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No confessions by phone, please Probable invalidity of the absolution
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Gorgias
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“Probable invalidity” is a kind way of putting it.
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Pitcairn17
Guest
In my state, people have died without benefit of confession or anointing because hospitals wouldn’t let priests in. They didn’t deserve that, and they certainly didn’t deserve your flip “Starbucks” comment.
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stpurl
Guest
It is a tragedy that people are dying without having access to the sacraments.
God is just, but He is also merciful. That means that He takes into account what can, and cannot, be done and will not hold it against a person if the person could not confess to the priest due to hospital policy.
It doesn’t mean that one can make a change of the nature of the sacrament, though. The sacrament requires face-to-face confession, not phone to phone. Setting aside the fact that any kind of phone communication can be overheard by people (doctors, nurses) it can also, in being ‘over the airwaves’ heard by anybody who happens to have the tech know how or simply through accident (many’s the time I have, during a call on my cell, heard not just the occasional word but whole sentences and paragraphs’ worth of talk from other parties).
Back in the not too distant past people would be going off pioneering and not have access to the sacraments for months, even years. And yes, people died without being able to access confession. It has always been so. That means that we should be educating people to do more acts of penance, such as prayer, fasting, and alms giving which they can do at any time, as well as acts of contrition, all along, and having a firm resolve to go to confession whenever it is possible; IOW, trying to live in a state of grace as much as possible. In this way, the sorrow and sacrifice of those poor people who are suffering now with a lack of ability to confess will have some meaning and worth by encouraging others to do more ‘while they can’. And above all, God again is merciful.
God is just, but He is also merciful. That means that He takes into account what can, and cannot, be done and will not hold it against a person if the person could not confess to the priest due to hospital policy.
It doesn’t mean that one can make a change of the nature of the sacrament, though. The sacrament requires face-to-face confession, not phone to phone. Setting aside the fact that any kind of phone communication can be overheard by people (doctors, nurses) it can also, in being ‘over the airwaves’ heard by anybody who happens to have the tech know how or simply through accident (many’s the time I have, during a call on my cell, heard not just the occasional word but whole sentences and paragraphs’ worth of talk from other parties).
Back in the not too distant past people would be going off pioneering and not have access to the sacraments for months, even years. And yes, people died without being able to access confession. It has always been so. That means that we should be educating people to do more acts of penance, such as prayer, fasting, and alms giving which they can do at any time, as well as acts of contrition, all along, and having a firm resolve to go to confession whenever it is possible; IOW, trying to live in a state of grace as much as possible. In this way, the sorrow and sacrifice of those poor people who are suffering now with a lack of ability to confess will have some meaning and worth by encouraging others to do more ‘while they can’. And above all, God again is merciful.
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Gorgias
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Be that as it may, it doesn’t mean that people died without divine forgiveness or the benefits of a plenary indulgence. The Church teaches the efficacy of an “act of perfect contrition” and the grant of the plenary indulgence (even in the absence of last rites – see Norm 18 of the Enchiridion of Indulgences).
In our parish, priests have been calling hospitals and care facilities, in order to at least have the opportunity to pray with people (and, I hope, to inform them of these notions), in order to give comfort.
Back in the days of crude (by today’s standards) analog portable home telephones, which broadcast on open radio frequencies, my father and I would take out our marine and VHF band radio (police, cab dispatchers, and so on), and listen to nearby conversations. We heard one such conversation where the lady went into a tirade of language which, shall we say, would not be appropriate in the parlor when the monsignor stops by for tea and crumpets. We laughed ourselves sick! She had no clue she could be heard by others.
Seriously, though… if I were the Pope (here we go again…), I would assemble my best sacramental theologians, and see if there is any way that, in extreme cases, the sacrament of penance could be valid if it were administered at a distance, with the penitent morally present, you might say. If I’m not mistaken, there were cases in the Orthodox Church where the penitent would send a letter to the priest, and then the priest would absolve from wherever he was. (I hope I’m not garbling that narrative.) And I know we’ve been through this before on CAF, but I fail to see how using a nearby audio link (e.g., priest and penitent using cell phones while visible to each other from a short distance, as from a car in the parking lot to a priest 20 feet away) is any more hazardous to “confidentiality”, than these people (and sometimes even the priest) using their outdoor voices in the confessional when you have other penitents standing in line directly outside. It does happen. Penitents in line shouldn’t have to be trying to “tune out” loud confessions, least of all when they’re trying to recollect themselves for their own confession. Could soft whispering not be a plan?
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Titivillus
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NB of course that confidentiality nor breaches thereof have zero impact on the validity of sacramental confession, and anyone who might become privy to the contents of a sacramental confession (electronically or otherwise) is bound to secrecy (cf. Canon 983)
You are entirely correct. My argument for possible validity of “morally present” absolution did not rest on whether it would be subject to breach of confidentiality or not, but whether actual physical presence is required for validity. The Orthodox example I cited indicates that such validity might be possible, if we are willing to concede that the Holy Spirit leads them to true conclusions as to what makes a sacrament valid.HomeschoolDad:
NB of course that confidentiality nor breaches thereof have zero impact on the validity of sacramental confession, and anyone who might become privy to the contents of a sacramental confession (electronically or otherwise) is bound to secrecy (cf. Canon 983)
It has long been a pet peeve of mine that confessions are often heard in circumstances where they are audible to third parties. Frankly, I find this very negligent and inconsiderate of those who must either overhear it or “tune it out”, not to mention that this places third parties under the seal of confession. Immature and/or irreverent persons, as well as those who are just plain ignorant of how far the seal of confession extends, could easily tell others — “hey, guess what I heard!”. I’d be far more concerned with that possibility, than I would with the odd, random chance that someone might be able to “hack into” an encrypted digital telephone conversation, FaceTime exchange, or similar 21st-century mode of synchronous communication. And in the case of the Orthodox, a letter could be far more easily intercepted and opened, than anything discussed here.
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Bernoulli
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I have been taught that physical presence is not required for the confession part, but it is required for the absolution. There is no obligatory form for the confession. Giving the confession in writing to the priest and the priest absolving in passing from a reasonable distance is valid.
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MikeInVA
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Doesn’t a general absolution cover these circumstances?
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TomH1
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I believe that it is absolutely appalling the way governments, healthcare facilities and the Church have often responded to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
I am aware that many priests have been more than willing to hear confessions, anoint the sick and where, sadly necessary, to administer the Last Rites. It is, however, third parties that have told them it is prohibited or actually prevented them from doing so.
There is no reason why a priest cannot enter a hospital or other healthcare establishment to administer the Last Rites if the appropriate, sensible precautions are taken. I have my suspicions that in many cases it is the extra time and effort that would be required that is preventing this from happening rather than from any serious danger to anyone.
I am aware that many priests have been more than willing to hear confessions, anoint the sick and where, sadly necessary, to administer the Last Rites. It is, however, third parties that have told them it is prohibited or actually prevented them from doing so.
There is no reason why a priest cannot enter a hospital or other healthcare establishment to administer the Last Rites if the appropriate, sensible precautions are taken. I have my suspicions that in many cases it is the extra time and effort that would be required that is preventing this from happening rather than from any serious danger to anyone.
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Gorgias
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One word for you: wiretaps.
The medical professionals who run hospitals think otherwise. Or, are you saying that you know how to safely run a hospital during a pandemic better than they do?
Wiretaps that can de-encrypt digital conversations? That was supposed to be one selling point of digital phones in the first place.HomeschoolDad:
One word for you: wiretaps.
And then there is the possibility of general absolution being administered to everyone in the nave of a church. What, then, if the Mass were being celebrated in a football stadium? What about all the people out in the tailgate area watching the Mass on Jumbotrons because they ran out of seating in the stadium? Are they “out of bounds” simply because they’re not physically within the stadium? What about the Pope’s Urbi et orbi blessing to the whole world?HomeschoolDad:
I have been taught that physical presence is not required for the confession part, but it is required for the absolution. There is no obligatory form for the confession. Giving the confession in writing to the priest and the priest absolving in passing from a reasonable distance is valid.
I shall ultimately accept the judgment of the Church on “how much physical distance does there have to be between priest and penitent for a valid absolution?”, but at the same time, I would welcome some clarification on what kind of distance that has to be. Jews are able to declare vast areas of a city or town “indoors” by erecting an eruv — wires erected on utility poles that enclose an expanse of real estate — so that they can push baby carriages, carry bags, and so on, on Shabbos. We have an eruv in the neighborhood around our nearby Chabad center, and I was pointing this out to my son just the other day. Just saying.
I’m not sure if we as Catholics think of some kind of “sacramental force-field” around a priest, within which he is considered to be “in the presence of” the matter required for the sacrament (the matter being, in this case, a repentant sinner who is a baptized Catholic), and outside of which, sorry, it’s just too far, kind of like the outer fringes of a usable radio or TV signal, can’t be valid. Intent would seem to count for something. And we also have instantaneous synchronous video and audio online communication that we didn’t even have when the 1983 CIC was promulgated (video phones, to the extent they even existed, were very crude and not in common usage).
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MikeInVA
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So long as the government requires people to turn off their cell phones and leave them outside of offices where anything sensitive is discussed, I will leave my phone and watch outside the confessional.
Are you saying they can be tracked, activated, and possibly even used as eavesdropping tools even when they are turned off?
If that’s the case, then I will have to craft myself a Faraday bag to put my phone in. I already have all of my computer files on an external hard drive, tightly wrapped up in plastic and aluminum foil, stored inside a metal file cabinet, in case there would be an EMP incident. I will not allow the North Koreans or the Chinese to destroy my son’s baby pictures and videos, if they ever get a burr in their tail and decide to destroy this country’s electronic infrastructure with high-atmospheric nuclear blasts. I probably should do the same with a spare laptop, so that I’d have something to retrieve them with. (That, of course, presupposes that electricity in some form would be available.)
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MikeInVA
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I don’t know. I just keep my phone (really any electronic device) out of the confessional. It is a little unsettling when a priest has an iPad in the confessional (so he can read during pauses).
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Bernoulli
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I have heard the principle of a reasonable distance is how far away the priest’s voice could be heard without external tools, even by shouting.
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I’m reminded here of Father Damien’s shouted confession to a priest on a ship some distance away. But in that case, so much for confidentiality.HomeschoolDad:
I have heard the principle of a reasonable distance is how far away the priest’s voice could be heard without external tools, even by shouting.
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FiveLinden
Guest
What, exactly, is the difference between a confessor and a confessee(?) talking in the circumstance where each is entirely dependent on hearing aids on the one hand, and talking on the telephone on the other? In each case human speech is received by mechanical means.
And another question: could sins be written or emailed and the priest then absolve at a distance?
And another question: could sins be written or emailed and the priest then absolve at a distance?
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