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Confession: There's an iPhone App For That
slshwtw writes "Pope Benedict XVI has recently encouraged priests to blog and promoted Christian Netiquette. Now apparently the Roman Catholic church has sanctioned a 'Confession App,' available through iTunes for $1.99. Apparently it doesn't replace 'traditional,' in-person confession, but walks one through the process, even suggesting sins you may wish to confess."'
but walks one through the process, even suggesting sins you may wish to confess.
Like a checklist?
Have you sodomized a child? (Y/n)
Have you coveted your neighbour's wife? (Y/n)
Have you murdered an infidel? (Y/n)
How much different is this from the dystopia in THX-1138 where they have Automated Confession Booths?
Shh.
...but hey he loves you ... and he needs money.
Does it have a special section on child abuse for the clergy, and another for covering it up?
Preparing to be modded out of existence with this comment!
would it actually send your confession anywhere? Since your confessions are supposed to be anonymous and strictly confidential, you might as well pipe it to /dev/nulll...
Martin Luther is spinning in his grave.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
No doubt the police would want warrantless access to this application. Warrant's would be redundant, since it's already assumed that the confessor did something wrong.
Is it a cloud app?
Please, people. Ha, ha, funny. RTFA.
"[T]he new app doesn't replace traditional confession. You still have to go to a priest for absolution. ... It leads you through an 'Examination of Conscience' to help you figure out what your real sins are -- and not just by retreading your run of the mill 10 Commandments."
In sacramental preparation, Roman Catholics are taught to privately undertake an examination of conscience before entering the confessional. This is just, shall we say, an expert system for the process.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
Any guesses on how long before we see an Church of Satan app. I look forward to confessing the sins of the Slashdot editors.
My Web Site
isn't an iPhone kinda incompatible with your religion? It's a large, unnecessary expenditure of money and resources when there are millions of poor. Plus it's a status symbol, and I'm pretty sure pride is a sin (correct me if I'm wrong, not a Catholic)...
It's like the guy in the $80,000 SUV with Jesus on his license plate. I think he's missing the point...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Is this a repentance on the part of the iPhone?
After all, it was Apple that brought us into this mess of sin in the first place.
Have you coveted your neighbour's wife?
Jesus says love thy neighbor, but my wife wont let me!
... a new high score!!!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Every conversation should include "Father, I Confess I'm addicted to my iPhone."
So you don't have to deal with all those child-molesting priests.
How long until confessions with keywords like "kill" and "rob" or the ever-popular "molested" are sent directly to the FBI via apple?
1. Write confession app
2. collect confessions + phone number / email address
3. ????
4. Profit!
I rather suspect that the catholic church is not fond of open source methodologies, so your patch probably will prove difficult (regardless of how badly needed).
And based on the way we have both been moderated so far, I would also suspect that someone who favors the church is running around with moderator points today!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I see nothing in the article to support the claim that this app has been sanctioned by the Catholic Church, besides the fact the author seems to be a priest, and seems to like it. This is an app developed by a private company with no official connection to the Church (and a horribly broken website, to boot).
I created a similar free application for Android devices called PenanceProject. It helps users do an examination of conscience before the Sacrament and to pray afterwards. The application is not meant to be used during Confession. It also doesn't save information about the user.
People can get the application here: https://market.android.com/details?id=appinventor.ai_jamorrow.PenanceProject
To learn more about The Penance Project please visit: http://www.thepenanceproject.org
this particular quarrel is not with the catholic church, but the apple church.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
It's called "Rational Thought" but I think you have to jailbreak to use it...
Seeing that it can help you find out how you've sinned, I'd like to see a penance calculator in the next version. For example: you could enter that you watched a naughty movie, and it would respond with 10 Hail Mary's per girl with a 5x multiplier per cup.
"Customers who confessed this sin also confessed..."
For I have sinned. I jailbroke my iphone, carrier unlocked it to use on TMobile, then I downloaded a cracked version of Confession App through installous. Also Angry Birds.
music lover since 1969
As I keep saying, if God didn't want me to covet my neighbour's ass, He wouldn't have given her such a magnificent ass ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As a practicing catholic I have to ask if the church didn't learn its lesson from the fallout from attempting to sell indulgences...
Twitter/Facebook: We all agree there's no privacy
Online Banking: Mostly private. If people find out where I gas up, big deal.
My confessions on wikileaks?: Priceless.
Does it still suggest sins you might be interested in committing? I don't need a confession app, but a checklist might actually come in handy...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
1. Type all mortal sins since last confession into iPhone. (Check email for last confession date)
2. Submit confession to Apple Inc. for content approval.
3. Receive edited, non-pornographic version via SMS.
4. Post confession to Vatican web servers (http://facebook.com/vatican)
5. Wait for absolution email.
6. Give thanks to Steve Jobs for He is good and His mercy endures forever.
Simply pay $1.99 and hit a few buttons to have your sins washed away.
I didn't even read the article, but I can tell that it obviously isn't saying that it is the same as an actual confession, just that it helps you organize for the real confession.
Does a shopping list app substitute for actual shopping? Of course not.
I hope it posts your sins on your Facebook page, otherwise it's not interesting.
--- ... help me making it worse.
My karma is bad
Because it's kind of hard for a phone to molest a kid.
Will the app borrow the Amazon or Netflix technology and come up with, "People who confessed to this venal transgression also confessed to ...."
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Can someone atleast google the nickname / login of the person submitting the story. http://www.google.com/search?q=slshwtw
1. Enter all sins since last iConfession into iPhone. (Check email for date of last confession)
2. Submit confession to Apple Inc. for content approval.
3. Receive edited, non-pornographic version via SMS.
4. Post confession to Vatican web servers (http://www.facebook.com/vatican)
5. Wait for absolution email.
6. Give thanks to Steve Jobs for He is good and His mercy endures forever.
It's called "Rational Thought" but I think you have to jailbreak to use it...
Jailbreak who or what?
Also, is it sufficient?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also have pretty good movie reviews where they cut directly to the chase as it were. Like their review of Black Swan :
"Darren Aronofsky's nightmarish, morally muddled drama plays on the extremes of sexual repression and debauched license and, whether read as insisting on the necessity of indiscriminate experience or as a cautionary tale, presents its heroine's experimentation with voyeuristic excess. Strong sexual content, including graphic lesbian and nonmarital heterosexual activity, as well as masturbation, drug use, a few instances of profanity, much rough and some crude language and numerous sexual references. O -- morally offensive.."
Makes me actually want to watch it.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I thought everyone who owned an iPhone prayed to Jobs (thrice daily, while facing Cupertino), has WWDC and Macworld Expo instead of communion, confessed their dalliances with non-Apple products to Geniuses at the Apple Store, and did penance by lashing out at those who criticize Apple products online.
Wouldn't being involved in Catholicism violate their First Commandment or something?
"Speak into microphone. When you hear the beep, confess."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ihD3dTVHcoY#t=134s
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
http://www.confessionboothapp.com/
If even a quarter of the confessions on there are true humanity is in strife...not that we didn't know that already.
How long before you receive the extortion demand?
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -George W. Bush
Honestly, $1.99 for this app?
Dear Catholic slashdotters that know how to program, I know you're busy pretending to be atheist, but honestly, how hard would it be to write an open source competitor for this? I'm not Catholic, but I find it absurd that they sell this for money.
I am the electrono-priest. Please, describe your problems. Each time
you are finished talking, type RET twice.
Forgive me father, for I have sinned.
Tell me something about your family.
They aren't talking to me anymore.
Why do you say they are not talking to you anymore?
Just what I said. They don't speak with me.
What makes you believe that?
Empirical evidence?
Maybe your plans have something to do with this.
What plans are you talking about? I didn't mention plans.
I don't understand.
That makes two of us.
Is it because makes two of us that you came to me?
Hey you're the priest. Who should I go to, Steve Jobs?
Earlier you said makes two of us?
You heard correctly.
Is it because of your life that you are going through all this?
Tautologically speaking, I suppose my life is the reason I'm going
through anything at all.
How do you reconcile the people you hang around with?
I pay them. Can we get to the bit about my sins please?
You mentioned that makes two of us?
Father are you brain damaged?
You seem to dwell on your family.
Who is that back there?
I'll ask the questions, if you don't mind!
Ezra is that you? Oh for Christ's sake.
'nuff said
I have an app for time tracking why not check it out www.tsheets.com
Does it supports Game Center?
This app offers no real service other than to point out other things for you to feel guilty about, and you have to pay them for this? And how is the Roman Catholic Church not evil?
Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things
This one is $1.99
Heard about this app here: http://getheapp.com/new-confession-app-iphone-ipad-ipo/ watch video too.
Some more: http://www.evilbible.com/ :-)
You have to start somewhere, since Nero signally failed to exterminate the fathers of the Roman church. Sometimes if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, but it helps if you're born in the right era.
That will be 10 Hail Marys and 4 LOLs ...
The church has come into the 21st century with the shiny new iNdulgence. You'll get to heaven 10x faster than if you had purchased the previous version...
Because the issue is so controversial (and probably frowned upon by many rich backers, never mind the public at large), the church is fairly silent on the issue and leaves it up to the individual to decide whether it is sinful to buy unnecessary expensive items when you could have given the money to the poor.
Wrong. The Church is not silent on the matter, its a key part of the social doctrine of the Church. You seem to be mistaking the absence of a one-size-fits-all simple rule that lets people be lazy, look up a yes-or-no answer, and do no moral reflection for silence on the issue, but that is a mistake.
See, e.g., The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church , Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (2004), which addresses this at many places. A few selections follow:
At paragraph 178:
The Church's social teaching moreover calls for recognition of the social function of any form of private ownership that clearly refers to its necessary relation to the common good. Man “should regard the external things that he legitimately possesses not only as his own but also as common in the sense that they should be able to benefit not only him but also others”. The universal destination of goods entails obligations on how goods are to be used by their legitimate owners. Individual persons may not use their resources without considering the effects that this use will have, rather they must act in a way that benefits not only themselves and their family but also the common good. [...]
And at paragraph 328:
Goods, even when legitimately owned, always have a universal destination; any type of improper accumulation is immoral, because it openly contradicts the universal destination assigned to all goods by the Creator. Christian salvation is an integral liberation of man, which means being freed not only from need but also in respect to possessions. “For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith” (1 Tim 6:10). The Fathers of the Church insist more on the need for the conversion and transformation of the consciences of believers than on the need to change the social and political structures of their day. They call on those who work in the economic sphere and who possess goods to consider themselves administrators of the goods that God has entrusted to them.
And at paragraph 329:
Riches fulfil their function of service to man when they are destined to produce benefits for others and for society. “How could we ever do good to our neighbour,” asks St. Clement of Alexandria, “if none of us possessed anything?”. In the perspective of St. John Chrysostom, riches belong to some people so that they can gain merit by sharing them with others.[687] Wealth is a good that comes from God and is to be used by its owner and made to circulate so that even the needy may enjoy it. Evil is seen in the immoderate attachment to riches and the desire to hoard. [...]
And in paragraphs 358-360
358. Consumers, who in many cases have a broad range of buying power well above the mere subsistence level, exercise significant influence over economic realities by their free decisions regarding whether to put their money into consumer goods or savings. In fact, the possibility to influence the choices made within the economic sector is in the hands of those who must decide where to place their financial resources. Today more than in the past it is possible to evaluate the available options not only on the basis of the expected return and the relative risk but also by making a value judgment of the investment projects that those resources would finance, in the awareness that
The app was developed by a small group including a friend of mine. It's sanctioned only insofar as Bishop Rhodes (his local bishop) has given it an imprimatur. An imprimatur is usually given to books. It's is not an endorsement or any kind of insistence that anyone should actually buy the product, but only a statement to the effect that nothing harmful to the faith is contained within. Not that an app really needs an imprimatur, but it's a way for the bishop to show support for Catholics utilizing contemporary media for the promotion of faith.
To be more specific, the imprimatur is not generally mandatory for anything other than prayer books and for books on religious and moral matters intended for use in the context of educational programs, though its encouraged-but-not-required for books on religious and moral topics not intended for use in educational programs, and is in theory available for any published work. Other than the form (as it is an interactive app, rather than a book) this seems to, from the descriptions, have elements of a prayer aid and a work on moral topics intended for use outside an education program, so while (because its not a book) it certainly isn't even in a formally-encouraged category, it seems to be in a category for which the imprimatur is clearly appropriate, and which if the rules were updated to be neutral to the form of the published work would either be an encouraged or obligatory category.
Gee I guess now you can confess your sins to your phone and pay your "penance" by credit card over the phone.
"Oops I just slept with a hooker" Quick where is my iPhone I need to confess my sin NOW!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Shoulda got the 32GB. 16GB only lasted a week.
if there were an android version.
It's sorta brilliant: if you know you have to take out your phone and mark a sin, you might be less likely to commit it. I did a quit-smoking program like that once — you had to simply mark if you were smoking. But those few seconds of "ahh, gotta get out the paper, mark it down..." etc could make it not worth the trouble.
(But yeah, i was hoping I could use the sin app, then pass the phone to the priest and he could TAP some kind of auto-penance before giving me lecture and absolution.)
In priest's defense: 1) Didn't he [priest] say that being ugly wasn't a sin to confess to? 2) You were lucky to have a blind priest.
Shouldn't you be in your school instead of chatting away on the internet, my child?
> I would also suspect that someone who favors the church is running around with moderator points today!
Yeah I expected to be down-modded into oblivious because the truth hurts. /sacasm Becausee we all know the Catholic Church is _such_ a bastion of Upstanding Morals. /snort
The Priests just ignore what they don't like about the Bible.
aka 1 Timothy 3:2 "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;"