But have to say that for me personally, I like(d) having a traditional confessional. In all except the largest parishes or where they rotate priests a lot, there's no such thing as anonymity anyway. Priests are just as good at recognizing voices as the rest of us are. I wouldn't mind facing the priest so much if I hadn't encountered the 'new and improved' format toward the last. I swear that when it was done I had no different feeling than when I sat down. There's a certain value to form.
The last time I went to confession in the tiny local mission church, the priest said he didn't believe what I told him had actually happened, and anyway if it had, a 'certain person' (who happened to be the lay person many call the 'head hen') wouldn't have reacted as she did if approached properly. I had gone to confession in the first place because I felt at least a little bad about my continued fury at this woman's outrageous attacks, and I wanted help in slipping out of the grasp she had on my emotions. I took full ownership of my reaction to those events, but I certainly didn't appreciate being called a liar and provocateur in the matter. (I didn't identify her by name, btw, but he knew anyway because they were very close.) He'd seen her stand up during Mass and denounce me in every respect of my being, and he didn't even roll his eyes. When he later laughed out loud and ridiculed a somewhat festive holiday top I was wearing in front of everybody, I wore it again next week to make a point and then stopped going entirely.
I didn't stop being Catholic. That's not for him (or her) to give or take away. But especially after the Head Hen suggested that $ was missing from the office and I was the last person she saw nearby, I knew the situation will never repair as long as she's alive. So I read the obits, not in hopes that she dies, but so I'll know when the coast's clear for my return. There are some other snots there, but not too many and nobody I can't handle. They have a different priest now too. So technically I'll need quite a confession session to start over fresh - when and if. I miss it.
But you really lose a lot when confession resembles nothing more than a casual chat with a neighbor.
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