Posted on 10/21/2016 3:32:02 PM PDT by heterosupremacist
Full title - "Is Facebook listening to your Confession? In an era of mobile microphones and apps that listen, both priest and penitent should be prudent about what they carry into the confessional"
“All phones have a microphone, and Facebook and many other phone apps require access to the microphone and camera,” said Fr. George Hajj, parish priest at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Church in the United States. “Therefore we don’t know what technology, and in whose interest it is in, to spy and overhear what is being said in the confessional.”
For Father Andrew Pinsent, Research Director at Oxford’s Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, surveillance through modern technology has become so thorough that it makes Orwell’s Big Brother fears look almost quaint, like “something from the dinosaur era.” It therefore demands “extra vigilance” to ensure “proper privacy in regard to the sacraments, when matters of salvation are at stake.”
Fr. Pinsent covers cameras “that can be turned on electronically” to prevent snoopers (FBI director James Comey recently advised people to do the same thing). He also has other concerns such as built-in microphones on computers as well as mobile devices (as does Mark Zuckerberg), and the general profiling that comes with browsing. He calls e-assistants like Siri and Amazon’s Echo “simply insane from a privacy perspective.”
The problem is magnified all the more, he adds, since “a staggering variety of low-cost spyware for sale” exists which allows anyone, government or individual, to “glean information” if they are determined to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at aleteia.org ...
In light of the sensitivities and the need to safeguard the sacredness of Confession, Dominican Fr. Ezra Sullivan, professor of moral theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, said the penitent has an “obligation to turn the microphone off” to ensure that “his or her privacy, and that of the priest, is preserved, so that no app-developer could listen in to that sacred moment.”
He also made the further point that while waiting for a penitent to come to the confessional, a priest “has a unique opportunity to pray for future penitents, to prepare himself to receive enlightenment as to how to advise penitents, and to beg God to bring more penitents to the sacred mystery of reconciliation. If a priest uses his phone to check email or Facebook, or for other distractions, he no longer disposes himself to receive grace.”
Like for the penitent, some therefore believe it’s best for a priest to leave the phone behind. “A telephone’s place,” said Fr. Hajj, “is in the sacristy drawer, put on silent, during ministry.”
If they are listening in, they must be bored out of their skulls listening to my dull little ‘indiscretions’. I cannot truly recall the last time I went to confession inside the booth and all.
Most parishes don’t offer it except a few hours a week.
Facebook is just a front for the FB Eye.
weez all knows dat they be listenin’ on here too!
“Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry”
I confess, I’m not voting for Hellary.
everybody listening.
I bought a bottle of wine last night with my credit card.
now my browser is filled with wine ads.
I am the least connected person I thought cuz I pay cash almost always. And they got me. got my cc linked to my DSL
Gee whiz, that reminds me of the time I, er, a friend had a midget stripper to the house. The next morning, there were ads all over my, er, his computer urging a vote for Robert Reich for Massachusetts Governor.
remind me to pay the midget stripper with cash only.
I strongly suspect that the vast majority of message traffic intercepted by professional spies monitoring hostile nations is dull, boring and insignificant.
Advertising has become weaponized.
LOL/EWW
Leaving your phone on in church seems rather rude.
http://www.seattletimes.com/life/pets/your-grocery-bill-may-help-king-county-track-unlicensed-pets/
Uncool.
I’m shocked, shocked, a Communist county like King in WA would abuse citizens like that. If we had such a thing in our locale, they’d think we had a dozen cats and birds because my father buys lots of cheap, dry cat food and birdseed to feed the wild animals outdoors (our remaining 2 cats eat only a small portion of the cat food).
cvs and Walgreen cards are spying on your pharmacy consumption
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