Oh my fucking god (and there's no other polite way to put it): You can now go to confession on your iPhone. Maureen Dowd at the NYTimes notes that the hot new app
Walks you through the Ten Commandments, your examination of conscience and any “custom sins” you might have, then after confession (purportedly) wipes the slate clean so no one sees your transgressions.
Too bad my old colleague at an East Coast newspaper didn't have this thing 30 years ago. She always asked me to be the one to interview the 60-something, bald-headed superintendent of schools in a small town we both covered because she couldn't stop having "impure thoughts" when she saw him, and that meant she'd have to go to confession right after, and she'd miss her deadline.
And the Confession App is pretty special:
For instance, if you sign in as a 15-year-old girl and look under the Sixth Commandment, one of the questions is: “Do I not treat my body or other people’s bodies with purity and respect?” If you sign in as a 33-year-old married man, that commandment offers this query: “Have I been guilty of masturbation?”
Under the Sixth Commandment, men and women are asked: “Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity?” Priests, however, are not. They are asked if they flirt.
Um, I think there are a few sins missing there for the esteemed clergy of the Church of my youth.
Of course, all this does is make the Catholic Church look even dumber and more out-of-touch with the modern (sic) world (if such a thing were possible). Wayne Besen at Truth Wins Out (who does great work, but in this case takes it all a little to seriously) notes:
This is cyber spiritual abuse that promotes backward ideas in a modern package. Gay Catholics don’t need to confess, they need to come out of the closet and challenge anti-gay dogma. The false idea that being gay is something to be ashamed of has destroyed too many lives. This iPhone App is facilitating and furthering the harm.
Besides, electronic confession takes all the fun out of it. I remember the day in eight grade when every boy in my Catholic School class went into the little booth, one right after the other, and told poor Father Mahoney that we had just engaged in improper and sinful sexual behavior in the cloak room. We agreed in advance that each story had to be more detailed than the one before, and our best and most creative sinners got to go last. I think the good Father had plumb run out of Hail Marys by the end of the afternoon.