In case you missed the two-part catechetical series in the bulletin regarding the rationale behind our newly restored Confessionals, here's the full article:
Our new Confessionals safeguard the integrity of the Sacrament
If you haven’t yet seen or used our newly restored Confessionals, I encourage you to do so. We have received numerous comments complimenting how beautiful they look. But the restoration work on our Confessionals is not just for aesthetics, it’s also for canonical, legal, practical and theological reasons.
Canonical and legal reasons
One thing you will notice with our newly restored Confessionals is that the priest and the penitent remain in separate compartments and they speak to each other through a screen covered by a veil. This is essentially intended to afford anonymity to the penitent, a right that Canon Law (Church law) grants to both the priest and the penitent.
The Code of Canon Law states: “The conference of bishops is to issue norms concerning the confessional, seeing to it that confessionals with a fixed grille between penitent and confessor are always located in an open area so that the faithful who wish to make use of them may do so freely” (Canon 964 § 2). The Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts provided more clarity to the norm in its 16 June 1998 decree. In this decree, the Holy See preserves the right of the priest to require confession behind a screen. The discipline of the Church can be summarized as follows. All confessionals must be constructed with a fixed screen or grille, allowing anonymity of both penitent and confessor. The option of a face-to-face confession can be offered, but the final decision is up to the priest.
Anonymous Confession or Confession “behind the screen” has been the norm in the Catholic Church for hundreds of years, and for many good reasons, one of which is to protect both the penitent and the priest from unchaste touch and from false accusations. Reverend John J. Coughlin, OFM, in an article titled “The Perennial Value of the Traditional Confessional” appearing in the Sacred Architecture Journal Volume 20 - Fall 2011 (sacredarchitecture.org), writes: “Recent developments in the Church’s experience suggest that a retrieval of the important values served by the traditional confessional may be in order… The sexual abuse crisis has painfully reminded all of us of the reality that priests are human beings like all others who, as a result of original sin and their own personal limitations, sometimes may fall in violations of the sixth and ninth commandments of the Decalogue. The separation of the penitent and confessor in the traditional confessional tends to create a sacred space that militates against the commission of sin. One reason for this is that the parties cannot see or touch each other.”
Father Coughlin continues: “The traditional confessional assists in protecting the priest from false accusations… The sexual abuse crisis has resulted in an atmosphere in which the presumption of innocence of a criminal act is often abrogated. A priest accused of sexual abuse may be viewed as guilty once the accusation has been brought against him… The physical separation of the traditional confessional renders accusations of inappropriate touching or looking highly dubious. Priests need to be fearless in the offer of their humble service to the faithful, but they also need to be prudent to avoid any situation that might cause scandal.”
Furthermore, “the sexual abuse crisis has raised questions about the value of secrecy. Generally, state law protects confessors…from being compelled to divulge information that is communicated to them by a penitent. More than a few persons in secular society have been inclined to question any exemption that a confessor might enjoy under state law. They ask if a priest hears about some criminal matter in the Sacrament of Penance why he should be exempt from reporting requirements adopted by the state. The anonymity of the traditional confessional means that the priest often does not know who is confessing. Although it is sometimes possible to know a person through voice, the reality remains that in the separate compartment and behind the veil of the traditional confessional, the confessor most often may simply have no idea of the identity of the penitent. If the priest does not know the identity of the penitent or if he has a lack of certainty about a penitent’s identity, he cannot justly be held to state reporting requirements about abuse or other types of crime.”
Father Coughlin concludes: “The traditional confessional thus serves to safeguard the inviolability of the seal of the Sacrament of Penance. The seal of the Sacrament functions to ensure the faithful that they may freely confess their sins and receive God’s forgiveness without the danger of public revelation by the confessor. Finally, the traditional confessional conveys an important message to the Church and society as a whole. It communicates that the Sacrament of Penance is a sacred and privileged place, which is not susceptible to the further commission of sin but is a source of the divine healing that comes from the reception of God’s forgiveness.”
Practical and theological reasons
Benefits of "Behind the Screen” Confession
1) Easier to recollect sins because of the absence of having the priest looking at you while you are trying to do it, thus rendering confession more thorough and thus more fruitful. When going to confession it is hard enough to confess embarrassing sins to another person, but becomes all the more embarrassing when you have to tell these sins while being looked at.
2) Preserves anonymity and allows the penitent to be freer in confessing his sins. When the priest knows the person, the penitent may feel judged or think that the priest will remember the embarrassing sin. The anonymity also, in a way, symbolizes the gratuitous nature of God's grace, who gives without distinction of persons. The fact that the priest cannot see you is in a way symbolic of the fact that to God all men are equal and that He judges by the heart.
1) Easier to recollect sins because of the absence of having the priest looking at you while you are trying to do it, thus rendering confession more thorough and thus more fruitful. When going to confession it is hard enough to confess embarrassing sins to another person, but becomes all the more embarrassing when you have to tell these sins while being looked at.
2) Preserves anonymity and allows the penitent to be freer in confessing his sins. When the priest knows the person, the penitent may feel judged or think that the priest will remember the embarrassing sin. The anonymity also, in a way, symbolizes the gratuitous nature of God's grace, who gives without distinction of persons. The fact that the priest cannot see you is in a way symbolic of the fact that to God all men are equal and that He judges by the heart.
3) Justice. When the priest does not know who is confessing, he is freed from human respect and can be a direct to the penitents about the seriousness of their sin. It is only just to tell all penitents the same truth and the same correction. But if the priest knows the one who is confessing, he might be afraid to be direct because we all tend to want to be liked.
4) Keeps confessions shorter; it is harder to get into a "discussion" from behind a screen.
5) Sign value: placing yourself behind a screen with the priest, acting in persona Christi, reminds us that sin does indeed put up a barrier between ourselves and God.
6) Greater humility: when we are visible to another person, especially a priest, we will tend to try to look more impressive in our demeanor and facial expressions. Behind a screen (especially if there is a kneeler), we are enabled to forget our image and truly humble ourselves. This is the proper disposition for the sacrament and thus makes it more fruitful.
4) Keeps confessions shorter; it is harder to get into a "discussion" from behind a screen.
5) Sign value: placing yourself behind a screen with the priest, acting in persona Christi, reminds us that sin does indeed put up a barrier between ourselves and God.
6) Greater humility: when we are visible to another person, especially a priest, we will tend to try to look more impressive in our demeanor and facial expressions. Behind a screen (especially if there is a kneeler), we are enabled to forget our image and truly humble ourselves. This is the proper disposition for the sacrament and thus makes it more fruitful.
Disadvantages of "Face to Face" Confession
1) The biggest and most obvious one is lack of anonymity. Confession of sin, since the early Middle Ages, has always been anonymous (in patristic times, it had been public, before the congregation, which I don't think anybody is anxious to return to). Knowing that the priest is now able to connect a face with the sins you are confessing makes it more difficult to bring everything out into the open.
2) It creates the atmosphere of a meeting room or a psychiatrist's office. A face to face format encourages discussion; after all, in society, we are always face to face when we discuss things. Thus, from habit, we tend more to want to "discuss" our sins instead of confess them. Behind the screen, it is easy to say, "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been six weeks since my last confession. I confess that I have..." It is awkward to repeat this formula while you are sitting face to face with the priest. Instead, the confession tends to sound like, "Oh Father. I'm having such a problem with my daughter! Let me tell you about it..." This is one of the biggest problems of face to face confession; instead of confession of sin, it turns into discussion of problems.
3) Flowing from the above tendency of confession to turn to discussion comes the consequent that confessions take a lot longer; it takes a lot longer to discuss things with a priest face to face than to simply make a confession behind a screen. Face to face confessions often run twenty-minutes a piece. The average confession made to St. Padre Pio was under two minutes.
4) It fails to give any sense of the fact that sin puts you outside of God's grace; i.e, the sacrament done face to face has very little sign value. It has the feeling of a fireside chat.
Now, there might be some good reasons why a penitent would prefer “face to face” Confession, such as a person in a motorized chair or someone who is hard of hearing and greatly aided by lip reading. In such cases, just approach the priest and make a special arrangement for “face to face” Confession somewhere in the church before or after Mass, or at the parish office during office hours.
In conclusion, Confession “behind the screen” has several advantages: helps instill greater humility, makes it easier for the penitent to recall his sins, preserves anonymity, keeps the confession time shorter (making it more practical) and, if the proper dispositions are all there, facilitates a greater reception of grace ex opere operantis to the penitent.
Feel free to share your thoughts and comments.