I have had parishioners ask if they can go to confession over the phone or other face time options.
I think not, but I am no expert in this. But the priest absolving and the penitent forgiven need to be in close proximity to each other. A hearing device can be used by either.
If a dispensation is given in these unprecedented times, for a person to make their confession over the phone and also receive penance and absolution, it could open the door to Live Streamed Masses where communicants actually place unconsecrated hosts and wine before the screen and the intention of the priest is to consecrate all those hosts and chalices of wine that are present before those screens when the Mass is live (not on video).
I don't think we want to go there with any Sacrament. Sacramentals are another issue, like the Apostolic Blessing of the Pope at the Urbi and Orbi blessings at Christmas and Easter which are extended to all who hear or see this blessing live on TV or social media.
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The Synod of the Orthodox Church in America has issued a directive allowing the following:
The Sacrament of Confession may be held over the telephone or by live video communication.
If Confession is heard over the telephone or by live video, the priest must read the Prayer of
Absolution before ending the phone call or video communication, in the hearing of the penitent.
(Doesn't seem like a good idea to me.)
It was always assumed that in order to confect the Eucharist the offerings have to be placed on the altar. A ciborium left on the credence table would not be consecrated. Then along came mega-Masses in which we were asked to believe that wafers held in bowls hundreds of yards away were still consecrated. There was presumably a directive to this effect, but it certainly leaves room for doubt.
Should a spokesman from the CDWDS suddenly announce that the sacrament of Penance can validly be conferred over the telephone, we, as priests or penitents, have three choices - to accept it since it emanates from Rome and presumably has the approval of the Pope, to reject it as contrary to tradition, or to have doubts concerning its validity.
The validity and efficacy of the Church's sacraments must not leave room for doubt.
Entertaining this seriously is probably an offense against the Holy Spirit. It presumes an awful lot.
If there is a way to delete the data, and guarantee that one can remain anonyomus, then perhaps. But I really wouldn't trust the state not to take advantage of any confessions by telephone.
Marc, I absolutely agree, it is not a good idea. (I'm ROCOR and we have not changed our practise)
An a seminarian who had only received lector and acolyte, I was present at Pope John Paul II's Mass on the Mall in Washington, DC in 1979. I held a wooden salad bowl of hosts that I would distribute once Pope John Paul consecrated them as I held the bowl. I was approximately as far away from Pope John Paul as I would be at the entrance to my church. I did the same thing at St. Peter's Square with Pope Francis, although a priest concelebrant. I think the chances are that at St. Peter's the Host were consecrated, not so sure about Washington's experience.
Fr McDonald
I think that in both cases there is an element of doubt. The rubrics for concelebrated Masses presume that the elements for consecration are on the altar. They don't suggest that each concelebrant holds his own ciborium away from the altar and consecrates it.
A while back I discussed this with Fr Kavanaugh. He maintained that what applied in the old Rite didn't necessarily apply in the new. My view was that since EF and OF are supposed to be two 'forms' of the Roman Rite, you can't say that what was invalid in one form is valid in the other, particularly regarding the Eucharist.
John Nolan - It was always assumed that in order to confect the Eucharist the offerings have to be placed on the altar.
Actually this is incorrect. Traditional practice was that the priest made a “habitual intention” to consecrate any offerings placed upon the corporal, but it was necessary in itself. However, this isn’t the case now. I concelebrated at a Bishop’s mass in the 1980’s where it had been Intended but forgotten to put out an additional ciborium for the mass (due to large unanticipated congregation that actually attended). The mistake was not realised until the Lamb of God, at which point the Bishop determined that he had intended to consecrate enough hosts for all among the very large crowd attending. The additional ciborium was brought from the sacristy and used for communion. Admittedly it was a controversial decision among us clerics, but it was the Bishop’s judgement call not ours!
In addition, if you watch Papal masses in St Peter’s Square, the concelebrating priests will hold ciborium with hosts to be concentrated for the large congregation while standing in front of the altar - they are not placed on the altar itself. This has been the established practice since at least JP2.
Православный физик brings up a good point. If done by telephone or some similar way, there goes the "private seal" of confession. The potentiality of it being hacked into by state actors or some maliciously curious individual will, in very short order of doing it this way, become a certain actuality.
UK Priest aka Kavanaugh,
Please drop the nom de plume and answer John Nolan directly
How about in person over the phone, using the phone as a device to allow social distance and discretion? The priest could easily confirm that the penitent is who they say they are and would be in person by all accounts (six feet or more a part).
The Church allows hearing aids to overcome a health condition, no?
Physical presence is necessary because we are not gnostic.
UK Priest
It may be 'established practice', albeit a very recent one, but who established it and what authority did he have for doing so? The rubrics for the traditional Mass are precise as to the placement of the ciborium, and direct that it be uncovered before the Consecration.
Certainly your 1980s bishop did not have the authority to pronounce as he did, which shows a cavalier attitude towards the sacred mysteries - 'Oh, it'll be all right, because I say so'.
Innovations which seem to contradict previous long-standing practice always carry an element of doubt. I once accidentally attended a Mass in which the celebrant pronounced the words of Consecration without actually touching host or chalice. Did this render the Mass invalid? I had no way of knowing.
Of course, In extreme circumstances (Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, the prisons of the French Revolution) priests had to offer Mass clandestinely without altars, vestments or sacred vessels. But we're not talking about extreme circumstances.
John Nolan,
I have a question for you. Father Z has posted an article that the British bishops are allowing, permitting, that the EF may be streamed for Holy Week. What do you make of this development?
Happy Easter
TJM
1. 'British' bishops is a misnomer. There are three episcopal conferences in the British Isles: one for England and Wales (CBCEW), one for Scotland, and one for Ireland (north and south).
2. Whatever the reservations of some bishops with regard to SP (and that was 13 years ago, and the composition of the CBCEW has altered considerably since then), no bishop has tried to impede the celebration of the EF. Indeed, the number of bishops who have themselves celebrated the Pontifical High Mass continues to grow.
3. Four historic churches in the north of England have been given to traditionalist societies. In the case of the FSSP at Warrington the Archbishop of Liverpool (Malcolm McMahon) conferred ordinations in the old Rite. On the tenth anniversary of his consecration as Bishop of Nottingham (2010) he celebrated a PHM in his own diocese on his own initiative.
4. The E&W bishops are actually encouraging the live streaming of the EF during the lock-down. That is what is newsworthy, and twenty years ago it would have been unthinkable.
John Nolan,
Thanks for your update which contains very encouraging news. I apologize for lumping them all into the term "British." We Americans, you know.
I suspect in England, Catholics generally have more traditional instincts. I recall a young friend of mine who was visiting the US a few years back and I took her to the Latin High Mass at St. John Cantius in Chicago. She was in her mid-thirties then. When the priest intoned Credo III she jumped right in and sang it beautifully from memory. I was pleasantly surprised and asked her after Mass where she learned to sing it. She said it was quite common in Catholic schools in England that some chant was still being taught and used at school Masses. That certainly would not have been the case in Catholic schools in the US in the 1980s.
Cheers!
TJM
I don't think English Catholics have more traditional instincts, and the average parish Mass is probably little different from that which obtains in the USA - no Latin, lack of attention to detail, poor music, casual reception of Communion and so on. Holding hands at the Our Father doesn't happen, but that is just British reserve.
The virtual abandonment of Latin between 1964 and 1967 was perhaps more resented over here. Whereas in the US Catholicism was one denomination among many, in England it lived in the shadow of the Anglican Established Church which occupied all the historic churches and cathedrals which had been built with Catholic money for Catholic worship. However, we still had the Latin Mass which the Protestant reformers had repudiated, and it was very much part of our cultural identity.
Evelyn Waugh, in the preface to the rescension of his 'Sword of Honour' trilogy, first published between 1951 and 1961, remarked that he had unwittingly written the obituary of English Catholicism: 'All the rites and most of the opinions are now obsolete.' This was in 1965. Two generations later little remains of a distinctive Catholic culture.
In Poland, where Catholicism was seen in terms of national identity, the vernacular served to reinforce this, so it was not resented, nor was it associated with liberal modernism and rejection of tradition.
I think the US wanted the Mass in English due to our resentment of ‘foreign’ languages ignoring both the irony of the statement and our ineptitude with the language we prefer. In fact, the most common argument against the TLM is the ‘L’ other than anything else since many American Catholics are even more ignorant of our Faith than they are of our language.
John Nolan,
Thanks for your response. Your statement about cultural identity makes a lot of sense. In the US we did not really have that dynamic at play. In the US, as rcg mentions, there is (and was) a strong bias in favor of English in all aspects of life. Most of my friends whose parents came from countries like Germany, Hungary and Italy demanded their children speak English so they would be perceived as true Americans. I personally regret that this attitude took hold because a command of another language or two definitely has its benefits. This may not be fair to say, but I suspect a lot of priests in the US never had a command of Latin and were happy to get away from it. I only knew a few priests that were fluent in Latin.
I remember, as a ten-year-old at a Catholic school, being taught about the English Reformation (from a Catholic point of view!) This was in 1961, and I still recall my anguished sympathy for my countrymen (and women) during the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553) who saw the replacement of the Latin Mass by an English communion service, their parish churches vandalized with ruthless efficiency, and the suppression of familiar customs and rituals, all in the space of six years.
By the time I was sixteen, I had a better idea of what it must have felt like.
John Nolan,
Although I grew up in the US, I had the same feelings. It was a terrible time for those who treasured their Catholic Faith and liturgical tradition. Although the OF can be celebrated in continuity of tradition, the ordinary Novus Ordo is a rather cold and banal rite. Although I do not deny its validity, I feel pretty much like "there's no there, there."
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