“The only difference was that my confessional was cleaned very thoroughly beforehand,” the Franciscan said.
“When you come to the confessional in the morning and see a whole team cleaning and scrubbing your confessional, that’s really something else. I used to go and dust it myself with a cloth.”
“It was also special that Pope Francis confessed kneeling in public and used my confessional afterwards to hear confessions from other priests,” Egloff said.
Upholding both the sacred seal of confession and his sense of humor, when asked by the Swiss interviewer what penance Pope Francis would receive from him today, the Franciscan answered with a laugh: “Today, I would give the pope a different penance. A penance of the tongue. His tongue is sometimes too quick.”
Asked by the Swiss journalist where priests live when appointed a confessor at the Lateran, Brother Otmar replied: “Above the roof of the church are the apartments of the eight Franciscan friars who sit in the eight confessionals during the day.”