Open Confessions?

[1ke]

Not me either.
These innovations have to stop somewhere.

Paramedicgirl,

The confession box is the innovation. It was only instituted in the 16th century at double monasteries-- so that cloistered sisters would remain separated from the priest hearing their confession.

It expanded in use, partly due to solicitation of penitents (women) by the priests hearing their confessions.

There is nothing wrong with a confessional, nor is there anything wrong with having confession in the open.

I am really tired of people on this board who assume that everything is an “innovation” (innovation = liturgical abuse of the liberal Catholic underground militia from Hell) and that something is “bad” just because it is different from their experience.

The confession box was quite an* innovation *in th 1500s, as the church had lived without it for 1500 years. The *confessional *is the newcomer, not confession face-to-face with a priest.

 

[Ecce_homo_1]

Paramedicgirl,

The confession box is the innovation. It was only instituted in the 16th century at double monasteries-- so that cloistered sisters would remain separated from the priest hearing their confession.

…

*The confession box was quite an innovation ***in th 1500s, as the church had lived without it for 1500 years. The *confessional *is the newcomer, not confession face-to-face with a priest.

It’s always scary when people start talking about catholic traditions as “innovations” or inventions. There was plenty done in the very early Church that isn’t done today out of necessity and growth of the modern Church. However that doesn’t mean we toss it out because the very early Church didn’t do it. Do we toss rosary beads? Scapulars? Celibacy for the priesthood? Marian dogmas defined after the early Church? it’s a very slippery slope when pulling out the old “Catholic innovation” card, you start sounding like a Protestant.

Our Church grows and evolves, we don’t start tossing Traditions handed down to us by our predacessors because they are “innovations” from our four-fathers, we hold fast to them. This is what the reformers did, and it continues to this day, we’ll see if they ever get to or decide on what that early Church did exactly. If we keep trying to get back to the very first Church we’ll be meeting in caves and our Church will lose much of its Tradition we’ve acquired over 2,000 years by the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and Traditions added on by some of the greatest spiritual leaders, Popes, Saints, and doctors of the Catholic faith, as well as councils and with the Pope and Magesterium having full power to loose and bind.

 

[acadian]

I dont think I would feel very comfortable confessing my sins out in the open.

I’m not very comfortable confessing my sins at all, but I figure confession is not about my comfort.

Personally, I prefer to go face to face, and my last confession was “in the open” at a parish penance service. God already knows my sins and that is the worst of it all. Facing a priest and confessing is small potatoes compared to that.

 

[Lil_M]

If that’s what’s meant by “open confession” then I guess I’ve done it unknowingly…it was a time when there were several priests so there were many people, and you went to the priest not in a confessional but in a corner or something. You couldn’t hear but I still wasn’t thrilled at the lack of privacy. I definitely don’t go as often as I should so I can be there for awhile

Hopefully it didn’t mean something to the effect of group confession- I am in the same Diocese!

 

[1ke]

It’s always scary when people start talking about catholic traditions as “innovations” or inventions.

Wow, you completely missed my point.

First, I disagree that it is “scary” to call something an innovation or an invention. It is what it is. New things grow out of the organic whole of the church all the time. The Divine Mercy Chaplet is new, that does not make it wrong.

Some things are innovative-- like having a sound system in a church or a cry room or priests wearing pants instead of a cassock. It doesn’t make them wrong, or dangerous, it just makes them new. Someday, they’ll be “old”.

My point was that what we today call a “tradition” was, at the point it was introduced, an innovation. It is all a matter of perspective.

There was plenty done in the very early Church that isn’t done today out of necessity and growth of the modern Church.

And, there are things done today that will not be done tomorrow out of necessity and growth of the modern Church.

However that doesn’t mean we toss it out because the very early Church didn’t do it. Do we toss rosary beads? Scapulars? Celibacy for the priesthood?

I never said we should. Where the heck did you get that? If you look back at my post, I specifically said there was nothing wrong with having a confessional-- but there is also nothing wrong with confession without a confessional. This is NOT a doctrinal issue, it is disciplinary and it is changeable. And, face to face confession in the open is not even properly termed as “innovative” (not my word, but another poster) as face-to-face confession has been a part of the tradition of the Church for its entire 2000 year history.

I have not stated or implied we should do away with the confessional-- nor is the Church saying anything such as this. The Church allows for BOTH forms of Confession. The individual parish is making a choice from among valid options.

Marian dogmas defined after the early Church?

Marian Dogmas are part of the Deposit of Faith and unchangeable. They are unrelated to a discplinary item that is changeable-- such as where and how confession is heard.

it’s a very slippery slope when pulling out the old “Catholic innovation” card, you start sounding like a Protestant.

I disagree. Innovation is nothing to be threatened by at all. It only threatens people who are ignorant of history and think that “the way they remember it” is the only way it’s ever been.

Our Church grows and evolves, we don’t start tossing Traditions handed down to us by our predacessors because they are “innovations” from our four-fathers, we hold fast to them.

Great. In as much as face-to-face confession is a tradition handed down to us from our forefathers no one on this forum should have any problem with it.

This is what the reformers did, and it continues to this day, we’ll see if they ever get to or decide on what that early Church did exactly.

No, this is not what the Reformers did. The Reformers attacked and rejected Doctrine. The Counter-Reformation addressed disciplines and abuses, and as a result of heretical teachings of Reformers it also defined and clarified doctrines previously held.

If we keep trying to get back to the very first Church we’ll be meeting in caves and our Church will lose much of its Tradition we’ve acquired over 2,000 years by the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and Traditions added on by some of the greatest spiritual leaders, Popes, Saints, and doctors of the Catholic faith, as well as councils and with the Pope and Magesterium having full power to loose and bind.

I never suggested we should go back to the earliest church practices-- I have no desire to wear sack cloth and ashes and not shave or bathe for 5 years as penance.

Again, you missed my point entirely.

 

[Ecce_homo_1]

1KE

Can you reply to my post as a whole in context? I find the slicing and dicing ends up confusing peoples meanings and it’s too difficult to dialogue.

I will say that Catholics who are so quick to deem something a discipline or interchangeable speak too quickly on that matter. Most of what we believe are disciplines that have been handed down to us through ecumenical councils, Popes, Saints and great Church doctors, they’re disciplines that stood the test of time and have been shown to greatly aid in spiritual development and aid the faithful. To claim everything aside from the deposit of faith is up for grabs or can be dismissed is a dangerous precedent.

If we removed or changed every discipline and only kept the deposit of faith, our Church would look very little like it does today.

Why are we even changing disciplines that were good enough for Saints like Padre Pio, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese.

What does this changing of the disciplines actually add to the Church? I haven’t seen them add anything at all. I can’t understand why people are so quick to do away with or change our traditions? And then defend doing it…

Seriously what has communion in the hand actually benefitted the Church? What good has doing away with abstaining from meats on Friday done? What did you sacrifice last Friday as a substitute? Do you think more than 5% actually knows or thinks about doing some sort of mortification on Fridays to substitute the lifting of eating meat on Fridays? What fruits has changing long held disciplines done?

O.K. I’m rambling but you get my point…

 

[1ke]

1KE

Can you reply to my post as a whole in context? I find the slicing and dicing ends up confusing peoples meanings and it’s too difficult to dialogue.

I disagree that it makes it difficult to dialogue, in fact I think it makes it easier. But, I’ll reply to your post below.

I will say that Catholics who are so quick to deem something a discipline or interchangeable speak too quickly on that matter. Most of what we believe are disciplines that have been handed down to us through ecumenical councils, Popes, Saints and great Church doctors, they’re disciplines that stood the test of time and have been shown to greatly aid in spiritual development and aid the faithful. To claim everything aside from the deposit of faith is up for grabs or can be dismissed is a dangerous precedent.

If we removed or changed every discipline and only kept the deposit of faith, our Church would look very little like it does today.

Why are we even changing disciplines that were good enough for Saints like Padre Pio, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese.

What does this changing of the disciplines actually add to the Church? I haven’t seen them add anything at all. I can’t understand why people are so quick to do away with or change our traditions? And then defend doing it…

Seriously what has communion in the hand actually benefitted the Church? What good has doing away with abstaining from meats on Friday done? What did you sacrifice last Friday as a substitute? Do you think more than 5% actually knows or thinks about doing some sort of mortification on Fridays to substitute the lifting of eating meat on Fridays? What fruits has changing long held disciplines done?

I did not state “everything” was up for grabs or that it can be “dismissed”. I pointed out there is a clear distinction between the Deposit of Faith and disciplines of the Church. Disciplines can, and do, change. To assert that they cannot is false.

I also clearly stated that Confession is allowed under both the confessional and open confession. Both of these have “stood the test of time”. One has been more common than the other at various points in history. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back.

Fact: neither is wrong. Fact: both are allowed. Fact: open confession came first.

By your own definition, face to face confession was the “time tested” method and therefore the confessional should never have been added in the 1600s. If open confession was good enough for St. Ignatius of Antioch is it not good enough for you? For St. Pio, St. Therese, etc.?

I’m not advocating that point of view, because personally I don’t care which way people go to confession, I’m merely pointing out that by your yardstick that is how we would measure.

Your own logic is flawed and can only lead to the conclusion that the very thing you are defending is something that should never have been changed.

Confession itself falls under doctrine, as does its form and matter. The format used used to hear confessions is not doctrine. It can and does change, and it has done so numerous times throughout church history. Do you deny this fact?

Changing disicplines do bring us good things. The church is alive, it cannot be stagnant. The various orders, spiritualities, disciplines, and devotions that have come down to use are all wonderful-- but that does not mean there is not room for one more. Should we dissolve Opus Dei or stop the Divine Mercy Chaplet because they are of the 20th century and not the 16th? No. Of course not. By the same token, if confession face to face or using Form 2 is the best way to do confession in 2007, then fine.

O.K. I’m rambling but you get my point…

Yes, I get your point: Change = bad

I disagree with it.

Some changes are good, some changes are bad. And, some are neutral, neither better nor worse than what came before… just different.

 

[Ecce_homo_1]

The only thing I can say to that 1KE is that is the thought process that modernists use to slowly dissect the Church from the inside out.

Adding the Divine Mercy Chaplet doesn’t call for near universal abandonment of the Rosary such is the case with allowing eating meat on Fridays and now 99% of Catholics don’t do any form of mortification on Fridays as they’re supposed to.

I don’t have a problem with face to face confession, it’s simply I can see modernists usig the “spirit” of face to face confession to condemn the confessional in the future.

Yes in Christ’s Church change is bad, or it shouldn’t be done without very careful introspection, if it existed in the Church for 1,000 years we ought tread very carefully when deciding to label it simply a discipline and easily changed or tossed out altogether. Look at head coverings they were done away with and no one even knows why, it just kind of happened.

 

[water]

Tonight on the evening news I saw a report on the sex abuse scandal in my Diocese and a workshop the Bishop has set up to deal with the issue. One of the points that came up in the workshop was the possibility of having Open Confessions. The report did not elaborate on what an Open Confession was. Can anyone here tell me?

I don’t know about the specific scandal, but it seems like it has something to do with confession in a confessional room, and the Bishop was worried about things going in there. The point of having Open Confessions probably is to avoid anything happen that no-one sees.

In my opinion, if that is the reason, we can build two rooms sharing the same wall, and near where the person kneels, there are many tiny holes so that the priest can hear.

 

[Caesar]

I don’t know about the specific scandal, but it seems like it has something to do with confession in a confessional room, and the Bishop was worried about things going in there. The point of having Open Confessions probably is to avoid anything happen that no-one sees.

In my opinion, if that is the reason, we can build two rooms sharing the same wall, and near where the person kneels, there are many tiny holes so that the priest can hear.

What an odd innovation you speak of!

 

[puzzleannie]

when we travel in Mexico and other countries what we see most often is not confessional rooms or boxes, but niches around the church where penitent and confessor are in full view of everyone, but the penitent is kneeling either with a screen between him and the priest, or just in front of the priest. Certainly no opportunity there for any hanky-panky. quite often in large pilgrimage destinations there are priests sitting all around the basilica or even outdoors, sometimes on campstools, and penitents simply kneel and confess, hopefully out of earshot (or in a different language) from bystanders.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

The real shame isn’t whether we do our confession face-to-face, in a confessional, in the open, behind a screen, etc… but rather, the shame is that there are scores of Catholics, probably a majority, who don’t understand the importance and necessity of this sacrament.

I know I’m preaching to the choir, but it amazes me how short the confession line is compared to the communion line. I know dozens of “Catholics” who haven’t been to confession in years - probably decades.

God bless all of you who go to confession regularly, regardless of whether you are sitting on a sofa across from the priest, in a confessional, or out in the open. And let’s pray for our brethren who think that just going to Mass is sufficient, or that going to a community penance service is good enough.

From many people I have spoken with, such as returning Catholics. There have been scores of Catholics who understand the importance of Reconciliation but were turned away for the Sacrament when many pastors ripped out the Confessionals or used them as closets, and required face to face only. They simply stopped going to Confession and that is the example they gave to their children and grand children.

 

[AJV]

Definitely something to be said for the anonymity of the confessional.

I too have seen that practise described by puzzleannie: the half confessional, when there is a screen and a chair but no “box”. The other one I haven’t but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something got from the Spainiards because there are many 19th century accounts attesting to the unpopularity of confessional among Spanish men!
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t ever required for men, only for women on account of modesty and to prevent scandal. A priest could listen to a man’s confession anywhere.

 

[1ke]

The only thing I can say to that 1KE is that is the thought process that modernists use to slowly dissect the Church from the inside out.

Adding the Divine Mercy Chaplet doesn’t call for near universal abandonment of the Rosary such is the case with allowing eating meat on Fridays and now 99% of Catholics don’t do any form of mortification on Fridays as they’re supposed to.

I don’t have a problem with face to face confession, it’s simply I can see modernists usig the “spirit” of face to face confession to condemn the confessional in the future.

Yes in Christ’s Church change is bad, or it shouldn’t be done without very careful introspection, if it existed in the Church for 1,000 years we ought tread very carefully when deciding to label it simply a discipline and easily changed or tossed out altogether. Look at head coverings they were done away with and no one even knows why, it just kind of happened.

Modernism is a heresy.

Nothing being suggested here is heretical.

 

[CRW]

From many people I have spoken with, such as returning Catholics. There have been scores of Catholics who understand the importance of Reconciliation but were turned away for the Sacrament when many pastors ripped out the Confessionals or used them as closets, and required face to face only. They simply stopped going to Confession and that is the example they gave to their children and grand children.

Br. Rich,

What happen to Canon 964? Section 1: The proper place for hearing sacramental confessions in a church or oratory.

Section 2: As far as the confessional is concerned, norms are to be issued by the Bishops’ Conference, with the proviso however that confessionals, fitted with a fixed grille, between the penitent and the confessor, always be available in an open place, so that the faithful who so wish may freely use them.

Section 3: Except for a just reason, confessions are not to be heard elsewhere than in a confessional.