{"id":2471,"date":"2011-02-10T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/02\/vatican-says-iphone-apps-wont.php"},"modified":"2011-02-10T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T09:30:00","slug":"vatican-says-iphone-apps-wont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/vatican-says-iphone-apps-wont","title":{"rendered":"Vatican Says iPhone Apps Won&#8217;t Forgive Sins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>VATICAN CITY (RNS) Just in case Catholics are wondering if a new iPhone app might be able to forgive their sins, the Vatican has issued a clarification: No.<br \/>\n&#8220;One may not speak in any sense of confessing via iPhone,&#8221; the Rev.<br \/>\nFederico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said in a statement on Wednesday (Feb. 9).<br \/>\nAccording to its U.S. producers, &#8220;Confession: A Roman Catholic App&#8221; is designed to help users prepare for confession through a &#8220;personalized examination of conscience for each user, password protected profiles, and a step-by-step guide to the sacrament.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe Indiana-based company, Little iApps LLC, says its app is the first to receive an imprimatur, or official permission for publication, from a Catholic bishop &#8212; in this case, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.<br \/>\nLombardi said the &#8220;Sacrament of Penance necessarily requires the relationship of personal dialogue between the penitent and the confessor and absolution by the confessor present.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;This cannot be substituted for by any information technology application,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nThe Vatican has cautiously embraced information technology and new media in recent years, but Pope Benedict XVI last month warned digital communication poses special dangers to Christian values and face-to-face relationships.<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; FRANCIS X. ROCCA<\/strong>,  <em>Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VATICAN CITY (RNS) Just in case Catholics are wondering if a new iPhone app might be able to forgive their sins, the Vatican has issued a clarification: No. &#8220;One may not speak in any sense of confessing via iPhone,&#8221; the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said in a statement on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-news","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vatican Says iPhone Apps Won&#039;t Forgive Sins<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/vatican-says-iphone-apps-wont\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vatican Says iPhone Apps Won&#039;t Forgive Sins\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"VATICAN CITY (RNS) Just in case Catholics are wondering if a new iPhone app might be able to forgive their sins, the Vatican has issued a clarification: No. &#8220;One may not speak in any sense of confessing via iPhone,&#8221; the Rev. 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