Screened or face to face confession?

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I always have preferred screened, but lately the priests seem a little put off by this. Last time he said, “Are you going to stay there?” I get embarrassed easily and I just like the anonymity.

What do you prefer? Am I the only Catholic still not going face to face?
 
I prefer anonymous. It’s easier to believe I’m talking to Christ himself when I’m not looking directly at another person.
 
JackieMom said:
I always have preferred screened, but lately the priests seem a little put off by this. Last time he said, “Are you going to stay there?” I get embarrassed easily and I just like the anonymity.

What do you prefer? Am I the only Catholic still not going face to face?
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I definitely prefer anonymous confession, and I am getting concerned that sometimes face to face confession only is what is given. I love the anonymity as well.
 
I used to think that if I really felt the need to confess behind the screen, those were the times I needed to show “humility” and confess face to face. Now my pendulum is swinging the other way and now confessing anonymously makes it feel more like I’m confessing to Christ himself instead of to the priest. I know my priest knows who I am by my voice, but my focus is more coming clean with Christ instead of wondering what my priest is thinking about what I’m saying, and I feel like I make a better confession.
 
I like face to face. My Priest greets me with a hand shake, wants to know what’s going on with my life and then we get busy. My Parish is the second biggest in my Diocese, sometimes, that’s the only way to have some one on one time with him.
 
Also, making a confession behind the scene makes me less likely to turn the sacrament into a “counseling session”. If I want to chat with my priest about something, I will make an appointment or will invite him over for beer, brats and baseball.
 
I usually confess to my spiritual director so it’s obviously face to face. Once I wandered into a church in an area I was visiting and went to confession. All they had was behind a curtain. I vowed that from now on I’ll only go where I know I can confess face to face.
 
I go face-to-face. I think going behind the screen feels like “hiding.” I like to get my sins out in the open. If I was brave enough to commit the sin, then I’m brave enough to confess it in the light.
 
I used to confess behind the screen but one day the priest was there in the confessional
with no screen; so I decided to try it and I really loved being able to just confess in person.
I’m glad I did so and that’s what I prefer now.
Mary.
 
It kind of depends, for me. Most of the time, I go behind the screen.

If I go face-to-face, it is usually with one of my parish priests because he’s so fatherly as a confessor, and it helps being in person for that.
 
My parish has confessionals with screens. There is really no ability to do face to face confession in them. One can make an appointment, of course. And sometimes when the lines are long, priests will hear confessions at the altar rail without a screen, but then he is looking down, not at the penitent.
 
JimG said:
My parish has confessionals with screens. There is really no ability to do face to face confession in them. One can make an appointment, of course. And sometimes when the lines are long, priests will hear confessions at the altar rail without a screen, but then he is looking down, not at the penitent.
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Same here.
 
I tried three times behind the screen. Twice the priest asked me to just sit in front of him, and once I asked if I could despite beginning behind the screen. He said yes. I’m just gonna stick with face-to-face. 😃
 
JackieMom said:
I always have preferred screened, but lately the priests seem a little put off by this. Last time he said, “Are you going to stay there?” I get embarrassed easily and I just like the anonymity.

What do you prefer? Am I the only Catholic still not going face to face?
Click to expand...
I don’t care for face to face. Not because it is face to face. But because it does, at times, devolve into a chat session. I prefer screened confession.
 
JackieMom said:
I always have preferred screened, but lately the priests seem a little put off by this. Last time he said, “Are you going to stay there?” I get embarrassed easily and I just like the anonymity.

What do you prefer? Am I the only Catholic still not going face to face?
Click to expand...
In answer to the “Are you going to stay there?” you could say, “I can leave if you want me to, Father.” I think he’d get the point. 😃
 
I just said/made/had my first reconciliation 11 days ago and it was face to face. While waiting I prayed that my humiliation and shame be taken away from me, but when I looked up and saw my Savior hanging on that cross, humiliated beyond all comprehension, I realized how foolish my request was. So I went in and sat facing the priest in abject humiliation and let it pour out. What was taken away were my sins. A measure of humiliation is good for the soul.
 
Forgive me, but are you implying that those of us who do not prefer face to face are afraid of being known as the sinners we are? 🙂
 
I like the old days when you kneel in darkness.
Most churches these days do not have that option.
 
Screened is my preference even if I am familiar with the priest I am confessing to.
 
I almost always go face to face. It’s what I’m used to. Besides which, when I go at St. Francis de Sales Parish, invariably Father sees me before we go into the confessional, so it’s really no use hiding behind the screen. That’s not my home parish, but it has the most wheelchair accessible confessional in town. 😃
 
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