Do you prefer Confessing face to face or through a private confessional grid/screen?

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I think it is important to add, that whilst I choose face to face confessional , I don’t go to my local parish priest. I visit another parish miles away. 🙂
 
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Ours was opposite. I will admit that confession was my biggest hang up about becoming Catholic. I agonized over my first confession. I was 43 years old when I made my first and was sure the priest would say, nope this isn’t for you. Get out. I had gone over how I was going to carefully word everything. When I got into the confessional, I sat in front of Father and something came over me. I just let it ALL spill out. The mercy shown then still gives me chills to this day. It was beautiful. In answer to the OP, I don’t have a preference.
 
I confess at my Parish when I’m feeling down and have very personal issues to talk about in Confession, my Parish priest has my “spiritual medical record” as I like to say. But my priest is always quite busy, I always have to make an appointment. Other times I confess at another Church near my workplace, where I usually go to Mass during the week.
 
Face to face is bad.
  1. Confession is not a conversation or a therapy session. It is us accusing ourselves of sin and recieving judgement.
  2. We are confessing to Christ.
  3. Confession should be anonymous on both ends.
 
EricF said:
When I got into the confessional, I sat in front of Father and something came over me. I just let it ALL spill out. The mercy shown then still gives me chills to this day. It was beautiful.
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God Bless you. I had a similar experience, with a 25 year gap in going to Confession. It was utterly therapeutic!
 
ChunkMonk said:
Face to face is bad.
  1. Confession is not a conversation or a therapy session. It is us accusing ourselves of sin and recieving judgement.
  2. We are confessing to Christ.
  3. Confession should be anonymous on both ends.
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That’s a remarkably strong opinion, which is opposed to what the Church teaches. If face to face were bad, or even less preferred, the Church would discourage it, except in cases of necessity.

1)Confession is an encounter with God, a sacrament of healing, wherein we open ourselves up to him and receive his mercy.

2)God has arranged for us to confess to him and to the priest. This is made clear in a traditional formula for beginning confession in the Byzantine Rite: " I confess to almighty God, one in the Holy Trinity, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, to all the angels and saints, and to you, Father, all my sins."

3)Even a screen does not assure anonymity. Only confession to a priest who has never met you can do that.
 
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I used to confess face to face when I needed a lot of guidance from the priest, but now I only confess through the screen. The priest that usually hears my confessions often gives Communion at the Mass I go to, so I’d be really embarrassed every time he gave me Communion if I confessed face to face.
 
Well, at first when I confessed some terrible sins to the priest in my Parish, if I had thought about these things, I would’ve been ashamed to look at him when receiving the Holy Communion. In the end things didn’t change, I remember it was a Palm Sunday, and after going out of the confessional he immediately sent me to serve, “go and hand out some olive branches to the people”, it was a lot like “go and do not sin anymore”. This and other experiences really helped me open up at face to face confession.
 
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Hi
The priest gets to know our voices. Plus, you can ask advice from him, etc.I prefer face to face
In Christ’s love
Tweedlealice
 
I like the screen. It’s sometimes because I’m too self conscious, even though I know the priest has heard it all. I feel like he can still somewhat see me through the grid anyway but so many people line up for confession that I doubt he remembers anything.
The way the confessional is at my parish is you enter a dark nook in the wall through a curtain and kneel and wait for the priest to come to the screen. It’s kind of nice to be kneeling in the dark alone before the priest is ready, just preparing myself and praying and thinking about my sins again.
But honestly it is a lot easier for me to do a good confession with the screen and if it gets me to go to confession more often then even better for me.
 
Of course. I’m not trying to speak dogmatically, just that this is my opinion on it.
babochka said:
If face to face were bad, or even less preferred, the Church would discourage it, except in cases of necessity.
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Perhaps.
 
Is that to spare yourself the discomfort, or to spare the priest his? 😉
 
gabrielcannizzo said:
So, what is your opinion on this?
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Face to face. I think of the screen as old-fashioned and unnecessary. I go to confession in my own parish. I take some comfort in my expectation that the priest has probably heard much worse sins, and will find mine eminently forgettable. I understand that the priest at Confession acts in the person of Christ even if I know him personally and see him face to face.
 
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I definitely prefer face-to-face, preferably with a confessor who knows me well. I find it easier to confess my sins in the context of a relationship and I tend to get better advice from someone who knows me, my personality, my history and my life situation.
 
My very first confession was face-to-face as I had made an appointment with the priest. He would know who I am so I thought it didn’t matter in the end. The priest said just before I was to start that he would put his hands on my head and give me a special blessing after the confession if it was OK with me. I have continued to go face-to-face if it is possible in the church building. Once I thought that I should go behind the screen but I looked around to see who the priest was so when he greeted me with my name I just went face-to-face. So much for being anonymous…😉 Some priests close their eyes or look to the side if they don’t want to see you.

The newly ordained priest took the time to follow the rite and really focus on what I had confessed. That confession was behind the screen as that was the only option available.

Once I had to ask a priest (a couple of days later) about what he had said to me during confession as it didn’t make any sense to me. He didn’t remember anymore than that I had been to confession recently.
 
I’ve done both, will do face to face if no confessional with a screen is available which is often the case at very large penance services.

I prefer the kneeler and screen however so I am not looking a priest in the face while I am trying to concentrate on remembering my sins, remembering what to say next in the confession ritual, etc. When I have to look at a person’s face while doing this I can get thrown off and I often start to cry involuntarily. I also find it helpful that many confessionals have helps on them like the Act of Contrition taped up next to the screen. I know the Act of Contrition by heart and say it once a day but when in the confessional I can get flustered enough to forget the words.

I realize there are people in this world who feel more comfortable treating Confession as a friendly conversation about one’s sins, but that does not work for me. It is not a chat with a buddy over a beer, it is a sacramental ritual that carries baggage.
 
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