A high profile ecclesiastic just said the other day that he now refuses to hear children’s confessions just in case there might be an accusation of pedophilia, you know, because it’s a private, one on one situation in a small room.
Such priests, especially high ranking ecclesiastics, can have normal confessionals constructed, you know, with a kneeler and a screen.
Forget the nicey nice rooms.
But these Judas priests from hell will not forget the nicey nice rooms of face-to-face confessions. The point of those forced face to face confessional rooms (which mostly have kneelers with screens that you arrive to in the room only after you walk past the priest) is to get rid of confessions, and, indeed, these nicey nice rooms cut out about 99% of confessions at the get go. The rest are usually by an appointment that’s extremely difficult to make. Sure, some people like face to face. That’s nice. Get over it. Start worrying that almost no one — ever — goes to confession because of face to face situations. Really. Worry about others. People are going to hell, for eternity, because they are not going to confession, because it is face to face. And that’s not nicey nice.
But Father! But Father! It’s traditional for men to go to confession to the priest in the sacristy just before Mass.
Right. Maybe one day in the future when a thousand people are NOT in the sacristy before Mass just to feel important, maybe then that could be done again. But the proper thing, even back in the day, and now in canon law, is to use a confessional. And people have a right in canon law to have the screen type of confessional. So do priests.
And, just to say, not to hear children’s confessions — which this guy propably wouldn’t do even if he had a traditional confessional with screens only — is so hateful to God and man that this is to risk going straight to hell. What a scandal.
Priests are ordained to be crucified with the Lord, not to be afraid of being accused, so that one won’t fulfill the purpose for which on was ordained and for which the Holy Spirit was sent among us, for the forgiveness of sins, because one is afraid for oneself? That seems to be about the most diabolically selfish thing I’ve heard to date.
But there is forgiveness even for such a priest. But, hey! With such a great example, many might be rufusing to hear confessions altogether, and he won’t be able to go to confession. Our Lord always works with irony. He better change his ways.
Most priests will have nothing or as little as possible to do with confession because they don’t go themselves.
There will be no new evangelization until priests go to confession themselves.
But hey there, hermit priest, we don’t sin anyway!
The first objectively grave sin is not to offer the possibility of confessions.
To the laity: Do you want to do something about this? Raise the money to install traditional confessionals in your church.
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
The point of those forced face to face confessional rooms (which mostly have kneelers with screens that you arrive to in the room only after you walk past the priest) is to get rid of confessions, and, indeed, these nicey nice rooms cut out about 99% of confessions at the get go.
Thank you. I have been saying this for years.
“And people have a right in canon law to have the screen type of confessional. So do priests.”
Thank you – I wish I had known this when my son made his first confession last spring. I had planned to take him to a mainland-parish which has what I call the “disembodied-voice-confessional”, but when informing our parish priest of this (we have no religious ed, so I taught my son) he seemed somewhat offended and told me the parish priest was supposed to be the administrator of the sacraments for his congregation. He then made fun of “anonymous” confession and told me it was all the same and I shouldn’t get worked up about it. Not knowing there was a right to the screen, I gave in. And we don’t even have a “reconciliation room” at our little church – confession takes place in our small Eucharistic chapel (which requires whispering so as not to be overheard). Sorry, I’m ranting a bit, too
!!
I’m not at all surprised by this, while acknowledging that such a high degree of cynicism about our clergy is likely sinful in itself.
I only started feeling comfortable going to confession when I realized I didn’t have to go face to face! My BEST confession ever was at the Chapel of Divine Mercy. No choice but to go “behind the screen” and my confession was quick and to the point, no awkward eye contact, no feeling the need to explain myself, just sin and number. I knew who the priest hearing my confession was, but he had no idea who I was.
I took this experience and used it for every confession I’ve made since then. I don’t put off the sacrament anymore and endeavor to go once a month.
Thank you Father! Face to face seems to encourage those silly situations, like – the priest says, “ya sorry?” taps your head and grants absolution. Or says, “that’s not a sin – I do that too,.” Or “Keep it short. Just mention your major fault.” These scenarios actually happened.
I’m all for giving a lecture to the priest, and insisting until he stops being unpriestly. That insistence, by the way, might just save his own soul. Don’t hesitate. Bring the full absolution with you and have him read it word for word. Yikes!
Around here the little student chapel actually has confession every day but on one occasion the priest didn’t say the words of absolution. Since it had never happened before I just sort of walked out like an idiot, kicking myself that I didn’t say anything to him about it. I ended up going to my regular confessor the next time that I was able to go and repeating my confession. To make a long story short out of necessity I decided to go back to this Church and prayed the whole time that this priest just simply forgot the last time to absolve me; heck, I even asked his guardian angel along with St. Michael to remind him! To my joy he actually did say the words of absolution and gave me a decent penance as well. I think sometimes a priest just forgets. I mean, what priest would offer daily confession in a theological minefield like a college chapel and then deliberately refuse to absolve his penitents?
As for face to face confession, it is not something I have much experience with although it is the common practice in the Eastern Rites. In the West think we should stick to screens.
There are times I am realy thankful for all the good priests I have encountered in my day. These men, whatever their quirks and weaknesses and struggles, actually have the power to absolve my sins in the name of our Lord and in the case of most they have. Some have even made time for me outside regular confession times.
The “reconciliation rooms” are also designed to destroy auditory privacy. Once upon a time, I went to confession after having avoided it for several months. I almost walked out when I realized that I could clearly hear everything that was being said in the “reconciliation room” due to a 4-inch gap underneath the door. The only thing that made me stay was the fact that I hadn’t confessed in so long, so I moved halfway down the nave to avoid hearing anything. Yes, “reconciliation rooms” are a frontal assault on the sacrament. Bring back traditional confessionals — they were there for a reason!
I remember the beauty of the old confessionals where Father would sit in a small cubical with a wall and a closed grill separating him from the person making confessiom.. When we entered the confessional and shut the door Father would open the grill. It was very private and felt secure. I guess I am somewhat old school.
OK, somebody must know. There has to be an app somewhere that gives the location of churches that do old time confessions only?? Somebody? Anybody? Google search failed me! And I’m not asking my parish priest.
At my local parish, we have no confessionals. The priest hears confession while seated at the altar in an open church. The person who needs to receive the Sacrament walks right up to the altar, and kneels besides the priest in a distance where they can both listen to one another.
This is done every Sunday for 1 hour before Mass. It is very fine with all of us.
My daughter is preparing for her First Reconcilliation. At our parish, the children prepare for First Reconciliation in the Fall and then receive it at the end of November at a Reconciliation Celebration, at which, in the church, each child is given a number which is assigned to a priest who will be sitting opposite an empty chair around the inside perimiter of the church. The children at this ceremony are not even given the option of receiving anonymously. Now, being the theology-degree-holding, homeschooling parents we are, my husband and I basically ignored this and simply asked our daughter how she would like to receive. Not surprisingly, she wants to receive kneeling behind a screen. As we already had to request an exemption for her to be permitted into the Sacrament Prep program due to her not turning 7 until January, we already had permission from our pastor to let her receive this sacrament whenever we thought she was ready.
Last night there was a special meeting at which the children could watch a role-play with our assoc. pastor as to how the sacrament was done. But, more importantly, they were given the opportunity to look around inside the confessional. My daughter came home begging to receive her First Reconcilliation. She asked if she could receive it today. When my husband reminded her why we couldn’t do it today, she said, “What about Friday? Because I have lots of sins I need to confess.” I’ve promised her I would call our assoc. pastor today and ask if he has any time available tomorrow for her to receive her First Reconciliation. She is still hopping excited to go.
I don’t know of course, but I do have to wonder how many of the other children who don’t realize they can ask to forego the ceremony and receive anonymously are ask excited. I also wonder if trying to corner the kids into receiving face-to-face in this ceremony has any effect in terms of how anxious or how often they will go again.
Uganda: If the priest is facing away from the congregation and then you kneel just to his side so that if he is prudent he doesn’t at you and people can read his facial expressions as you confess, say, that you stole money out of last Sunday’s collection, that’s fine. Of course, confessionals are much better. In that way, the sacrosanct nature of the sanctuary, its symbolism, is not violated.
Excellent comment, Katherine. May the Lord bless you for raising your children to love Him so very, very much, with such enthusiasm and joy.
The confessional with screen is analogous to ad orientem at Mass. The emphasis is placed on Jesus, not the priest.
I much prefer anonymous confession behind a screen, however, my spiritual director is a priest and confession is normally part of our meetings. In that case, I make my confession in his office. I have become accustomed to confession in this manner and he is a good confessor. But now I am curious. Is this how confession is normally handled with one’s spiritual director?
Hello, TMB: Depends on the spiritual director. I know some who separate the two by hearing confessions only in the confessional, as it should be. Also, this would separate the two things rather well, as it should be.
Having said that, spiritual direction can take place in confession if there are sins involved…
That is true Father. The Priest is always facing in a wall away from the congregation and the penitent also faces away from the congregation.
In my parish we still have the confessionals where the priest is in the middle w/a screen and a wall between him and the confessee (?). However as I work every Sat night and miss the co nfession time many times I have asked my parish priests to hear my confession either in the rectory or after Mass or sometimes during the week before daily Mass. I have no problem with this. I am so happy to be able to confess my sins during these times and my priests are always more than cooperative.
God forbid a priest would not hear my grandsons’s confession, I would be “hoppin”mad and would probably let him know too.! thank you Father Byers and God Bless
Judy: Yes, it is very wonderful when priests make extra time for confessions more than just the scheduled times, as our lives are more complicated than schedules permit. I have often done as you do. I’m just talking about the norm here. For myself, I have no problem going face to face, but I know many, many, many do.
“To the laity: Do you want to do something about this? Raise the money to install traditional confessionals in your church.”
Or at LEAST stop using the perfectly good ones you have as a cloakroom or chair storage for the love of Pete
from our group blog Over the Rhine and Into the Tiber
http://otritt.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/my-views-on-confession-or-give-me-the-box/
Thil. “The intercourse between priest and penitent was especially [96] dangerous because there had not yet been invented the device of the confessional–a box or stall in which the confessor sits with his ear at a grille, through which the tale of sins conceived or committed is whispered. Seated by his side or kneeling at his feet, there was greater risk of inflaming passion and much more opportunity for provocative advances. It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that the confessional was devised, doubtless in consequence of the attacks of heretics, who found in these scandals a fertile subject of animadversion. The earliest allusion to it that I have met occurs in a memorial from Siliceo of Toledo to Charles V, in 1547. (5) In 1565 a Council of Valencia prescribed its use and contemporaneously S. Carlo Borromeo introduced it in his Milanese province, while in 1614 the Roman Ritual commanded its employment in all churches. 6)