t do the “box”:tsktsk:
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NickyCW
Guest
I think it is perfectly natural to want to be behind a curtain. It is hard to state all your sins. I have heard so many people say that they wonder if the priest thinks differently of them afterwards. Personally, the only face-to-face I have done was my first confession when I converted to Catholocism.
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catsrus
Guest
Well, that’s for you.
I prefer “the box” because I feel more free to confess everything and the anonymity of it (though I know the priest recognizes me) makes me realize I am confessing to God through a man rather than confessing to the man himself.
Maybe it’s a convert thing?
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auroraj42
Guest
I should preface what I’m about to say by stating that I’m part of a military Catholic Community, so we have some dispensations and some situations that are very different from what you would find in your neighborhood Catholic Church…
I prefer face to face confession in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and I’ve tried the confessionals and being behind a screen and I just don’t like it…it feels weird…this could be because I’m a convert through a military parish where we don’t have confessionals…and pretty much, all confessions there are done face to face…
Jamie
I prefer face to face confession in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and I’ve tried the confessionals and being behind a screen and I just don’t like it…it feels weird…this could be because I’m a convert through a military parish where we don’t have confessionals…and pretty much, all confessions there are done face to face…
Jamie
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Confiteor
Guest
I’ve heard this about a “regular” confessor being preferable (whether behind the screen or not), but I found that everytime I got one I thought would be regular…the priests got shuffled around to distant parishes. So our diocese doesn’t facilitate that…and since you don’t even know when you enter a given parish whether Father A or Father B will be in the confessional…I found it works out better if you aren’t set on one confessor. Again, the sacrament is still the sacrament, even if you get the worst confessor in the world on occasion.
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