The Catholic Church Gives Blessing to Confession iPhone App

I appreciate your attempt at humor; however, you should stick within your competencies. It has never been the case that one could purchase absolution. Period. Do you, by chance, mean the practice of selling indulgences (which was condemned then as it is today)?

Amazing how anti-Catholicism is the last accepted prejudice in this country.

This is one long time subscriber that you have lost today.

This is awesome.

And yes, obviously, that was an indulgences jab. Condemned by whom?

Dirk Mcbratney,

Abosolution does not equal Indulgence... They simply are not the same thing.

It's like saying an apple is the same thing as a banana. It's not.

Just one more way for the Catholic church to make money off of naive religious folk! I feel that this app will rarely be used seriously.

Oh this application will probably soak up all the available bandwidth on the internet because there are so many sinners and so many sins to confess! It will be astronomical!

@Id8020
thanks that analogy explained a lot......in the most technical of senses absolution is not indulgances, but during a certain period of catholic history it was a mainstay, and this app makes the whole confession process sound inpersonal, "so lets see what i did this week, adultered.....stole a candy bar....swore, oh yeah ha killed a guy!"

@id8020
Thought you werent coming back? Lieing is a sin

True, absolution and indulgence are not the same thing - much like having your record expunged is not the same as parole - but since the outcome in both instances is an early release from prison for crimes committed, the distinction is lost on most who are not in the church.

That said, since you are likely not supporting the selling of indulgences (that being a rather black mark on the church's history), the jab is still a fair one.

Saying that it is unfair because he accused the church of selling one thing that they do not and should not sell, when, in fact, they were selling something else which they should not and no longer sell is equivalent of accusing a former meth dealer with selling cocaine - the drug in question really isn't the point.

As far as the anti-catholicism rant, that is fair, but the Roman Church is hardly the last group to recieve PC protection. There is plenty of accepted predjudices going around - often being whined against as you do - against Christians (of all denominations), Jews, Muhammadens, Atheist, Mormons, JWs, Scientologist, etc.

As far as being impersonal - that will only come when the app adds a "submit" at the end and generates an instant reply based on the answers and a set formula. The person is still expected to attend a person to priest confessional - just with an app in hand, rather than a written list, for a memory aid of the intended confession.

Amazing that in the 21st century, people are still talking about absolution and indulgences as if they were real -- and on a science site! Alas, there's no app for that.

I'd hardly call PopSci a "science site." At best, it's a mediocre tech journal with poor editing and proofing. The articles focus on current scientific topics without diving into the actual science, or engineering, or what-have-you. I only come to PopSci to see what's new in the S&T community because they report on items well before FOX and CNN and whoever else tries to compete with those two. Then I go read about the actual science through IEEE or the like.
A "science site?" Please....

"A fool and his money are soon parted." cha ching

It would seem to be just an attempt by the church to put some of their stuff in a format that's more commonly used today. Instead of printing a little handbook with a guide to confession, they made an app. Seems reasonable.

As for PopSci doing a story, it's as scientific as all of the other stories that they've done re apps.

I suppose that it really did go through the imprimatur process ( certifying that it contains no heresy). Bibles and the like contain specific phrases to show that they have been approved. Wonder if they did the same with the app.

Would have been a better story without the inaccurate cheap shot, but they seem to have a fondness for those.

EyeInTheSky - If you don't believe in religion, then your rationing should be better.

Absolution and indulgence are real things (constructs used or maintained within a religious faith) - much like the eucharist, baptism, and marriage. These things are all REAL, and are valid to talk about.

Your question is whether or not they are metaphysically true (meaning that there is a supernatural component to them). You believe, by faith, that the God is not real, and therefore, you believe that the institutional act is not real - faulty reasoning at best.

Even if there is no God, marriage is still a social contract, baptism still gets you wet, the eucharist still contains callories, and confessing for absolution still envolves a guy in a closet listening to you. They might not have much, or any, meaning without the divine, but they are still REAL.

So, if your blind faith in the abscence of a God, leads you to discount what is clearly real because you cannot distinguish reality from validity, than indeed you comment is a sad statement of reasoning in the 21st century (the 21st century, itself, being a religious construct).

Believe what you think is best, but at least be clear in your thinking about it.

This is hilarious!

Oh, poor, pathetic Catholics.

Obviously not holy enough to connect with their deity directly... having to use an iPhone as a proxy to salvation...

Where does the iPhone fall into the Great Chain of Being? XD

Im pretty sure I lost a few brain cells reading through the above 14 comments. Everyone should just chill out a little. I don't care if you religious or not...the app is a little funny either way. LJRoberts20-I agree with you that IEEE is a better science site than PopSci, but it is still superior to Fox..

It's a humorously captioned collection of links to interesting science stories. I don't see what's wrong with that. = )

"So, if your blind faith in the abscence of a God, leads you to discount what is clearly real because you cannot distinguish reality from validity, than indeed you comment is a sad statement of reasoning in the 21st century (the 21st century, itself, being a religious construct)."

That's rather absurd. Obviously he was referring to metaphysical, rather than social, existence, and commenting on, in his view, the disparity between. The existence of the social significance is evident by the existence of the app itself. = )

Forgive me father, for I have sinned, I have jailbroken my device after the ISO 4 update. lol

Dear ld8020:

Chill the hell out.

@Foomypoo, i agree, i welcome ID8020's absence...@LJRoberts20, this is a science site, dummy, which you admit in your post...if you want the actual research, than put in a little effort and find it, as you stated...this site gives general reports on new stuff, a much needed service

Messaging on this mobile phone has been given something of a boost by the inclusion of the iMessage, which is a BBM-a-like service for iOS devices. It can be used on any device running iOS 5, which means conversations can be easily carried across on loads of Apple products without an issue. While many will expect iMessage to be a separate app in the same manner as BBM, it simply jumps in when a relevant phone is on the other end of the conversation, meaning essentially free text messaging and cool features like read receipts and being able to see when the other person is typing. However, this will be more useful for iPhone 3GS and 4 models, as it's surely only good to replace text messaging for those that need to save money and haven't got a price plan that offers thousands of messages for free each month. iPhones have always been looked at as decent messaging devices, and that's certainly true when it comes to email. There's a unified inbox for all your accounts, with multiple email addresses supported on the phone. Setting these up is as simple as you'd imagine, with only an address and password needed in most situations. As we mentioned earlier, it's so easy to keep track of your emails thanks to the new notifications system, but it's hardly anything new, so not really a unique selling point. The keyboard is another great selling point from Apple for its iPhone - some people have complained that it's a bit hit and miss in the past, but most people should have become trained in the art of tapping out a message on a touchscreen, so most will quickly be up to speed with the well-known keyboard. There's a new addition to the keyboard, and that's an option to speak out the message reply using Siri. It's almost unerring in its accuracy compared to other voice recognition systems, although you do need to say things like 'comma' or 'exclamation mark' to add in the punctuation. We sent 100 messages using Siri to see the accuracy, and found that the accuracy was around 45%, although shorter messages were obviously better. However, we were relieved to be able to head back to tapping out our messages on the keyboard, as you could make sure what you wrote was correct first go. If you're going to speak your messages, why not just call the person?