Would a booth boost confessions?

In Luther's day the Confessional Booth was unknown.  It was not in common use until the end of the 16th century and was something of an innovation.  Before then the penitent confessed to the priest wherever the priest was, though the absolution often took place at the altar.  Some priests used a stool and the penitent knelt before the priest to make confession.  I am not at all sure where the booth idea came from.  Someone once suggested that it came from Lutherans.  While I cannot say this is not true, it would surprise me.

For nearly 400 years the confessional was a staple of Roman Catholic architecture.  Sometimes it was a simple wooden box and other times a rather elaborate piece of furniture.  It enabled the priest to be hidden behind a screen or drape while typically the penitent knelt in an open booth, seen by others but whose confession was in secret.  After Vatican II, this was often replaced by a reconciliation room in which penitent faced the priest.  Among some, the confessional booth is undergoing a revival.  Some have complained that the confessional booth was used by some priests as a cover for sexual abuse.  I am sure that this may have happened by disreputable and despicable priests but find it hard to believe that it was common.  In any case, the reconciliation room does not seem to have encouraged private confession among Roman Catholic.

The strange thing is that many Lutherans have said to me that they would prefer the confessional booth to face to face confession.  If they were going to get up the nerve to make confession before the pastor, the relative anonymity of a booth would encourage them.  It is, in their view, easier to confess sensitive things without having to look into the face of the father confessor.  I find this most interesting.  It seems that anonymity remains one of the conditions many would place upon restoring the ancient practice of private confession (whether Roman or Lutheran).  While I certainly understand it, it is rather foolish to think that the ear hearing the individual confession of the people of the congregation would somehow not recognize who was speaking.  I can recognize most of my folks when they call on the phone and do not need to have them tell me who they are.  I expect many pastors who have been there in the same parish a while have developed the same familiarity.  Yet, the reality is that some would prefer not to face their pastors when make confession and this might be holding some of them back from initiating their first confession.

Some pastors would insist that anonymity deprives the pastor of his ability to provide faithful pastoral care to the penitent and give Biblical counsel to those who find themselves repeatedly in the same sins (don't we all?).  It would, in their view, work against the whole purpose of confession and absolution.  I expect that most folks I have spoken with would trade some of the familiarity for anonymity and would be willing to forego the counsel in order to be able to get something off their chest without having to look their pastor in the eye.  It would seem that they have come for the absolution and not to be counseled about their favorite sins.

In any case, I doubt that the confessional booth will find many friends among Lutherans -- even though some have suggested it just might help to restore a practice that, while it never disappeared among Lutherans, has certainly been in decline.  It may surprise some Lutherans that it was once a practice so popular that concern for the pastor advised him to sit down because of the extraordinary burden of so many penitents.  That said, perhaps the people are onto something.  If they would avail themselves of this rich gift and treasure, then perhaps a booth would not be out of line even for Lutherans.  I will wait and see what happens. . . as I expect some of you will. . . who wish the whole idea of individual confession and absolution would simply just go away for good.

That said, some Lutherans and probably not a few Roman Catholics who find the whole thing distasteful and unnecessary seem to delight in making full public confessions on Facebook and other social media.  In some cases, the confessional might be the last place where sins are admitted rather than the first.  What a strange time in which we live.  The folks who find it hard to confess anything to the pastor, tell the whole world in detail what they have thought, said, and done.  And yet they do so without the prospect of any real absolution at all.  Could it be that the real problem with confession has nothing to do with venue and everything to do with the fact that we don't think our sins are bad enough to be wrong but bad enough to boast about to our nine thousand closest friends on Facebook.