www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Confession App for IPhone?

A new Confession App is available for the IPhone.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...-with-catholic-faith-20110203-1affe.html

According to the article:

Confession: A Roman Catholic App for iPhones and iPads is touted as the ''perfect aid for every penitent'' and is designed to be taken into the confessional.

It creates a customised and password-protected ''examination of conscience'' based on a person's age, sex, vocation and the time elapsed - in days, weeks, months or years - since the last confession. It also has seven acts of contrition to choose from, all for $US1.99.

Advertisement: Story continues below Patrick Leinen, of the three-man team Little iApps, a US company ''with a Roman Catholic twist'', said his team had wanted to engage Catholics with new media in response to the Pope's World Communications Address last year, in which he spoke of its potential benefits.

''Our bishop was very excited about it,'' Mr Leinen said. ''We were able to work with several priests in order to get that examination of conscience created, so it was kind of fun.''

Bishop Kevin Rhoades went as far as to grant it an imprimatur - official endorsement from a church authority. ''The imprimatur itself was pretty neat,'' Mr Leinan said.



Good Lord!

Fr Deacon El

I don't think I'd take it to confession with me, but the idea of a 'specialized' examination of conscience is rather appealing. As a single parent whose children's father is legally prohibited from any contact with them, who also homeschools and runs a small business, I of course don't fit into any of the usual categories. Unfortunately I don't have a device on which to try it.

How odd. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

I don't think it is bad, it is the new technology. E books will be the norm and why should the Church, east or west, not follow in course, using a medium that will be familiar to the people.

I put several prayers in my mobile phone and I found it handy. I often jotted things that I will confess into my mobile phone notes, use it to help me during confession, and then just delete the file after.
The application in the article is more sophisticated than what I did, but it does help and practical.

The wave of the future?

http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=ggm100528

Father Z. has a detailed examination of the app over at www.wdptrs.com/blog. [wdptrs.com] The media's mischaracterization of the app as a replacement for the Sacrament of Confession has already earned the ire of the Catholic League.

To all those who think this is shocking or odd, as a twenty-four year old immersed in a culture of smartphones, iPods, and new kinds of handheld communications/Internet interface technology, I think that this is going to be viewed as being about as normal in fifteen or twenty years as printing prayers you read off a computer screen would be. It's just technological advancement.

But perhaps as a theological matter, I think one could argue the wisdom in forbidding/discouraging this kind of technology to be brought into such a sacred place as a confessional, whether or not the populace would find the thought of bringing an iPhone and using it in Confession normal or acceptable.

Alexis

I think one thing that would help is to NOT have named the app "Confession." It's very misleading, and needs to have a name that describes what it actually does, which is aid a person in an examination of conscience.

I agree. However, if it were named differntly, it wouldn't have received so much publicity.
i think they knew what they were doing when they named the app. At $1.99 a pop, they'll make a few bucks, for sure.

What if you have a Droid and not an Iphone?

A good friend of mine has written a similar app for Android. And... his app is free. http://www.thepenanceproject.org/

(Alas, I'm stuck on Windows Mobile so I haven't seen Jason's Android app - but I vouch for Jason..)