Face-to-face confession or confessional

[PatrickJT914]

For a long time, confession in my parish was only face to face, in either the reconciliation room, or in a conference room next door. When the new priest moved in, he put a portable screen in the room, so that one can enter through the door and go immediately to the right behind the screen without ever being seen, or go forward and a bit left and be opposite him, face to face. The first time I saw the screen, I told him it looked like Confessional by IKEA

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Penitent. . . . . . . . . . . Priest. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screen_____________
. . . . . . . . . . . . … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Penitent. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Door. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

How’s that for a diagram? And I doubt the screen cost him more than $20, so it’s a good budget option.

Hi EvenlynEVF,

Religious furniture and church goods by IKEA. What a concept.

 

[Seatuck]

We have the choice of either. Our confessionals are built like the set up in Evelyn’s diagram. They are a pretty large room actually. The Priests side has a side table and reading lamp for him . The Penitents side is a bit darker. Of course if you choose face to face you can go on the well lit priests side. I do both depending upon mood.

 

[LilyM]

Hi EvenlynEVF,

Religious furniture and church goods by IKEA. What a concept.

Well, necessity IS the mother of invention. In wartime priests were known to offer Mass on the hoods of Jeeps and such.

And I’d far rather a priest who was somewhat thrifty on those sort of furnishings and fixtures. After all, does having an expensive and specially-made screen in the confessional matter in the grand scheme of things? How many people even really notice whether the screen is ‘nice’ or not as long as it’s there?

 

[DaveBj]

The confessional actually refers to the special room or booth, set aside in a Church for the purpose of hearing confessions.

Most confessionals will have a screen of some kind set up so that people can be anonymous if they wish, but will ALSO have a chair set up on the side where the priest sits so that you can sit facing him if you wish.

Does your priest just not use a confessional at all, and hear confessions in the open (the body of the Church or somewhere else?) Canon Law requires him to hear all confessions (whether face-to-face or behind a screen) in the confessional unless there’s good reason not to. It further requires that there MUST be a screen provided for anonymity in the confessional. Your husband could point these rules out to your priest.

That’s the way it is at our parish church on Saturday afternoons. Our pastor is too crippled up to handle going into the regular confessionals in the back of the church, so they set up the portable kneeler and screen in a side room, with a chair for face-to-face confessions. I always prefer going face-to-face with him, because he is a personal friend, as well as a good priest.

I’m just as comfortable going into the regular confessionals, which is the way confessions are done out at the OLAM Shrine. I could go face-to-face there as well, but they do it the more traditional way. Makes me no never-mind; in the final analysis it’s not the priest I’m talking to anyway; it’s Jesus, and he already knows what I did.

DaveBj