Could confession over the telephone be allowed under certain circumstances?

[LilyM]

It means no such thing. It would be invalid to confess over the phone, no matter what the circumstances or Church.

It can never be done over a phone, because it is not actually my voice that is being heard, nor am I actually hearing Father’s voice. He’s hearing a digital code that has been modified and processed, and vice versa. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” ALL SACRAMENTS require physical presence for this reason - in persona Christi capitis requires incarnationality. The digitalization of it renders it Protestant, or even worse, monophysitic.

Sacramentals are different. Papal blessings over television, for instance. We can start another thread to discuss that… It would be interesting.

BTW - Private confession was popularized by the Irish (you’re welcome!)… It used to be a public affair.

Exactly! A priest cannot have bride or groom on skype and still validly celebrate a marriage. Nor can a bishop validly ordain someone a priest by mailing him the holy oils and saying the prayers over the telephone.

As with Mass, someone who finds it impossible to go to confession in person through no fault of their own is under no obligation to utilise.non-personal meaans such as telephone.

 

[dans0622]

…

May I please ask how you come to this conclusion? In our days, people regularly work together on a project while in completely different places. Historically, armies worked together while facing battles on different fronts. There are many ways to work together while being in different places.

Hello,

I was thinking of that when I wrote my previous comment. Certainly, we now have ways of “working together” that were inconceivable just a few generations ago…and yet, these new ways really are examples of “working together.”

Nevertheless, the way we understand the particular “work” that is the liturgy is that it involves the Church as an assembled people. I don’t think I am comfortable with the idea of people being “assembled” and yet not physically together.

Dan

 

[dans0622]

I have been trying to find this somewhere that the Church has said, and have failed. Does anyone have any Church document that says such a confession would be invalid? …

That’s a good point. I also haven’t seen the phrase “confession over the phone is invalid” from an official source. The way I have seen the topic addressed was for the official response to be more along the lines of “that is never allowed” or “that is entirely forbidden” or “that is not possible.”

That being said, there may well be an official response that said it is invalid.

Dan

 

[dans0622]

Exactly! A priest cannot have bride or groom on skype and still validly celebrate a marriage. Nor can a bishop validly ordain someone a priest by mailing him the holy oils and saying the prayers over the telephone.

As with Mass, someone who finds it impossible to go to confession in person through no fault of their own is under no obligation to utilise.non-personal meaans such as telephone.

Hello,

Marriage is a bit odd since a person can marry even if he/she is not present (i.e., a marriage by proxy: c. 1104-1105). Every requirement of canonical form for marriage is a matter of ecclesiastical law. That being the case, I see no essential reason why the physical presence of the priest has to be required.

Ordination requires physical contact so that’s a different topic.

Dan

 

[e_c]

It is implicit in Canons 960 and 961, for one thing.

There will not be a large corpus on this issue, because phones are new in the history of the Church.

Letters are not. Clement VIII explicitly condemned that, and this is just its digital counterpart.

There is also a letter from the Apostolic Penitentiary from a while ago dealing with telephones, saying NO.

Marriage can be done by proxy, but its sacramentality swirls around its contractuality and is therefore less demanding of incarnationality.

 

[pnewton]

That’s a good point. I also haven’t seen the phrase “confession over the phone is invalid” from an official source. The way I have seen the topic addressed was for the official response to be more along the lines of “that is never allowed” or “that is entirely forbidden” or “that is not possible.”

That being said, there may well be an official response that said it is invalid.

Dan

I have seen this forbidden, at least on a local level, and efforts to have some sort of electronic confession stopped cold. But this only means such confession would be illicit, not invalid. The problem that with validity is that some specific cause is needed for validity. If it is the electronic nature of the phone, then face to face confession in a prison setting, where phones are used would also be invalid. Is it uncertainty? Then in something like Skype would do eliminate that element, besides the obvious fact that some people know each other well enough to know a voice. Is is proximity? Doubtful sense confession used to be public where the distance was greater.

I suspect that the Church has not said such confessions are invalid yet. I also suspect they may not be. The Church has always erred on the side of grace when extreme situations arise. I think the smart thing is simply never attempt such an illicit act, until one is facing a true extreme emergency where confession before death is impossible, not just difficult.

 

[e_c]

It’s invalid. Period. Always. Forever.

Confession is the normal means of obtaining forgiveness, but a perfect act of contrition suffices in circumstances where confession is impossible. Period.

A google search will reveal lots of information on the topic.

 

[e_c]

Prison phones are an interesting case. If the penitent can’t be heard without the help of the phone, and vice versa, then such means would be invalid. But those means don’t have to be relied on…

In the normal situation of phone confessions:

INVALID. ALWAYS. FOREVER. PERIOD.

 

[pnewton]

INVALID. ALWAYS. FOREVER. PERIOD.

Without documentation, this remains an opinion. The more I think of the nature of the Sacrament, the less sure I am. Confession is only a colloquialism for Reconciliation. Yet it is not the reciting of sins that results in forgiveness, but the promise of Jesus that granted the apostles the power to bind and loose, preceded by the word “whatsoever”. I would think, since the whole idea of confession evolved in the first place, that there is nothing inherent in confession at all that makes the resulting reconciliation valid or invalid. Rather, it is the apostolic tie (faculties) that makes confession valid or invalid.

The whole argument is largely academic as the practice, at this time, is illicit.

 

[e_c]

Clement VIII declared that the priest and penitent must be in each other’s presence, or else absolution is INVALID. While the Sacred Congregation delayed the question of phones specifically in July of 1884, the Apostolic Penitentiary has said that it is INVALID, in a letter from October of 2002, at a minimum. The principles underlying the canons in the current code imply it is INVALID. The basic theology of ALL the sacraments implies it is INVALID. The fact that our Lord stood in the Upper Room to breathe on the Eleven when giving them this power rather than just tacking it on to the fires of Pentecost implies physical presence is necessary for this sacrament, such that physical absence would make it INVALID. The constant praxis of the Church implies that it is INVALID.

It’s INVALID.

 

[e_c]

Think about it. “In Digita Christi Capitis.” Why bother having men stand in the place of God at all if they don’t actually need to be physically present? And that is exactly why in such cases where physical presence is impossible, an act of perfect contrition - i.e., confession directly to God - suffices.