Who are you & how do you confess?

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a_pilgrim

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Just been reading through another “Confession” thread and I thought it might be interesting to find out if there is a gender bias with regard to the preferred method of confessing (screen vs. face-to-face). Please add your “stats” to help us find out!

Thanks, all!

a pilgrim
 
Should have been done in a poll! Maybe you could start one?

Male. Both screen and face-to-face.
 
Too bad there wasn’t a Male/Both Female/Both option. I think it largely depends upon where I am, whether I know the priest personally, etc.
 
Yes, I agree maybe both should be an option. Most times I use the screen, but sometimes if I go in the middle of the week by appointment and want to discuss something, I sit in the chair. BTW, I’m female.

JELane
 
I’ve always confessed behind a screen, simply because confession makes me rather nervous.
 
I am male and I use both. I feel shame for my sins but I am never ashamed to confess them before a priest. In fact, I really have never had a problem telling all my sins even if he knows who I am. I have no preference. There are times that I must use a screen if that is all that is offered, but either way is the same.
 
I usually use the screen unless its my regular confessor/spiritual director then it’s what ever I feel prompted to do. I actually had one priest ask me to come around to confess face to face. I declined.
 
Being a male and defining that in taking responsibility for one’s actions or lack thereof, I make my Confession in a face to face format. I do not find it more comforting in doing so. There are times that I would rather crawl under a rock but in facing the truth with the Priest representing Church and Christ, I come to a greater realization of my sinfulness and its conseqeunces to Church, relationship to God and self and the need for grace in developing my covenant relationship. Thanks for asking.
 
I prefer screened for various reasons. There is less distraction such as when you confess a sin and see a puzzled look on the priests face or else see him sit up straighter in his chair. The number one reason I like screened best is because then I can imagine Jesus sitting there and I am more open to confessing without making excuses as to why I sinned.
 
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IoA:
Too bad there wasn’t a Male/Both Female/Both option. I think it largely depends upon where I am, whether I know the priest personally, etc.
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I don’t understand, why is that too bad… :rolleyes:
 
Blood Rain:
I usually use the screen unless its my regular confessor/spiritual director then it’s what ever I feel prompted to do. I actually had one priest ask me to come around to confess face to face. I declined.
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Same here basically, if I don’t know the priest I’ll use the screen, if its my regular confessor back at school or my pastor here at home I’ll go face to face.

Sometimes one of the priests back at school likes to do face to face confessions on the last pew in the back before Mass…I usually just ask to have it in the confessional when that occurs.
 
I’m female, and never confessed my sins before, but i think I would prefer a screen because I would get nervous, but probably my fisrt time confess I will have to do the face-to-face appointment thing cause i have WAY to many sins to confess. Plus, the screen seems more traditional and tradition is what initially drew me to the church!!
 
I’m a baby Catholic (I just came into the Church this past Easter), so I’ve only been to confession like three times, but each time has been face to face. Funny, but each time I’ve been, I’ve intended to go behind the screen, but I just can’t seem to make myself do that. Odd, huh? Anyway, the tissue box is on the “face-to-face” side of the confessional… 😛
 
Currently, wne i go at a RC churhc, i go behind a screen (my last Confessor did not hold confessions any other way). My Confessor before that i heard my confessions face-to-face (my option). Right now i dont have a regular Confessor (recently they have either died or were retired, and we have moved a bit).

When i go to an EC church, like my home parish, i have no choice-i stand or kneel, and the prest stands next to me, holding the Epitrachilion (stole) over my head while i confess to an Ikon of Jesus or the Gospel book. I don’t know if you would count that as face to face or what.

In Christ,
Adam
 
face to face, but most of the time the priest usually just sees the top of my head:( I have gone to screen confessions but I find it intimidating and the kneelers very hard to balance kneeling on
 
Mostly face to face, and now that I can’t safely kneel, use a wheelchair and oxygen tank, face to face pretty much exclusively, unless I am at the Cathedral for confession. In the rehabilitation they created an entirely handicapped-accessible, roll-in, old fashioned box confessional. [It’s so nice our retired bishop was such a traditionalist 😃 about using his authority to do things right!] I can roll in, chair, tank, and all.

karen marie
 
I agree with spaceghost that it depends on where I am, but for the most part I have confessed face to face with my own parish priest, wherever the parish might have been.

Once, I went to a one-day retreat with a friend to a church I had never attended and there was no choice but only a screen. There was also no little cheat sheet to remind me of the proper order and, since I’ve almost always confessed face to face with a priest I know well, I couldn’t remember the proper order. It’s more like an informal discussion with a trusted friend or father until absolution. I sort of froze (or my mind did) and then began with the Act of Contrition, then explained I was used to face to face confessions, and then confessed. It seemed that the priest hadn’t heard a word I said, for he gave me an answer that had nothing to do with anything I’d said or even made sense, then went on to tell me, “I would ask you to say the Act of Contrition, but you’ve already done that. Therefore. . .”

I almost ran out of the confessional! I did not doubt that I’d been forgiven, but it was most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to me in a church!

I don’t blame the priest, by the way. I should certainly know how to take confession! At the same time, I would ask everyone not to think badly of me. I just thought it humourous and thought I would share. . .

God bless.
 
I don’t even know why I use the screen when I do with my parish priest. I go in, kneel down, say “hello father” and he says hello and calls me by name. But he’s the one who started me behind the screen. After we had had our first confession, face to face, he told me to kneel and say my act of contrition. Ever since then I’ve always felt that he thought it was proper for us to use the screen.

JELane
 
40.png
IoA:
Too bad there wasn’t a Male/Both Female/Both option. I think it largely depends upon where I am, whether I know the priest personally, etc.
Click to expand...
😃 Same here, that is why I didn’t answer the poll.

:amen:
 
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