E-CONFESSION AND E-ABSOLUTION IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? THE PROBLEM OF VALIDITY AND THE ISSUE OF SACRAMENTAL SEAL

Abstract

Many have wondered whether or not it is impossible to confess one’s sins and obtain sacramental absolution through the electronic media. A teenager after a session of online spiritual direction, asked his Spiritual Director, “can't we have online confessions?". This digital native could not fathom why as Catholics one still draws a caesura between the physical and the digital, a gap which seems to have been closed by the exigencies of COVID-19 which transformed the digital as the new homeland. This study seeks to examine the issues of validity and confessional seal with regard to the possibility of online confessions and absolution. The study utilizes the methodology of canonico-theological and hermeneutic analyses of the relevant canons and liturgical regulations regarding the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation. It focuses on the nature and challenges of the so-called ‘digital presence’, and on whether the presence is enough to fulfil the canonical and liturgical obligations required for a valid celebration of the sacrament. The enquiry capitulates with the submission that it is unlikely that the Catholic Church would allow celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation through electronic means since the sacrament fundamentally requires both joint physical presence and live interpersonal action and conversation between the penitent and priest-confessor. It seems that the conditions for a full, natural, human dialogue must exist.