Confessional

A confessional is a box, cabinet, booth, or stall where the priest in some Christian churches sits to hear the confessions of penitents.

[3] The confessional is usually a wooden structure, with a centre compartment—entered through a door or curtain—where the priest sits, and on each side there is a latticed opening for the penitents to speak through and a step on which they kneel.

However, the boxes were devised to guard against such scandals by securing at once essential publicity and a reasonable privacy, and by separating priest and penitent.

Hearing a man's confession in the box became common in the United States for convenience sake as sacristies were not as vast as they were in Italian churches.

Since, however, they formed no part of "the furniture of the church" in the "second year of King Edward VI", some have argued that they are not covered by the "Ornaments Rubric" in the Prayer-Book.

The question of their legality was raised in 1900 in the case of Davey v. Hinde (vicar of the Church of the Annunciation at Brighton), tried before Dr Tristram in the consistory court of Chichester.