More Thoughts on the New Confession App
Earlier today I weighed in on the new iphone confession app that has been developed by several priests in South Bend, Indiana and is the first to receive an imprimatur from a bishop of the Church. In the same way that many news outlets incorrectly led people to believe that the Catholic Church was approving a new way of receiving the sacrament of reconciliation via the iPhone, it now seems they are also incorrectly interpreting recent statements by the Vatican in response to this media frenzy (for example: this article entitled Vatican Voices Disapproval for Confession iPhone App). Vatican officials have been very clear to point out that this app is simply an introduction on how to go about receiving the sacrament and a personalized examination of conscience. In giving a “stamp of approval” to this tool, which is meant to help those preparing for confession, the Church is not saying that people can now confess their sins and receive absolution via their phone. Sacraments are always rites that involve direct interaction with others. It seems to me that the Vatican’s statements are a reiteration of the essential nature of the sacrament of reconciliation. Vatican officials are not voicing disapproval for a new tool to examine one’s conscience and better understand how to go to confession, but rather are attempting to correct much of the media’s faulty reporting on a subject they ought to spend more time studying before sending articles to print.
The real story it seems, however, is not the fact that the Church has created a new iPhone app, but rather the number of people who have purchased it. The fact that the confession app has been at the top of iPhone app sales tells me something that I have suspected, that people are longing for a way to receive God’s forgiveness. Even amidst recent scandals in the Church, I still have to believe that many people still know that they have need for God’s mercy and that the Church has been given the power by Christ to unleash that same mercy. The creation of a new iPhone app isn’t likely to bring about a groundswell of folks heading back to the confessionals, but it does give me hope that people have not lost their deeply rooted sense of sin and of the need for God’s redemption in their lives. I hope that many of them will take advantage of the healing offered by Christ through the sacraments of the Church.
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