Whenever possible, I avoid going to confession to priests whom I know for that very reason. It can get awkward.
I seek out priests with whom I'll never interact outside the confessional.
Yes, and when you're too "familiar" with the priest, it's more difficult to put yourself in the mindset that you're confessing your sins to Our Lord, and that the priest is there just as His instrument. Bob (albeit a priest) has no right to hear your Confession, to know your sins, or pass judgment on you ... nor the authority to forgive them, nor does your drinking buddy (priest). It's one of the reasons for both the screen in the Confessional and the priest wearing vestments during Mass (and facing the altar) ... to ANONYMIZE the priest in order to impress upon the faithful that the actions he's doing in the capacity are actually being done by Our Lord.
If you recall that story of the one Black inmate on death row to whom Our Lady appeared and whom she converted, Claude Newman, he relates that Our Lady in teaching him about Confession (she was catechizing him some) told him to think of the priest as if he were a telephone through which we were speaking through Our Lord.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-amazing-conversion-of-death-row-inmate-claude-newmanThe priest introduced the sacrament [of Confession] when Claude interrupted him saying, "Oh, I know about that! The Lady told me that when we go to Confession, we're kneeling down not in front of a priest, but in front of the Cross of her Son. And that when we're truly sorry for our sins, and confess them, the Blood He shed flows down over us and washes us free from all sins."
... Claude reminded his fellow prisoners, “Don't be afraid of going to Confession. You're really telling God your sins, not the priest. You know, the Lady said that Confession is something like a telephone. We talk through the priest to God, and God talks back to us through the priest.”
Topic: i often wonder about Judas. (Read 5301 times)