Developed by the Indiana software company Little iApps LLC, the $1.99 iTunes “Confession” app leads users through a “personalized examination of conscience” with “password protected profiles and a step-by-step guide to the sacrament.”
Little iApps developer Patrick Leinen has said he was inspired to create the “Confession” app by Pope Benedict XVI’s message for World Communications Day, in which the pontiff endorsed the spiritual value of new media.
“If used wisely,” Benedict said, “(they) can contribute to the satisfaction of the desire for meaning, truth and unity, which remain the most profound aspirations of each human being.”
While the “Confession” app received the bishop’s seal of approval, the Vatican cautioned users against thinking that it could be a substitute for physically entering an actual confessional with an actual priest.
“One may not speak in any sense of confessing via iPhone,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said in a statement earlier this week. “(The) Sacrament of Penance necessarily requires the relationship of personal dialogue between the penitent and the confessor and absolution by the confessor present.”
Even on iTunes, “Confession” buyers are warned that “it does not and cannot take the place of confessing before a validly ordained Roman Catholic priest in a confessional, in person, either face to face or behind the screen.”
