Reconciliation online

[RileyG]

Absolutely not. Confession online is not valid, all sacraments must be done in person if I’m not mistaken.

 

[Elizium23]

The internet is not secure, and it is not private. Don’t be surprised when your confession winds up on youtube.

-Tim-

While these are good reasons to discourage Internet confessions, these are not the reasons they are invalid. Sacraments are personal and must be done person-to-person. The mere fact that a confession may not be private will not invalidate it. Saint Damien of Molokai shouted his confession ship-to-ship. It has nothing to do with the Church “getting with the times” or “modernizing” her processes. St. Paul in prison could not confess by letter. It is the constant teaching of the Church based on Divine Law, and cannot change.

 

[LilyM]

Unfortunately, as pointed out, the Vatican has not yet permitted these electronic confessions.

Perhaps one day we will be as fortunate.

Yes, and perhaps one day we will be ‘fortunate’ enough to have priests simply post the Eucharist to us in the mail for ‘do-it-yourself’ Sunday Masses which you follow along on tv.

Or courier some oil ofchrism to you as you lay in hospital dying so that you can give yourself Anointing of the Sick with him on the telephone telling you what to do.

Better still, just have one priest pre-record each of the sacraments just once, put them on youtube and then we won’t EVEN need a priest on the telephone! What a happy day that would be! [/end sarcasm]

Sorry, but the idea of calling this train of thinking ‘fortunate’ makes me extremely sad for the lack of understanding of the sacraments and the role of the priesthood that it betrays.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Anyone who does a confession online is ignorant of how the internet works.

You people don’ think that what you do on the internet is anonymous, do you? Remember when they tapped into Newt Gingrich’s phone conversation, how easy that was?

If I wanted to, I could sit in a coffee shop with a laptop and look at data traversing their wireless network all day long - unencrypted emails with spreadsheets and word docs attached, chat conversations, etc. It’s not difficult and it doesn’t take a hacker from Uzbekestan to do it.

I keep a small savings account at the credit union which I use with a debit card for online purchases. When I want to buy a fifteen dollar book from Scepter Publishing, I move $15 into that account. Postal mail is more secure than the internet.

I wouldn’t do a confession online even if the Holy Father offered to hear it. OK, so what are they going to hear - that I yelled at my kids, ate half of a chocolate cake and looked at the cashier in the grocery store with lust? Big deal, right? But still, I’m not having my confession sit in some database on a server in datacenter in Fairfax, Virginia.

No, no, no. Not online for me. Not unless I’m in a space ship orbiting Jupiter and about to die or something like that.

-Tim-

Its not the lack of privacy that prevents the Internet from being a medium for confession. With all the modern spying technology available in the consumer market, there really is not way to keep your conversations private if someone really wants to evesdrop. I mean, I’m a significant nobody. I don’t think someone will be interested in what I have to say. Its not like I am confessing my credit card numbers.