# The real reason for the Roman Catholic confession booth - solicitation



## Pergamum (May 26, 2015)

Book 8, Chapter 6: A History of the Spanish Inquisition Vol. 4





> The seduction of female penitents by their confessors, euphemistically known as solicitatio ad turpia or "solicitation," has been a perennial source of trouble to the Church since the introduction of confession, more especially after the Lateran Council of 1216 rendered yearly confession to the parish priest obligatory. It was admitted to be a prevailing vice, and canonists sought some abatement of the evil by arguing that the priest notoriously addicted to it lost his jurisdiction over his female parishioners, who were thus at liberty to seek the sacrament of penitence from others. (1) A Spanish authority, however, holds that this requires the licence of the parish priest himself and, when he refuses it, the woman must confess to him, after prayer to God for strength to resist his importunities.





> The intercourse between priest and penitent was especially [96] dangerous because there had not yet been invented the device of the confessional--a box or stall in which the confessor sits with his ear at a grille, through which the tale of sins conceived or committed is whispered. Seated by his side or kneeling at his feet, there was greater risk of inflaming passion and much more opportunity for provocative advances. It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that the confessional was devised, doubtless in consequence of the attacks of heretics, who found in these scandals a fertile subject of animadversion.


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## Captain Picard (May 26, 2015)

That was certainly a contributing factor, but there were others. Secular sources would note the expansion of a culture of "moral regulation" as a feature of the State Church as a parallel and competing power structure to monarchies. Diarmaid Macculloch noted in his history of the Reformation that the confessional arose in the West out of increasing theological conviction on the "private transaction" nature of penance and the Purgatory culture. 

Both of these phenomena were noticeably absent from the churches of the East, who emphasized community both in penance and in forgiveness and thus retained predominantly public/liturgical confession as the primary mode much longer than the Roman see.


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## Pergamum (May 26, 2015)

Do you see any link between the danger of "solicitation" and the fact that many pastors who do "counseling" as part of their ministry fall sexually (usually from a contact gained from counseling)? ...too much time alone and too much personal contact with those of the opposite sex...


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## Captain Picard (May 26, 2015)

They certainly show similar pitfalls. There needs to be more wisdom in how pastors deal with pastoral care unique to women.


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## Hamalas (May 26, 2015)

Pergamum said:


> Do you see any link between the danger of "solicitation" and the fact that many pastors who do "counseling" as part of their ministry fall sexually (usually from a contact gained from counseling)? ...too much time alone and too much personal contact with those of the opposite sex...



My Dad (a Pastor) would never counsel or meet with a woman alone in order to avoid even the appearance of this sin. It is certainly a danger.


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