Confession

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rjmporter

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I never understood the reason for no “telephone confessions”, how is it different then behind a screen?

PLEASE NOTE: I am not advocating this and I accept the churches position on this issue I am just asking. Please be nice.
 
Well, why would one want a “telephone” confession?

Infirmity? Priests will come to your home if necessary.
Privacy? Actually, you’d be more likely to have your confession “overheard” if you telephoned, especially if you used your cell phone.

Why should one want “personal” confession? Well, it’s what Jesus Himself offered. If the only thing needed for confession was just picking up a phone (or, in the near future, e-mailing or surfing the web to find by CyberPriest), why have confession at all?

Note: Confessions are supposed to be held in church unless there are special circumstances (infirmity, for example, as above). Now, can you picture poor Father X’s cell phone going off unexpectedly and having him have to rush to the confessional to hear John or Jane Doe’s confession?

Nope, to me the idea of “telephone confession”, just like “drive through Mass” or “having my burger MY way”, or even the more and more ubiquitous cell phone/ pager, is just another attempt to provide ME with “convenience” and making everybody else hop to MY schedule, MY needs, etc.

There appears to be no legitimate need for “telephone confessions” whatsoever. As is the case in so many things lately, the fact that we “CAN” do an action is by no means equivalent to saying that we “SHOULD” do that action.
 
I appreciate that “telephone confession” would not be the normative means but let me give you a real life scenerio.

My grandmother is 92 years old, unable to get to the church and in a hospital where the local deacon visits once a week. On September 3 of this year the doctors informed us that after her most recent heart attack the next one was probably hours away and would end her life. My Grandma greatly desired to receive sacramental absolution before this eventuallity, but we were informed by her parish priest that there was no way he could come to the hospital. He’s not a bad priest, just very busy. If he was able to hear her confession over the phone, she would have had the opportunity to confess.

Praise God, the doctors were wrong, Father was able to make it to the hospital and hear her confession within the next two days and she is still hanging on, at home now. In the mean time, she worried for two days about dying without recours to sacramental confession.

Just a personal experience that makes me wonder about the policy. I don’t want to confess over the phone. I don’t think it would “feel real”, but I would trust it if the chruch permitted it.

Ross
 
The Church usually moves slowly and cautiosly with regard to technology. It was not too long ago that they “allowed” us to receive televised blessings as long as the program was live.

The situation with your grandmother is very thought provoking. Changing the discipline would be very complicated though.

The first thing that occured to me when I read your original question was “wire taps”. Telephone lines are monitored for all kinds of reasons by law enforcement and others. There could be serious consequences if certain sins were overheard.

Now I know it is possible to sometimes overhear what is said in the confessional too. But in that case, the other people waiting in line are presumably Catholic and bound by the Confessional seal in the same way the priest is. No such binding would occur to someone monitoring a phone conversation.
 
I am curious as to what parish business could possibly take precedence over a deathbed confession.
 
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rjmporter:
I never understood the reason for no “telephone confessions”, how is it different then behind a screen?
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I would say due to the privacy issue… someone could be listening in…monitoring, any number of the abuses that can take place while using a phone…
:twocents: Annunciata:)
 
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mercygate:
I am curious as to what parish business could possibly take precedence over a deathbed confession.
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I cannot say, as I know this priest to be a good and holy priest, I trust his word. He did speak with her on the phone privately for several minutes and she was more at ease after that conversation.
 
I believe that only the priest is bound by the seal of the confessional, not anyone who happens to overhear something.

Just as phones can be tapped and cell phone signals intercepted, there is plenty of high-tech surveillance equipment that can pick up small whispers. If someone really wanted to eavesdrop on the confessional, there isn’t much anyone could do to stop them.

Slightly different: Correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression that confession doesn’t have to be done in private in order to be valid. We don’t practice public confession, but I am not aware of anything that would invalidate public confession, assuming it was in good faith. If that is the case then the potential for phone confession to be overheard wouldn’t invalidate the sacrament.
 
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Prometheum_x:
I believe that only the priest is bound by the seal of the confessional, not anyone who happens to overhear something.
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My understanding was that if one happened to overhear part or all of someone else’s confession he is bound by silence under pain of mortal sin to observe confidentiality.
 
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Prometheum_x:
I believe that only the priest is bound by the seal of the confessional, not anyone who happens to overhear something.
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Aren’t you glad you come here to have your incorrect beliefs corrected? 🙂

Canon 983:
§1 The sacramental seal is inviolable. Accordingly, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever, whether by word or in any other fashion.

§2 An interpreter, if there is one, is also obliged to observe this secret, as are all others who in any way whatever have come to a knowledge of sins from a confession.
But wait! There’s more!

Canon 1388, Section 2:
Interpreters and the others mentioned in can. 983 §2, who violate the secret, are to be punished with a just penalty, not excluding excommunication.

Ouch! Sounds like they’re serious!

Hope this helps!

(The emphasis in the direct quotes was mine, by the way)
 
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rjmporter:
I cannot say, as I know this priest to be a good and holy priest, I trust his word. He did speak with her on the phone privately for several minutes and she was more at ease after that conversation.
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Ah. He didn’t just ignore the matter until he was able to get around to it. Whew! That makes all the difference, doesn’t it?
 
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mercygate:
I am curious as to what parish business could possibly take precedence over a deathbed confession.
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The answer at least around here is apparently, all parish and diocesan business. It is nearly impossible to convince a priest down here (with a few notable exceptions) to make an emergency sick call. In our town the priests are supposed to be on a daily rotation “on call” but their schedule changes, the parish secretaries are not notified, and spend a great deal of time calling around to locate a priest. this happens daily. They call the nursing home for retired priests which is in a neighboring town, but often there is no one physically able to go out or able to drive.

When the priests conduct themselves as if they truly believe in the sacraments, their necessity and efficacy, then the faithful will begin to believe. It is absolutely impossible to obtain a priest on the weekend, unless you are in hospital and the one priest-chaplain happens to drop by.

the thinking is that “there is a monthly or quarterly healing service, they should come to that” or “they knew they were sick or facing surgery, they should have made an appointment before they got so bad”. I have actually heard these excuses many times.

Many sisters and deacons here are chaplains, but of course they do not have the faculty to annoint. In their national convention a couple of years ago, hospital chaplains urged a change in the rules (which is clearly impossible under the theology of the sacrament of anointing) to allow them to anoint, since in their work they have great difficulty persuading priests to come to the hospitals.
 
The answer to the original question I should think revolves around the fact that the sacraments work ex opere operato (by the work worked). The action of the priest is a necessary part of the sacrament. Distance confessions would not have the proper form just as distance baptisms (where the water was in one location and the person in another) would not be valid.
 
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Katholish:
The answer to the original question I should think revolves around the fact that the sacraments work ex opere operato (by the work worked). The action of the priest is a necessary part of the sacrament. Distance confessions would not have the proper form just as distance baptisms (where the water was in one location and the person in another) would not be valid.
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But how much distance is too much distance? 3 feet? 10 feet? 50 feet? After all, a telephone is simply using an electromagnetic form of sound waves. The latter travels from the mouth to the ear by way of causing air molecules to vibrate in a certain pattern, and a telephone basically uses the vibration of two electromagnetic field, one for the microphone and the other for the speaker. So. . . what’s the difference?

Let me construct a hypothetical situation: You and a priest are in a troubled land without any access to a confessional or church building. You arrange to meet the priest for confession. You reach the planned location only to find that you and the priest are on opposite sides of a glass wall. It is of such a thickness that you can’t talk through it, but there are two phones, one on each side. You are separated by the same distance as you might be in a confessional, so there is no distance factor. Does the use of the telephone to allow oral communication invalidate the sacrament in this circumstance?
 
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Prometheum_x:
Let me construct a hypothetical situation: You and a priest are in a troubled land without any access to a confessional or church building. You arrange to meet the priest for confession. You reach the planned location only to find that you and the priest are on opposite sides of a glass wall. It is of such a thickness that you can’t talk through it, but there are two phones, one on each side. You are separated by the same distance as you might be in a confessional, so there is no distance factor. Does the use of the telephone to allow oral communication invalidate the sacrament in this circumstance?
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Why make it hypothetical? How are confessions done in prisons? I’ll admit that my only experience with prison visiting rooms is on tv and in movies, but I’d bet that it is at least somewhat reasonable to expect that the only way a priest could talk to some individuals in some facilities is via the face-to-face phone. I’d think you’d run into some similiar problems in health care with quarentine zones.
 
Prometheum, the question I should think is one of physical presence.
 
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Katholish:
Prometheum, the question I should think is one of physical presence.
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At what point is someone no longer sufficiently physically present?

Or, to rephrase it, what sorts of physical things (distance, barriers, etc.) would be sufficient to prevent the priest from exercising his ministry of reconciliation?

I don’t actually know the answer to this; I am trying to discover the answer.
 
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Almeria:
Why make it hypothetical? How are confessions done in prisons? I’ll admit that my only experience with prison visiting rooms is on tv and in movies, but I’d bet that it is at least somewhat reasonable to expect that the only way a priest could talk to some individuals in some facilities is via the face-to-face phone. I’d think you’d run into some similiar problems in health care with quarentine zones.
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Sometimes hypothetical situations can be clearer since, being a brand new situation (or at least an old one presented in a new way, such as my glass wall with telephones), they may be relatively free from other associations and issues which can muddle the question when I am trying to focus on only one particular aspect.
 
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mercygate:
I am curious as to what parish business could possibly take precedence over a deathbed confession.
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A couple of months ago I was meeting with the parish nun discussing the church website which I built and maintain for my parish as a part of my stewardship. I was meeting with her because the priest (whom I had an appointment with) was unable to meet with me because he was meeting with the school principle, had the PREP director waiting in line next along with two or three other individuals for some apparently other reasons. So he seemed to be having a busy day.

As I said, I was sitting down with the nun when he suddenly burst into the room looking for a map. It turned out that somebody was gravely ill and he had to give them the last rites. His other duties and meetings were instantly placed on hold as he drove off leaving everyone to re-schedule so that he could perform the more important task.
 
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