The Vatican has officially gone viral with a new confession iPad app.
In his speech for the 44th World Communications Day, Pope Benedict XVI called Catholics to use social networking technologies to facilitate the growth of personal faith and religious community. His goal was for young people to use modern means of social communication for their personal growth and to better prepare themselves to serve society.
“Priests are challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis,” said Benedict.
Little iApps, an Indiana software developer, has taken the pope’s message to heart by introducing “Confession: A Roman Catholic App” for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. The application costs $1.99 from Apple’s iTunes store and is password-protected. The software designer, Patrick Leinen, worked with Catholic Church officials in the United States to produce the app.
Reconciliation, or confession, is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. Each particular sacrament has a very real and important element to the rite that includes the actual presence of Christ, according to Kurt Bindewald, Loyola’s director of University Ministry.
The church believes Christ is present sacramentally in one or more of four ways. The first is in the form of those community members gathered as the body of the faithful (“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20). Second is in the proclamation of scripture as the word of God. Next is in the transformed bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ and last is in the form of the priest celebrating the sacrament in the place of Christ.
The practice of the Catholic Church is that everyone preparing for confession should spend some time in prayer and reflection before participating in the sacrament to review the sins and mistakes they have committed. The church suggests many ways a person can examine their conscience to make the best confession possible.
“This new Apple Confession app may be a great tool in preparing for the sacrament, but it can never take the place of the actual sacrament. Primarily, this is because Christ is not present in the Apple app as the church understands Christ to be present sacramentally in one of the four ways,” said Bindewald.
“This might be a good way to get young people more engaged with their faith,” said Lawren Bladsacker, religious studies sophomore. “But I also think it could take away from the church, because if there’s an app then some will say, ‘I don’t need to go to church,’ and without church, people lose that relationship with the body of Christ which is a necessary part of everyone’s spiritual journey.”
Among the app’s features are custom examination of conscience based upon age, sex, and vocation, multiple user support with password protected accounts, the ability to add sins not listed in standard examination of conscience, confession walkthrough including time of last confession in days, weeks, months, and years and the ability to choose from seven different acts of contrition.
Initially, Catholic leaders praised the confession app, hoping that it might attract some absent believers. Several priests, including the Rev. Kevin Regan of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C., have even confessed to downloading the Confession app.
Lately, however, the Vatican has warned Catholics about relying fully on the Confession app.
The Vatican issued a statement Feb. 9 indicating that the new iPhone app version of the Catholic sacrament of confession is not designed to replace going to confession, but to help Catholics through the act, which generally involves admitting sins to a priest in a confessional booth. Catholics must still go to a priest for absolution.
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