Confession during the Korean War
Catholic ping!
Speaking to an unseen priest through a screen seems to her a comfort.
The Catholic Church a couple of miles away (in a university town) doesn't have confessional booths that I have seen: confession takes place between priest and penitent all out in the open, but quietly.
Call me a stickler for tradition, but I think the booth is a good thing.
>>the Catholic Church began offering confession in “reconciliation rooms,” rather than the traditional booths.<<
This is why The Sacrament of Penance” as lost it’s appeal.
I would not in a million years confess face to face.
I would drive miles and go once a year to find a confessional.
Confession can be very hard on a priest. Especially in hard times, the torrent of suffering and anguish can be devastating.
I knew of one young priest, put into a terrible situation as a military chaplain, who when faced with an endless stream of traumatized soldiers, some confessing years of sin and misery, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Realizing there was a severe problem with morale, the unit commander brought forth a senior colonel priest, of the old school. The situation was restored to order in short time, morale improved strongly, and the need for the confessional as psychiatrist couch was changed back to a proper confessional.
Makes one wonder when the last time that McBrien was in a confessional as a penitent let alone as a Priest.
we have confessions before all Sunday masses during advent and lent.
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Historically, confessional booths did not come into the Church until after the Reformation. If you look at earlier woodcuts of confession—usually of people doing their annual Easter Duty—it involves the Pastor and several assistant priests seated on chairs in the front of the church, with long lines of parishioners waiting to confess and receive absolution.
The closed confessional booths began in Rome and spread through Europe beginning in the sixteenth century.
Having said that, they ARE now traditional, and confessing to a priest in a back room was never customary. The centuries old custom was broken by dissident-minded ritualist and bishops, mainly in order to break yet another custom and disrupt the sacrament. It was a way of saying, in effect, that confession isn’t really necessary.
I certainly support using the booths. More important, I support having many more time slots, including regularly schedule confessions before Mass for people who can’t easily get to the church at other times. That’s tiring for the priest and makes for a long Saturday night or Sunday; but it’s an essential part of his job to ensure that people receive the sacraments, and in particular that they go to confession after they have committed grave sins, and at least once a year during the Easter season.
Interesting comments about “face to face” confession. As you may know, we don’t have confessionals. We kneel before the icon of Christ for our confession with the priest standing beside us, with his epitrachelion over our heads. Afterward (or before) there is a face to face time for some spiritual counseling. I must say it never bothered me to confess that way and I can’t remember when the last time was that I went to confession with a priest who didn’t know who I was. The foregoing notwithstanding, I can’t see why anyone would complain about using a confessional, or would want to do away with them.
He then took the time to hear the confession of every single one of us (There were over a hundred making first Communion that year) My sisters class had even more the next year and had to be split into two groups.
God bless you Father Schwartz you and your kind are sorely missed.
Fr. Richard McBrien
Claims that a future Pope must overturn the infallible document disallowing women "priests" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis).
Fr. Richard McBrien
Says, among other things, that Jesus did not establish the Catholic Church, and calls into question the virginal conception of Jesus and the perpetual virginity of Our Lady, and promotes dissent.
This is the parish I stumbled into when I moved to Stamford 2 years ago. I credit this pastor’s and the other priests holy reverence at Mass and the frequent offering (and my use) of the sacrement of Confession with a sincere transformation to Christ.
After years of going to the average Catholic parish, this was the spiritual food I was longing for.