Confession Made More App-roachable

One of the biggest issues American Catholics have said they have with the Catholic Church is the necessity for confessing sins to a priest. Unburdening the soul certainly does make a person feel better, but it seems to remain an awkward experience for many Catholics.

How do we do away with awkward in 2013? We find an app to make things easier.

A Roman Catholic priest from Wisconsin will become the first priest to log on to a soon-to-be-released smartphone application that will allow the faithful to keep up digitally with their local priest's Confession (or Sacrament of Reconciliation) schedule, reports the New York Daily News and Fox News.

“I want people to not feel uncomfortable asking about confession,” the Rev. Richard Heilman told the paper. “We want everybody ignited in the Holy Spirit.”

The app will portray red and green status boxes to aid the faithful in finding time to go to Confession. Green indicates that "Father is in," while red indicates that "Father is out."
The app will also include an explanation of the sacrament of Reconciliation, as well as tips related to properly and comfortably receiving the sacrament.

Father Heilman developed and personally financed the idea to not only make it more convenient for Catholics to know when Confession is available at their local church, but to better advertise the increasingly limited time the dwindling number of busy priests spend in the confessional.

And there are plenty of priests, nationwide, whose interest Heilman has reportedly piqued with word of the app's imminent arrival.

The app will be available for the iPhone and Android by the end of the month. More information can be found at myconfessor.org.