New design for Confessionals?

[11101]

this is a great point. I think the best model is something like this.

screen from the priest, so he cannot see you. Yet visible but not audible to everyone else.

 

[JulianN]

Surely you understood the purpose of the screen. As does every priest I’ve ever known.

 

[Tarsier]

I don’t either. CAF states: “One confesses anonymously when one kneels behind a privacy screen and does not confess face to face with the priest.”

Right, but the earlier discussion was whether the penitent needed anonymity from everyone, which is an untenable goal since you have to enter and leave the confessional in full sight of anyone around. The point is that one can confess without the priest knowing his identity.

 

[Phemie]

I’ve never been in a confession situation where I went into a totally empty church, confessed, and left without anybody seeing me come in or go out.

Unlike you, that empty church has been my exact experience 98% of the time I’ve been to confession in the past couple of years. I think once there was another person there before me. But I gather Fr.'s hour spent in the confessional is a rather quiet one.

 

[Phemie]

The screen doesn’t give you anonymity. If I’m going to confession in my own parish there is no way, even if I confess behind a screen, that the priest doesn’t know who is confessing.

 

[Phemie]

In this case the Pope was face-to-face with his confessor. In order to be behind a screen he would have chosen to use one of the side stalls.

 

[11101]

fair enough. then put a screen where he is.

 

[Titivillus]

Surely you understood the purpose of the screen. As does every priest I’ve ever known.

I surely believe I do, and my understanding is that it has not to do with anonymity. (I cannot speak for the understanding of every priest)

Can you correct me if I am in error?

 

[11101]

it does. google it and literally every discussion of why there ought to be a screen involves anonymity

 

[Tarsier]

The screen doesn’t give you anonymity. If I’m going to confession in my own parish there is no way, even if I confess behind a screen, that the priest doesn’t know who is confessing.

Okay, so two problems here.

One, just because you have an anecdotal example of where a priest is familiar with voices doesn’t discount an argument for the intent or general purpose. You see that, right? It would be like me telling you that ladders help people reach high places and you responding to say this isn’t true, as you are in a wheelchair, so the ladder doesn’t help you. It doesn’t mean, just because you have an anecdotal exception, that the purpose of a ladder has changed.

Second, my point was a response to an earlier conversation, where two posters were bickering over whether the penitent was promised anonymity from everyone. My point was that he is only offered anonymity from the priest. And even then, the Church can only do so much without investing in voice distorters. I’m not sure how you read that to be a discussion of whether or not screens are effective in every single parish in the world.

 

[Tarsier]

Surely you understood the purpose of the screen. As does every priest I’ve ever known.

Then, if not anonymity, what is the purpose??

 

[JulianN]

Why don’t you tell us what you believe the purpose is. We cannot tell you if you’re in error without that critical piece of information.

 

[TomH1]

I have never been anywhere that had a confessional that would allow the priest and penitent to have physical contact. All of these are what you may have described as old fashioned confessionals.

Of course no method of hearing confessionals can change what a priest is saying to a penitent. A lot of accusations that have been levied include incitement and threats not to reveal past actions. Therefore, I do not see how we can completely eliminate all potential means of abuse.

Along time ago I was an altar boy. I can see there were far greater opportunities for a priest to have abused me outside of a confessional.

These days we do need to take care that as well as removing the opportunity for abuse we also remove the opportunity for false accusations. As a teacher I will no longer speak to a pupil on my own.

 

[WingsOfEagles]

Any confessional space is vulnerable to abuse; predators could use the private conversations to proposition or groom vulnerable penitents. Physical design alone risks a false sense of security.

Only properly screening seminarians, supervising church priests, staff, and volunteers, and educating about appropriate boundaries can mitigate (but not eliminate) the risk of abuse.

Certainly, you can’t eliminate everything, but I know as a teacher and also someone having taken Protecting God’s Children, the big thing is eliminating as many opportunities as possible as well as the questionability of what might have gone on.

 

[Titivillus]

Then, if not anonymity, what is the purpose??

Why don’t you tell us what you believe the purpose is. We cannot tell you if you’re in error without that critical piece of information.

My understanding is that the purpose of confessing through a fixed grate – Such as the canon calls for, and which prohibits the passage of solid forms but not of, say, light and images, thus providing no expectation of anonymity – Originated for the same reason as the OP proposes “New design for Confessionals”: To combat solicitation.

 

[phil19034]

I had a thread a few months ago that was basically about this, which sparked a lively discussion.

Posting it here for FYI

The Time has Come to Ban Reconciliation Rooms Liturgy and Sacraments

Very well argued article against the reconciliation rooms.

 

[babochka]

Titivillus:

I do not see the word “anonymous”?

I don’t either. CAF states: “One confesses anonymously when one kneels behind a privacy screen and does not confess face to face with the priest.”

Unless you happen to know the priest. Or if he sees you in line on his way into the confessional. In either of those scenarios, you can be behind a screen but not be anonymous, yet there has been no violation of the law.

 

[phil19034]

Originated for the same reason as the OP proposes “New design for Confessionals”: To combat solicitation.

So you are saying the confessionals have screens because of an ancient sex abuse scandal?

 

[babochka]

Titivillus:

Originated for the same reason as the OP proposes “New design for Confessionals”: To combat solicitation.

So you are saying the confessionals have screens because of an ancient sex abuse scandal?

Yes. This is exactly the case. Except it isn’t too ancient. Screens were an innovation of the 16th Century.

 

[Titivillus]

So you are saying the confessionals have screens because of an ancient sex abuse scandal?

Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold
this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were
before us.
Ecclesiastes 1:10